Frank John Lubin was an American-Lithuanian basketball player.
Background
Lubin was born on the east side of Los Angeles, California, to a family of Lithuanian immigrants and died in Glendale, California. His father Konstantinas Lubinas was from Vilkaviškis, while his mother Paulina Vasiliauskaitė was from Vabalninkas.
Education
Abraham Lincoln High School.
Career
A veteran with the United States Army Air Forces during World World War II, Lubin was buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California. Playing for the University of California, Los Angeles Bruins from 1928 to 1931, Lubin, a 6-foot 7-inch center, earned All-Pacific Coast Conference honors in his senior season. Following his college career, he joined the Twentieth Century Fox Amateur Athletic Union team, which earned the right to represent the United States as part of the first Olympic basketball tournament in 1936 in Berlin, winning the gold.
During the Olympics, Lubin was invited to come to Lithuania and became their first national coach.
At that time, International Basketball Federation had a rule which prohibited from giving the Most Valuable Player or the All-Tournament Team award to players taller than 1.90 meter. His participation in the competition was also questioned because the same rule also prohibited taller than 1.90 meter players to compete.
Though, the rule was remade just one day before the tournament start and never was used practically. Lubin fled Lithuania to California with his family in the face of the Russian invasion in 1939.
Lubin continued to play for the Twentieth Century Fox team until he was 54 years old.
Foreign his contributions and for introducing the now basketball-mad country to the sport, Lubin is often called the "grandfather of Lithuanian basketball". In 1997, Lubin was inducted into the University of California, Los Angeles Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the Helms Sports Hall of Fame.