Offered is a 2002 Tom Gola Madison Square Garden Holiday Festival All-Time Team award. The 16-inch-tall trophy features a gold metal basketball mounted at the top of a 3½-inch silver plastic pedestal on a 5 x 6½ x 6½-inch brown and black woodgrain plastic base. Mounted on the front of the base is a 4 x 6-inch black metal plaque engraved with the legend “Madison Square Garden Holiday Festival 50th Anniversary Tom Gola La Salle University All-Time Holiday Festival Team December 3, 2002” in gold type. In the early 1950s, College basketball was suffering from a cheating scandal in New York City, but Gola led the Explorers to a 1952 NIT National Championship in his freshman year at the old Madison Square Garden in New York. In December 1952, Ned Irish, Madison Square Garden's president, created the Holiday Festival, an early-season tournament, to capitalize on the good feelings that Gola had cultivated there. Gola and LaSalle won that inaugural holiday tournament, and Gola was named the event’s MVP. This item comes with a LOA from the Gola family.

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