Balls and Stripes: A Lifetime of Sports Adventures

Index

Part I

Basketball

Basketball is played by two teams of five players each. The purpose of each team is to throw the ball into its own basket and prevent the other team from scoring.

NFHS 2017-18 Rule Book, Page 8, THE GAME

I would like to deny the statement that I think basketball is a matter of life and death. I feel it’s much more important than that.

Lee Rose, University of North Carolina at Charlotte basketball coach

Not a Clair Bee Ending

Class C Tournament | Valdez, Alaska | February 1962

THE BALL LEFT MY HAND WITH PERFECT SPIN, A 15 FOOTER FROM JUST above the free throw line, square to the basket. The crowd was on its feet screaming; my ears were filled with a hollow, ringing silence.

All those adolescent dreams from dusty books at the tiny old Cordova Library. Grey-haired Book Master Bea Dinneen knew what section I was looking for as soon as the door opened in that dimly-lit space of the ancient Windsor Hotel. Claire Bee’s Chip Hilton series. She had to turn the book card over to find space for the return date stamp. The plots varied in the early going, but Chip always drove in the key run, scored the crucial touchdown, or made the winning basket, and always in the pressure-packed closing moments.

What young kid hasn’t dreamt of that same place in time, and practiced relentlessly to come through in the clutch at that very moment?

It doesn’t take a basketball very long to travel 15 feet, but this one took forever. Traversing that short arc, hitting the back of the rim, bouncing up to add its own parabolic drama, laying on the front of that 18 inch orange cylinder, and with a choice of net or air, ending our season with the latter.

The Valdez side of the gym erupted in cheers. The Cordova side sat in tears.

Hey, it’s just a game. Ah, but with subplots worthy of another Clair Bee book. I stood there in numb disbelief. A shot I had practiced thousands of times on a dirt ball court in front of our house. The 15 foot line was just on the edge of Second Street, and it was a good idea to glance left and right through clouds of dust from passing cars before racing out for long rebounds.

The Cordova Community Baptist Church was just across the street. One afternoon an exasperated Minister asked if I could take time off from shooting on Sunday’s from 11 am to noon, as the sound of the bouncing ball was interrupting his sermons and the congregation’s prayers.

CHS Coach Byron Jones noticed I was a good shooter but lousy ball handler, and had my lifelong buddy Bob Simpler play point guard during that 1962 season. I never had much opportunity to work on dribbling skills. It was almost impossible on that pebble-strewn court, and every spring frost pushed up new boulders that had to be dug out. Chasing missed shots that bounced in random directions was also an issue, so I became very good at Following your shot. In fact, the goal was to catch the rebound before it hit the dirt to minimize trips down the steep hill to the right that lead to the Copper River Highway.

Occasionally, adults would stop, park their cars in front of the Church, and challenge me to a game of HORSE. Don Van Brocklin, who came to Cordova during WWII on the Coast Guard vessel Haida, was a deadeye. Fred Pettingill, my Little League coach, now lived with his family in our old house just behind and above the backboard, and would drop by for a shoot-around in the late evening sun.

There was much history as well as intrigue in that last field goal attempt of my high school career.

Coach Jones came from Idaho, where he was an outstanding college player. He was a quiet, soft-spoken man with an infectious smile. A lanky ex-Marine, he lit up Men’s League with a deft jump shot that invariable went in. He played in a league with no age categories all the way up to his 60’s, and never once lost his cool, which anyone who has played City League ball knows is almost impossible. I stood 5’5", and he taught me to play relentless defense while polishing my shooting. I’ll never forget he made it a goal in my senior year to hold whoever I was guarding scoreless, and that was my greatest challenge and biggest source of pride that season.

Our year started out with a bang. Anchorage, the biggest city in Alaska, had split their huge single high school into East and West High. Each had over 1000 students. In contrast, our graduating class numbered 18. Coach Jones knew the East coach from their college days playing against each other, and invited the Thunderbirds down for a two game series.

The 1962 Cordova Wolverines

FRONT Dick Shellhorn; SECOND ROW LEFT TO RIGHT Tom Anderson, Wayne Smith; THIRD ROW Jerry Behymer, Gary Saska, Bob Simpler; BACK ROW Mike Anderson, Chip Lamb, George Nippell, Bill Hall, Gary Taylor. NSERTS Manager D.J. Moon; Coach Byron Jones. CHS Annual Photo

It was readily apparent when the T-Birds landed at the Mile 13 airport aboard one of Cordova Air’s DC-3’s that they were big. Every player had to duck to avoid hitting his head when coming out the plane’s narrow exit door.

