jump shot

Kenny Sailors, All American, on the Jump Shot and his Life in Basketball

University of Wyoming basketball player Kenny Sailors, one of the early popularizers of the jump shot, grew up on a farm south of Hillsdale, Wyo. He was Wyoming’s only three-time All American, and in 1943 led the Cowboys to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. Later he played professionally in the BBA and the NBA, and was inducted into the University of Wyoming Athletics Hall of Fame in 1993. In this interview, Sailors also talks about his life after basketball, running a dude ranch in Jackson Hole, and later guiding hunters, teaching high school and coaching high-school basketball in Alaska.

Three-time All-American Kenny Sailors, of tiny Hillsdale, Wyo. led the University of Wyoming’s 1943 men’s basketball team to an NCAA championship in Madison Square Garden. Sailors was only 5 feet 10, but he was a great jumper and shooter, and highly skilled with a weapon of his own invention—the jump shot.