Zips, Spots and Mods: Milwaukee’s Forgotten Basketball Teams

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Milwaukee Sentinel, January 9, 1921.

The 1921 Milwaukee Bright Spots, the city’s first professional basketball team.

Back near the opening of the NBA season, I did a piece on the short-lived NBA Milwaukee Hawks for the print edition of the Shepherd. Now, with the NBA playoffs underway, I thought I’d take a look at a few more long-lost Milwaukee basketball franchises.

Milwaukee Bright Spots, 1920s

“A Bright Spot” was Milwaukee’s quasi-official city slogan beginning around the turn of the century and was used on-and-off through the 1930s. It was probably the first Milwaukee city slogan to gain any widespread use and was certainly the only one to ever christen a basketball team. The Bright Spots began play in 1921, “Organized for the purposes of giving Milwaukee a truly representative city team to carry the city’s colors and its time-honored slogan,” according to the Milwaukee Sentinel. The Spots played other professional and semi-pro teams from the Midwest and the team was a regional power in the early 1920s. Information on the team after its first seasons is hard to come by and it seems that it faded from the scene by the mid-'20s.

Milwaukee Shooting Stars, 1946-1948

The Fieldhouse at the State Teacher’s College, home of the Milwaukee Shooting Stars. State Teacher's College Yearbook, 1946.

After the folding of the original Bright Spots in the '20s, Milwaukee was without pro basketball until 1946 when Jim Mahler, a Milwaukee realtor, formed the Milwaukee Shooting Stars. The team was organized with the hopes of gaining entry in the National Basketball League, which had formed in 1937 and would eventually morph into the NBA. Stocked with various former college players and local pros, the Stars played two seasons as an independent pro team and regularly took on NBL clubs like the Oshkosh All Stars and Sheboygan Red Skins (who went on to join the NBA). The Stars played home games at the gym at the State Teachers College, which later became the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Milwaukee Bright Spots (II), 1948-1950

The Milwaukee Bullets at what is now the Milwaukee Theatre in November 1949. This would be the last game the Spots would play before folding. Milwaukee Journal, November 22, 1949.

Taken under new ownership for the ’48-’49 season, the Shooting Stars were renamed the Bright Spots, a tribute to what the team president called “the most successful pro basketball team in Milwaukee history.” The new Spots played at the downtown Milwaukee Auditorium (now the Milwaukee Theatre) and continued to battle nearby major league and independent clubs. Late in their inaugural season, Doxie Moore, commissioner of the NBL, came to Milwaukee to meet with the team’s owners about granting them a spot in the league for the following season. Such an offer was not extended, but the Spots held out hope that, with a strong showing in ’49-’50, they could be admitted the following season. Since Moore’s visit, the NBL had merged with the Basketball Association of America, formally establishing the modern-day National Basketball Association (NBA). Had Moore invited the Spots to join the NBL, they would have actually begun play as charter members of the NBA. But, as it happened, they opened play in 1949 on the outside looking in and, faced with a slide in attendance, folded in November 1949.

Milwaukee Zip Codes, 1966-1969

A 1967 ad for the Zip Codes and the Mexican Olympic team. Milwaukee Journal, December 4, 1967.

I could not find out exactly why Milwaukee’s entry in Amateur Athletic Union basketball league was called the Zip Codes. If I had to guess, I would speculate that it had something to do with the US Postal Service’s push to get people to use ZIP codes for mailing in the late '60s…but that’s just a guess. (I’ve found nothing to suggest that the USPS sponsored the team, but they did produce this wacky-ass short film on ZIP codes, which makes the idea of sponsoring a basketball team entirely plausible.) Anyway, the team was founded in 1966 by local basketball fanatic Dave Emerson. Perhaps the first non-scholastic integrated team in the city, the Zips played amateur teams from across the nation and quickly developed into a dominant squad. In the ’67-’68 season, the Zips went 32-6 and finished second in the National Amateur championship in Springfield, Mass. The following year, averaging 2,000 fans per home game at the Marquette University High School gym, the Zips went 43-0 on their way to a national amateur championship.

Milwaukee/Cudahy/Waukesha Medalist Mods (aka Pros), 1969-1971

After their title in 1969, the Zips became a charter member of the semi-pro Continental Basketball Association (not to be confused with the CBA developmental league, which disbanded in 2009). The team was initially to be known as the Milwaukee Medalist Mods (again, I have no clue why) but had relocated to Cudahy by the time league play began in November 1969. Halfway through their debut season and losing money in Cudahy, the Mods moved again, this time to Waukesha. The Waukesha Mods (sometimes referred to as the Pros) finished with a 15-5 record, the best mark in the league. The CBA expanded for the ’70-’71 season and added two rounds of playoffs. The Mods were on pace to qualify for the post season but were (for reasons undetermined) expelled from the league before the end of the season. It does seem, however, that the team returned to using the Milwaukee Zip Codes name after leaving the CBA to play in local amateur tournaments. UW star Joe Franklin played for the Mods and later showed up in 1972 playing for the new Zips in a state amateur tourney.

Milwaukee Muskies, 1970-1971

The Milwaukee Muskies’ Bob Greacen goes for the ball in a game with the Chicagoland Travelers in 1970. Elk Grove Village Herald, November 24, 1970.

One of the expansion CBA teams for the ’70-’71 season, the Milwaukee Muskies, operated as a farm team for the NBA Bucks. The Muskies were coached by former UWM basketball star Larry Reed, who was probably the first black head basketball coach in city history. Playing at the Milwaukee Arena (now the UWM Panther Arena), often before Bucks NBA games, the Muskies ran up a 16-4 record in their lone season, the best in the CBA, but lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Muskies vanish from the record following this season, although I suspect the franchise became the Beloit Bucks, who also played only a single season before disbanding.

And although I have neglected to mention anything about the Milwaukee Does, the short-lived women’s professional team, I did not forget about them. I am working on something a bit larger-scale on the Does and will share details on my website as it progresses.

And HEY! Do you love what I write about but HATE reading? Tune into WSME weekdays to hear the "What Made Milwaukee Famous" radio show—hosted by myself and produced by Tom Crawford. It’s a weekly three-minute slice of heaven. It airs twice daily, just after 7:40 a.m. and 5:40 p.m.