But we had a big home court advantage, called City Gym. Located on the second floor of a large wooden frame building constructed in the 1930’s, it had bleachers three rows deep, with the bottom ones touching the out-of-bounds side lines.

The court itself was short, with the top of the key only nine feet from the mid-court division line. The standard length for a high school court is 84 feet; this one was 68 feet long. Players lining up around the center jump circle closest to the hoops were 5 feet away from the top of key, and if they received the tipped ball, could turn and shoot what would be a three pointer today.

The unique floor had a ripple at mid-court caused by sagging beams, as well as several dead spots where a dribbled ball wouldn’t bounce back properly. The entrance to the gym was directly under one of the baskets, so fans would crowd there while coming into the gym, making that end of the court slippery as they tracked in water or snow. When the bleachers were full, fans stood on the three-foot space between the end line and the plywood walls of the gym. Players would vanish amongst them after fade-away jumpers or missed lay-ins, and be pushed back onto the court.

The place was packed as the Thunderbirds trotted out in brand-new powder blue uniforms with red trim. It was the first road games in their school’s history. The contest was close from the opening tip to the final horn.

The crowd went crazy as we won on a buzzer-beating lay-in hook shot over a tall defender by yours truly. It was a shot I had practiced for years on my street-side court, as there wasn’t room to work on drives from straight in due to vehicle traffic near the top of the key. We lost narrowly the second night, but our season was off to a glorious start.

We weren’t very big, so a key to our success was our only six-footer, a stocky classmate named Bill Henrich. As kids, we had often played two-on-two in front of his house. The backboard was nailed to a telephone pole right out side his front door, and the court was the cement sidewalk, which was a mere eight feet wide. So Bill had developed a sold inside game, and was by far our strongest player.

Back then there was no Alaska Marine Highway ferry system, so we didn’t travel often. Instead, we played a regular slate of games in Men’s City League. It was sometimes entertaining but not the type of competition needed to prepare for games against other high school teams. The inside play and rebounding was physical, but the older guys were no match for our speed and conditioning. Rarely did we press, and almost never did we see full court pressure.

In the crowded confines of City Gym, Cordova’s Bill Henrich prepares to jump center against East High’s Tim Gordon in the 1962 season opener against the Thunderbirds. Coach Jones and the scorers table can be seen in the background. CHS Annual Photo

So we cruised past the Elks, Moose, Co-ho, Club, and VFW undefeated. Finally the calendar rolled around to a long January road trip. We hopped on a DC-3, flew to Valdez for pair of games, and then rode a school bus over Thompson Pass to play Copper Valley twice.

Every small school has an arch-rival, and for us it was the nearby Buccaneers. Early Alaska history not involving hoops played a part. The town of Valdez was developed in 1898 as part of a scam by steamship companies to lure prospectors off the Klondike Gold Rush trail to reach Interior gold by an easier route over the Valdez Glacier. It turned out to be twice as long and steep as advertised, with many dying while attempting the crossing. However, construction of the Valdez Trail soon followed, connecting the port city with Fairbanks as the first overland supply route into the Interior.

Meanwhile, Cordova was basically a cannery and fishing hub until unbelievably rich copper ore was discovered in the early 1900’s in the Wrangell Mountains 110 miles away. Before long a race was on from three different locations - Valdez, Cordova, and Katella - to develop a railroad route to the valuable ore. Katella seemed the logical choice, with nearby oil and coal that could be used to operate the locomotives, but it was situated on the exposed Gulf of Alaska. A huge winter storm wiped out all the docks and loading facilities that had been built, and overnight Katella shrank from 5,000 inhabitants to a ghost town.

Valdez already had the Richardson Trail, but railroad engineers ran into major issues in nearby Keystone Canyon. The Cordova route, despite many daunting challenges, including a bridge between two glaciers at Mile 52, prevailed. So in a sense, the rivalry was on before a single jump ball was tossed, with Cordova leading by a score of 1 to 0.

By 1938, all the high-grade ore at the Kennicott copper mines had run out, and the operation was shut down. Cordova was back to a fishing town, while more and more traffic went through Valdez via the continually improved Richardson Highway. Call the score Cordova 1, Valdez 1. The two towns were now similar in size, and located a mere 50 miles apart by plane.

