- He did things with the basketball that even today you don't see.

- [Jim] If you wanted to beat Kenny Sailors, you'd better bring a big sack lunch 'cause it's gonna take you a while.

Thinking of contributions to basketball, the first guy that developed the modern jump shot.

(adventurous music) - Kenny Sailors wasn't born a basketball star.

His beginnings were humble.

The youngest of six children in a fatherless home, Kenny's hard-nosed mother, Cora, raised the family on a farmstead in Hillsdale, Wyoming, east of Cheyenne.

- My mother, she was a disciplinarian from the word grow.

And I remember my job, and my mother right out there with me in the summertime, hot, boy, it was hot down there.

My brother would cultivate with the horses, that horse-drawn cultivator, and get the weeds on the side of the rows of potatoes, but then the weeds in between and right up next to the potatoes, you had to either pull 'em up by hand or cut 'em out with a hoe.

Well, that was my mother's job and mine.

And I suppose I was nine years old at the time, maybe 10, but not very old.

And I made a mistake one day.

I was hot, thirsty and hungry.

I was always hungry.

And I said, "Mom, I'm getting awful tired of this hoeing potatoes."

She didn't answer me for a while, and I knew something was wrong.

And she finally said, "Well, son, if you really feel that way, just take your hoe and go to the house."

Well, I knew the way she said it, it didn't sound just right.

She says, "Kenneth," that's what she called me, "take your hoe and go to the house and just don't come to the supper table tonight."

I could have eaten a dead skunk roadkill right then.

That's how hungry I was, you know, and I picked up my hoe and started hoeing.

And I never ever mentioned not wanting to hoe again.

- [Narrator] Kenny learned not to mess with his mother, but his big brother Bud was another matter.

When they weren't tending to the fields, Bud and Kenny would take to the family basketball hoop, which happened to be mounted to a windmill.

- And I thought I could beat anybody, but I found out my big old brother, he was good enough and big enough to give me trouble.

And I was probably in the sixth grade when he first started out.

I'd dribble, but I couldn't get around him, even in those days, with my dribble.

He was good enough, and he'd just block the shots, you know?

And I got tired of it.

I kept thinking about how I could get a shot off over him.

- [Narrator] In those days, basketball wasn't the high-flying aerial show we see today.

Players instead favored the flat-footed set shot - But I just dribbled up to him and jumped.

When I got up, oh, I suppose I was at least two feet off of the ground.

- And he did that because, you know, he could get his bigger brother moving and then just quickly, you know, jump up in the air and shoot the ball.

And he could then compete with an older brother.

(upbeat acoustic music) - [Narrator] As Sailors entered high school, Cora Sailors moved the family to Laramie.

Kenny thrived there, starring in football, track, and basketball as well as in the classroom.

Four years later in 1940, he enrolled at the University of Wyoming and went out for basketball under Coach Everett Shelton.

(upbeat acoustic music) Sailors relied on his athleticism to overcome his short stature.

He was a skilled dribbler and passer and a solid defender, and he kept his jump shot in his back pocket at first.

- I didn't shoot it all that much my first year or two because I didn't know what the coaches would think.

- And it was a non-jumping, non-leaping game, and Shelton, who's a hall of fame coach, had never seen that shot before.

But he was smart enough to know that Kenny could do this.

and he could gain an advantage on his opponents, and so he let him shoot it.

(upbeat acoustic music) - [Narrator] Coach Shelton believed his team was championship material.

They quickly became a powerhouse, besting college teams, as well as the more experienced teams of the Amateur Athletic Union, or the AAU.

- Ev Shelton, he had a mantra, "We'll play anybody anytime, anywhere," and so usually he would take the team, three-day trip back to New York City, and play everybody that would play 'em back on the East Coast in December and half of January before school started second semester.

- And he said, "Now, for us, a school like Wyoming, who's never been in the big time before, as far as college ball is concerned," he said, "we can't do that playing out here in Wyoming.

