Leo Ferris

In 2017 The Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame produced an induction video detailing Leo's career highlights. The video was narrated by 'The Voice Of The Orange', Doug Logan.

Ferris has been nominated 7 times to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2016, 2017., 2018 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022 by the Veterans Committee but is yet to be inducted.

The Syracuse Nationals' "recipe for success" began by recruiting Leo F. Ferris, then a talented team executive to reorganize the Syracuse team. Acting in capacity of NBL Vice President and then as general manager of the Nationals, Ferris first moves included signing Dolph Schayes, Al Cervi & Billy Gabor to the roster which put in place the core of the club that took three trips NBA Finals and captured the 1955 NBA title.

Ferris left sports in 1955 and entered the real estate business. He died in 1993, at age 76 of Huntington's disease.

With Ben Kerner, Ferris founded the Buffalo Bisons, which played in the National Basketball League in 1946. The Bisons evolved into the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, based in Moline, Illinois, which eventually became the Milwaukee Hawks, the St. Louis Hawks, and finally today's Atlanta Hawks. He signed Pop Gates, one of the first two African-American players in the NBL, in 1946. "When Leo Ferris came to me, it was like a godsend," Pop Gates was quoted as saying in the book, "Pioneers of the Hardwood: Indiana and the Birth of Professional Basketball." "It was a real highlight of my career to be accepted by the NBL as one of only two blacks in the league."

Leo F. Ferris (May 31, 1917 – June 1, 1993) was an American sports executive and businessman from Elmira, New York best known for helping invent the 24-second shot clock in the National Basketball Association.