Game on. The first basketball contest between Cordova and Valdez High was played in Cordova in January 1937, and CHS won the opener 36-24. Valdez bounced back to win the next game in overtime 27-26. Cordova won the remaining two games of a four game series. CHS ventured to Valdez in March, and won the first game 23-17. Valdez won the second game with the Cordova Daily Times stating: The larger school (Cordova) was thoroughly outclassed and went around as if in a daze. Valdez also won the third game 20-16, with the Cordova paper critically noting, The Cordova boys thought they had the game cinched.

There then followed a quote that was to portend ominous events in my senior year. The Cordova team was entertained with dinners, parties and dances, and an effort was made to give the boys a good time.

When Cordova traveled to play Valdez back in the 50’s and 60’s, visiting teams were housed out, staying in homes of players of the host school. Obviously, this made for major challenges in chaperoning and supervision, and golden opportunities for shenanigans. Boys will be boys.

Additionally, in that era, by age 18, many of the Cordova upperclassmen had worked in canneries, dug razor clams, or crewed on fishing boats, and were not unfamiliar with the idea of a cold but illegal beer after a long day’s or week’s labor. Both schools had training rules against use of alcohol and tobacco during the season, but they were difficult to enforce, and every school had different standards of punishment, varying from suspension to permanent removal for the rest of the season.

As noted in the 19 January 1962 edition of the Northern Light, Cordova High’s newspaper, Bobby Day continued to be top gun for arch-rival Valdez.

So there was a reason our key big man, Bill Henrich, seemed to sweat profusely during wind sprints following weekends, and it wasn’t because of poor ventilation in the gym.

Valdez came to Cordova for a big series in January. In the opener, we beat the Bucs 57-37. Henrich and I led CHS with 15 points apiece; Bobby Day topped Valdez with 11. An article in the Northern Light, Cordova High’s school paper, reported the results of the games. The second night Henrich and I combined for 37 points. Day poured in 21. Clearly he was their star.

When we flew to Valdez for a rematch, Henrich was housed out with the swashbuckling Day. Despite Day’s efforts, we swept the series there, and then hopped on the school bus to head up the highway for a two game set against Copper Valley, an isolated Catholic Boarding School at Copper Center. It was a chilly ride, and luckily the girls ball team was along. The coaches overlooked the girl-boy huddles on each bench seat; the windows were completely frosted over, it was 20 below zero outside, and you can’t shoot a basketball with frostbitten fingers.

Copper Valley School was built in 1956, and attracted boarding students from smaller villages scattered across Alaska that did not have high schools. It was located south of Glennallen near the banks of the Copper River, and sported a unique design, featuring seven long two-story buildings arranged like spokes on a wheel. The center of the wheel was a hockey rink. Each spoke served a unique purpose such as classrooms, housing, cafeteria, and a chapel. One spoke was the gymnasium, featuring undoubtedly the coldest surface upon which Naismith’s Creation has ever been played. The floor was cement poured over the ground, and had numerous cracks running at random angles due to frost heaves. The court dimensions were painted directly onto the cement, which was covered with fine-grain Copper River dust that seeped in every time the doors were opened. There were no dressing or locker rooms.

We were housed in dorms on the other side of the hockey rink, and raced across the ice in our fancy blue warm-ups through -30 degree temperatures at warp speed. Back then Chuck Taylor Converse All Star tennis shoes were the only basketball footwear available. Converse took slabs of rubber, cut them into various sizes, added a bit of white canvas on top, punched holes in the material, threaded laces through eyelets, and said Play Ball.

In the 1960’s, Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars were being worn by ninety percent of the professional and college basketball players. So no wonder they had reached the banks of the frozen Copper River in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska.

We slid around the dusty court and won handily, but there was little laughing the next morning. Most of us couldn’t even walk. Our feet were so numb while out on the court we didn’t realize what Coach Jones called bone bruises were forming on the bottoms of our feet. Several of us had literally worn holes halfway through the inside of the rubber soles. The nearest shoe store was in Valdez, over one hundred miles away. My parents operated Shellhorn’s Clothing back in Cordova, and Dad gave a discount on Converses to all the CHS players, but his enterprise was even further away.

