John Joseph McNamee was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 professional basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 player.

A 6'6" forward/center

Center (basketball)

The center, colloquially known as the five or the post, is one of the standard positions in a regulation basketball game. The center is normally the tallest player on the team, and often has a great deal of strength and body mass as well...

 from the University of San Francisco

University of San Francisco

The University of San Francisco , is a private, Jesuit/Catholic university located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1855, USF was established as the first university in San Francisco. It is the second oldest institution for higher learning in California and the tenth-oldest university of...

, McNamee played two seasons (1950–1952) in the National Basketball Association

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

 as a member of the Rochester Royals

Rochester Royals

The franchise that would become the Sacramento Kings initially started in the city of Rochester, New York, as the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League....

 and Baltimore Bullets. He averaged 2.4 points per game

Points per game

Points per game, often abbreviated PPG, is the average number of points scored by a player per game played in a sport, over the course of a series of games, a whole season, or a career. It is calculated by dividing the total number of points by number of games. The terminology is often used in...

in his career and won a league championship with Rochester in 1951. Joe went on to have a long and successful career in sales for Watson and Meehan, a distributor of Cummins engines. Joe and his wife Alice had 8 kids (Sharon, John, Pattie, Casey, Dennis, Peter, Steve and Jim) and 11 grandchildren.