Jump Shot: Kenny Sailors

Kenny Sailors invented the one-handed jump shot and then popularized it. Award-winning sports book author Lew Freedman shares Kenny’s remarkable story from growing up in the Depression, to the cover of Life magazine and the NBA, to running a hunting and outfitting business in the wilds of Alaska. http://kennysailorsjumpshot.com

Kenny Sailors was a basketball star, and the inventor of the jump shot. He attended the University of Wyoming and was MVP in 1943 in college AA basketball. After WWII, he spent five years as an early player in the new NBA. As a youngster, Kenny was five-foot-seven but his older brother was six-foot-two so when playing basketball, Kenny had to jump up over his brother to get off a shot. That is how the jump shot was born, and Kenny used it in college and professional basketball. He played in Denver and several other cities whose team names have now changed, but he also played for the Boston Celtics with Bob Cousy. After he left the NBA, he moved to Alaska and in 1965 settled in the Glennallen area, where he was a fishing and hunting guide in the Wrangle Mountains for thirty-five years. Kenny Sailors passed away January 2016 shortly after his 95th birthday.