Oh! Oh! I know that!
This Denver Piggy Went to Piggly Wiggly.
This Denver Piggy Stayed Home.
Before basketball became a professional sport, and Colorado fans rooted for their Denver Nuggets, the Denver Pigs were the state’s proud barnstormers during the early 1930s. The Pigs, also known as the Piggly Wigglys and the Grocers, were an Amateur Athletic Union team sponsored by the popular national grocery store chain Piggly Wiggly founded in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Denverite Dr. James Naismith, the originator of basketball, studied medicine in the Mile High City and created the sport with only 13 rules for teams to execute the non-violent game that could be played inside, and the Denver Pigs took to it like, well, like hogs at the trough.
The Pigs’ performance was described in 1934 by the Lodi, California, Sentinel newspaper as “fancy basketball” when the team’s smooth passing attack proved too much for the Stockton Amblers club and the Pigs came through for an easy 47 to 20 defeat of the Amblers. By 1935, the Pigs wanted to win the national tournament so bad that victory would taste better than truffles. Triumph appeared theirs for the taking as the Pigs had already won 34 of 35 games for the season, and the tournament was hosted on their Denver home court. Glory was not the Pigs’ destiny, however, as they squealed at their close 30-28 loss to the Kansas City team.
Though they had not yet captured an AAU national title, the Pigs were still quite good at the game and set their sights on competing in the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin during 1936, the first year basketball was played as a medaled sport. By this time the team became known as the Safeways. They were on their way to compete in the national YMCA tournament in Peoria, Illinois, the winner of which would receive a berth in the Olympic tournament. Pigs fans were elated, but must have snorted when their team’s participants, all members of the YMCA, were not permitted to play since the team was not sanctioned by the “Y,” and even though the Pigs won the YMCA tournament just a few years earlier.
Disappointment followed the Pigs, now the Safeways. Though they were successful in winning the national title in 1937, they failed to win the title in 1938, and the Safeway grocery chain pulled their sponsorship, reportedly due to a new $68,000 tax imposed by the State of Colorado on chain stores. But the locally-loved Pigs weren’t barbeque yet! The players earned money working for local businesses and the Denver Tourist and Convention Bureau stepped-up to sponsor them. That, and a new team name, apparently changed their misfortune. The Denver Nuggets emerged on the court in 1939 and played a golden year of basketball, securing their second AAU national tournament title.
Denverite Dr. James Naismith, the originator of basketball, studied medicine in the Mile High City and created the sport with only 13 rules for teams to execute the non-violent game that could be played inside, and the Denver Pigs took to it like, well, like hogs at the trough.
The Pigs’ performance was described in 1934 by the Lodi, California, Sentinel newspaper as “fancy basketball” when the team’s smooth passing attack proved too much for the Stockton Amblers club and the Pigs came through for an easy 47 to 20 defeat of the Amblers. By 1935, the Pigs wanted to win the national tournament so bad that victory would taste better than truffles. Triumph appeared theirs for the taking as the Pigs had already won 34 of 35 games for the season, and the tournament was hosted on their Denver home court. Glory was not the Pigs’ destiny, however, as they squealed at their close 30-28 loss to the Kansas City team.
Though they had not yet captured an AAU national title, the Pigs were still quite good at the game and set their sights on competing in the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin during 1936, the first year basketball was played as a medaled sport. By this time the team became known as the Safeways. They were on their way to compete in the national YMCA tournament in Peoria, Illinois, the winner of which would receive a berth in the Olympic tournament. Pigs fans were elated, but must have snorted when their team’s participants, all members of the YMCA, were not permitted to play since the team was not sanctioned by the “Y,” and even though the Pigs won the YMCA tournament just a few years earlier.
Disappointment followed the Pigs, now the Safeways. Though they were successful in winning the national title in 1937, they failed to win the title in 1938, and the Safeway grocery chain pulled their sponsorship, reportedly due to a new $68,000 tax imposed by the State of Colorado on chain stores. But the locally-loved Pigs weren’t barbeque yet! The players earned money working for local businesses and the Denver Tourist and Convention Bureau stepped-up to sponsor them. That, and a new team name, apparently changed their misfortune. The Denver Nuggets emerged on the court in 1939 and played a golden year of basketball, securing their second AAU national tournament title.
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The Denver Tourist and Convention Bureau terminated their sponsorship of the Nuggets after the 1940 tournament, in-which the team was a finalist, but did not score the title. The local American Legion post sponsored the amateur team in 1941, changing the Denver Nuggets to the Denver Legions, who later won the 1941 national title. By the late 1940s the professional National Basketball League formed and merged with the Basketball Association of America forming the National Basketball Association (NBA) that we know today and the Denver Nuggets, decedents of the Pigs, became Colorado’s pro basketball team.
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