We had a problem. The search was on for some sort of padding material to insert in our shoes. There were a few gauze pads in the medicine kit, but not nearly enough for a whole team.

Marines are taught to be resourceful. Coach Jones huddled with his female counterpart. We scratched our heads. Ah, ha. The Lady Wolverines. Back then they still wore skirts, and played a weird version of hoops involving six against six. Two played defense, two played offense, and two were rovers, allowed to run the length of the court. There was concern that girls might over-exert themselves by playing full court.

Many topics were still tabu in those days. But that night we wore well-padded and much more insulated shoes while cruising to a win. Much to our chagrin, we were soon nicknamed the Kotex Kids.

However, bruised pride and feet were the least of our issues. That night, when Coach Jones did a head count before we crawled into our sleeping bags spread throughout a classroom floor, he came up one short. Bill Henrich.

Well, there was certainly nowhere to wander off from the school in search of rehydration in Copper Valley. However, a shiny new pickup had appeared on the scene that afternoon, driven by Valdez’s best player, and one plus one meant bad news for the Wolverines.

About 11:30 in the evening, the classroom door crashed open, and in stumbled our Big Man. Well and truly swashbuckled. Coach Jones, ever classy, took him out into the hallway, quickly and quietly handling the situation. Despite a four game sweep, it was a dismal ride back to Valdez the next day, and our best player rode beside Coach Jones all the way.

Needless to say, it was an equally grim flight back from Valdez. Little did we know that Coach Jones had contacted the Valdez Coach, and they had mutually agreed that both players were done for the season.

Defending Class C Champs Wasilla came to town the next weekend, and with junior Mike Anderson filling in for Henrich, we shocked the Warriors and ourselves by sweeping the series. We played with intensity and anger. I had the green light, and scored 23 points in the first game. Our win streak reached eight games, and we had the best record in conference play. Two weeks later we flew to the Class C tournament seeded #1.

The location was Valdez. The tournament format gave us a bye the first day. Ft. Greely topped Copper Valley, and Wasilla beat Valdez.

We literally ran into Ft. Greely in our first game the next day. Lead by a pair of speedy twin guards named Armstrong, they killed us with a zone full court press the likes of which we had never seen. Luckily it was double elimination format. Valdez played right after us, and defeated Copper Valley.

So now Cordova and Valdez each had one loss. Our next opponent would be the Buccaneers. The season would be over for the loser.

Quite a number of Cordova fans had flown over on a chartered DC-3 to cheer us on. After all, it was Valdez versus Cordova.

Wouldn’t you know it, I had severely sprained my ankle in the Ft. Greely game. First basketball injury in my life. Couldn’t even get my Chuck Taylor shoe back on the next morning. Tried ice and then hot soaks in Epsom salts. Coach Jones taped it up.

We took the court for pregame warm-ups, and guess who trotted out wearing Buccaneer black and white? Bobby Day. Our mild-mannered Coach was quietly seething. Bill Henrich was back at home in Cordova. Bobby Day’s suspension was over.

I suspect regardless of what Valdez did to discipline their top gun, Jones would have not have reinstated Henrich. He was a man of integrity and honor, and his disappointment in the actions of his Valdez counterpart, whether by him, the Valdez School Administration, or the Valdez School Board, was evident in the absence of the traditional shake of hands between coaches prior to the opening tip. Cordova fans expressed their disdain more vocally.

We were equally pissed, but lacking Henrich’s presence, could not contain Day. Mike Anderson, our backup center, was smaller and far less experienced than Henrich. The sweep of Valdez a month earlier was a distant memory.

I played sparingly. Clearly I wasn’t near 100%. In fact, my replacement, sophomore Jerry Behymer, ended up being Cordova’s top scorer with 13 points. The game was a seesaw affair. We led 31-27 at the end of three quarters. Valdez pulled ahead midway through the fourth stanza.

Jones put me back in, and it came down to that last second shot. It did not end in Chip Hilton fashion.

When I stumbled over to the sidelines, Coach Byron Jones put his hand on my shoulder and said: I thought it was good all the way.

Valdez fans mobbed Bobby Day. He finished with 20 points. Don’t ask me what the final score was.

Coach Jones retired at the end of that season, and never coached again.

Bill Henrich went on to become a Green Beret. He served three tours in Vietnam and earned multiple honors. Perhaps he had learned a valuable lesson in that spring of 1962. Bill left the Army after eight years of service, and returned to commercial fishing in Cordova. He and two crewmates vanished while octopus fishing out of Seward, and their vessel was never found.

