The Phillips 66ers basketball team was an amateur squad sponsored and run by the Phillips Petroleum Company. The team, which began play in 1919, participated in the Amateur Athletic Union

Amateur Athletic Union

The Amateur Athletic Union is one of the largest non-profit volunteer sports organizations in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs.-History:The AAU was founded in 1888 to...

, the nation’s premier basketball league before 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...

. Between 1920 and 1950, some of the strongest basketball teams in the United States were sponsored by corporations, including Phillips 66

Phillips 66

Phillips 66 is a brand of gasoline and service station in the U.S. It is owned by the ConocoPhillips Company.Phillips 66 will also be the name of the future downstream company created when ConocoPhillips repositions its integrated assets and businesses into two independent, publicly-traded...

, 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

, Safeway Inc.

Safeway Inc.

Safeway Inc. , a Fortune 500 company, is North America's second largest supermarket chain after The Kroger Co., with, as of December 2010, 1,694 stores located throughout the western and central United States and western Canada. It also operates some stores in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern...

, Caterpillar Inc.

Caterpillar Inc.

Caterpillar Inc. , also known as "CAT", designs, manufactures, markets and sells machinery and engines and sells financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network. Caterpillar is the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas...

, and others.

The 66ers team was a perennial power in AAU

Amateur Athletic Union

The Amateur Athletic Union is one of the largest non-profit volunteer sports organizations in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs.-History:The AAU was founded in 1888 to...

 basketball in the 1940s, and 1950s. The 66ers won 11 national championships at the AAU National Tournament between 1940 and 1963, including six consecutive AAU tournament titles from 1943 to 1948.

Phillips 66 also placed numerous players on the AAU's All-America teams. In the 1930s, these All-Americans included Jay Wallenstrom (1937) and Ray Ebbing (1939). In the 1940s, Phillips 66 All-Americans were Doc Lockard (1940), Joe Fortenberry

Joe Fortenberry

Joseph Cephis Fortenberry was an American basketball player who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics.He was part of the American basketball team, which won the gold medal...

 (1940), Grady Lewis

Grady Lewis

Grady Lewis was an American professional basketball player.A 6'7" forward/center from the University of Oklahoma, Lewis played four seasons with the Phillips 66 Oilers of the AAU, and three seasons in the Basketball Association of America as a member of the Detroit Falcons, St. Louis Bombers, and...

 (1940), Hank Luisetti

Hank Luisetti

Angelo "Hank" Luisetti was an American college men's basketball player and one of the great innovators of the game. In an era that featured the traditional two-handed set shot, Luisetti developed the running one-handed shot...

 (1942), Bill Martin (1942, 1946), Jimmy McNatt (1943–1946), Gordon Carpenter

Gordon Carpenter

Gordon "Shorty" Carpenter was an American basketball player, and part of gold medal winning American basketball team at the 1948 Summer Olympics....

 (1943–1947), Fred Pralle

Fred Pralle

Fred Pralle was an American college basketball standout at the University of Kansas from 1935–36 to 1937–38. In his three varsity seasons, Kansas won all three Big Six Conference regular season championships. Pralle led the Jayhawks in scoring in each of his last two seasons, and as a senior he...

 (1944), Paul Lindemann

Paul Lindemann

Paul F. Lindemann was an American basketball player who was an All-American at Washington State University in 1941 and was later an AAU All-American with the Bartlesville Phillips 66ers....

 (1945), Marty Nash (1946–1947), Bob Kurland

Bob Kurland

Robert Albert "Bob" Kurland was a basketball center, who played for Henry Iba's Oklahoma A & M Aggies basketball team...

 (1947–1952), Cab Renick (1947–1948), Robert Pitts

Robert Pitts

Robert C. Pitts was an American basketball player who competed in the 1948 Summer Olympics.Pitts played collegiately for the University of Arkansas, making All-Southwest Conference in 1942...

 (1948), Gerald Tucker

Gerald Tucker

Gerald Tucker was the head coach on the 1956 USA Men's Basketball Gold Medal Olympic Team. He was the coach of Bartlesville Phillips 66ers for four seasons from 1954-58 having the most wins in the National Industrial Basketball League in each of those 4 seasons...

 (1949–1950), Roy Lipscomb (1949–1950), and Johnny Stanich (1949).