We've got to go to where the center of basketball publicity is, and that's out at Madison Square Garden in New York City."

Oh, you know, I'd never been out of the state of Wyoming before.

(upbeat acoustic music) - [Narrator] In 1943, the Cowboys beat Georgetown to capture the NCAA championship.

Kenny Sailors was awarded the Most Valuable Player.

He was a leader, an incredible ball handler, and he was now perfecting and utilizing his jump shot to baffle opponents with regularity.

(upbeat acoustic music) - He wanted to win, he was the ultimate team man.

His ball handling was way ahead of its time.

- He was a real competitor.

I'd love to have coached him because I'm telling you, he would force his will on you just right now.

(upbeat acoustic music) - [Narrator] After their NCAA championship victory, the Cowboys squared off against the rival NIT tournament champions, St John's, and defeated them as well, making Wyoming 1943's unquestioned national champions.

- [Announcer] The basketball season's grand finale, given greater significance tonight as the American Red Cross reaps the $28,000 benefit of Madison Square Garden's capacity crowd, and a killer-diller game it is.

Wyoming scores.

Seconds later, St. John's Redmen retaliate, as Boycoff gave us a field goal.

What hangs on this ball game amounts to a national basketball crown.

Both teams, the kingpins of their respective moves.

Final count, 52 to 47, and Wyoming's Cowboys are the undisputed kings of the court.

(triumphant music) (upbeat acoustic music) - Kenny's '43 team, I think they beat the top military team.

They beat the top AAU champion.

Tremendous record, if you just really kind of know the history of it.

It was a clean sweep like you could never believe.

And it was done by a bunch of Wyoming kids, basically.

(upbeat acoustic music) - [Narrator] But 1943 had more in store for Kenny Sailors.

He got married to a fellow university student named Marilynne Corbin.

Shortly after, Sailors enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Sailors served on a troop transport ship in the South Pacific where he commanded 40 Marines in charge of security.

Mustered out in 1946, Kenny came back home to Wyoming and his wife Marilynne.

He went back to the University of Wyoming, where he took graduate courses and had one year left of basketball eligibility, which he took advantage of to become an All-American for the second time.

In one particular game, a photographer captured what would become the iconic introduction of Sailor's jump shot to the world, featured in "LIFE" magazine.

(upbeat acoustic music) In 1946, the year Kenny Sailors finished his college career, promoters formed the Basketball Association of America, a professional league, that would eventually become the NBA.

Sailors and his jump shot quickly proved their worth in the professional ranks.

But after five years in professional basketball, Sailors decided to call it a career and go back home to his family.

(soft acoustic music) Kenny and Marilynne sought a simpler lifestyle, and Marilynne's health problems necessitated fresh air and the outdoors.

- [Kenny] We bought the Heart Six Ranch from the money my wife had saved during the time I had played.

We operated that Heart Six Ranch up in Jackson, oh, for about 19 or 20 years.

- [Narrator] The Sailors decided to try something even more remote, so they packed up and moved to Alaska.

- [Kenny] It was a place we'd always wanted to go to, and we started a guiding and outfitting business up there.

- [Narrator] Their business kept them busy seasonally, but there was time in the off season for Sailors to teach and coach basketball.

He convinced the Alaska Public Schools to start a girls' basketball program, and he coached the Angoon girls' high school team to state championships.

- [Kenny] You'd better believe they loved basketball.

That was their whole life.

In that little town of Angoon, I think they had five gymnasiums.

(laughs) I'll tell you, it was something else.

Everybody played basketball.

These old boys are in their 70s out there playing basketball.

Yeah, and the women.

- [Narrator] Kenny and Marilynne made their way back to Wyoming in 1999, where Marilynne passed away in 2002.

And Kenny followed her in 2016.

Still today, the Sailors legacy remains as strong as ever in the Cowboy State.

- I guess, truthfully, if I want to talk about what I respect most about Kenny Sailors is what a hell of a man he is.

(soft acoustic music)