Coach Byron Jones passed at away at age 76 in 2006. Services were held in a packed CHS Gymnasium. In closing, at the request of his family, I read lines by famous sportswriter Grantland Rice:

"For when the One Great Scorer comes

To mark against your name,

He writes - not that you won or lost-

But HOW you played the Game."

Jerry Behymer, #33, looks to control a jump ball tip at one of the free throw circles of City Gym in 1964. The top scorer on that fine CHS squad, Behymer was a sophomore in 1962, and to this day still bitterly remembers the last month of that season. CHS Annual Photo

At least one member of that 1962 Cordova team still remembers that loss as vividly as I do - Jerry Behymer, a lifelong close friend. He is now retired after serving in the Marines in Vietnam, and then becoming a very successful Doctor of Chiropractic in California.

Someone had posted the fact that it was his birthday on Facebook. So I called him up to wish him Happy 70th. Oops.

Thanks Dick, but actually it’s 71. Which means you’re almost 73, if my math is correct.

Thanks, Jer. Where the hell does time go?

Beats me, but we both keep on chugging. (Jerry still hikes a lot, as do I)

We shoot the breeze for a while, and then I tell him about this book I’m writing called Balls and Stripes.

He likes the title, and asks for details. I explain it’s going to be about basketball, and other sports, including refereeing and broadcasting.

Without prompting, come his next words: That little son of a - - - - - Bobby Day, I still hate him for what he did to us. I try not to get mad or upset these days, but it just makes my blood boil.

Evidently, 55 years is not enough time to heal all wounds.

Holes in the Wall

Class C Conference Games | Wasilla, Alaska | January 1960

A SWEATY AND ANGRY CORDOVA WOLVERINE BASKETBALL TEAM WALKED across the court and stomped up a narrow exit stairway. They had a right to be upset. None of them even looked up at the small scoreboard mounted flat against a wall above their heads.

All knew the numbers would be bad, but 103-27? You have got to be kidding. It was the most points ever scored against a CHS boy’s squad, by a team that pressed from start to finish. And this was in an Era when the three-point arc didn’t exist.

Ah, Wasilla in 1960. The only recognizable landmark used by the bus driver to decide where to take a right hand turn off the Parks Highway was a quaint wooden grocery store. Constructed in 1917, Teeland’s General Store was one of the first buildings in Wasilla. It had an exterior porch that went around all the sides, and looked like something out of an old Western movie. Larry Teeland, descendant of those early Matanuska Valley pioneers, was a sharp-shooting point guard for the red and white clad Wasilla High Warriors.

The CHS squad had landed at Anchorage in one of Mudhole Smith’s Cordova Air WWII vintage DC-3 planes after a bumpy one-hour flight from Cordova, and piled on a school bus with frosted windows to chug on down to the Matanuska Valley.

Back then Palmer and Wasilla were small farm communities. No one could have dreamed that 50 years later they would be part of a thriving urban sprawl of over 100,000, many of whom commute daily to jobs in Anchorage, Alaska’s biggest city. It now features Walmart, Fred Meyer, Home Depot, car dealerships, you name it; plus homes scattered everywhere in sub-divided former farmland. During rush hour, two lanes of vehicles back up for traffic signals at the intersection where Teeland’s store once stood. By 2010, Wasilla High was one of four high schools in the Valley, and boasted an enrollment of 1250 students.

In those days of yore, Cordova versus Wasilla was a big rivalry. Both high schools had less than 100 students. The 1960 Copper Nugget, Cordova High’s annual, showed 20 in the sophomore class, and 77 in grades 9-12.

When the tall and lanky farm boys from Wasilla showed up in Cordova, fans packed old City Gym, and were always puzzled when the visitors came out for pregame warm-ups. The Warriors fired up jump shots with absolutely no arc. It was amazing they could even go in. The balls seemed to just barely clear the rim.

We second-string sophomores playing on the varsity were about to find out why their shots were so flat. We arrived at Wasilla High, tossed our bags in the classroom that would be our home for two days, and suited up. It was game time, just like that.

The veteran seniors lead the way. Down a hallway we trotted in our shiny royal blue warm-up jackets and pants. The senior in front, team captain Tom Simpler, took a left and vanished. So did the ensuing players, one by one. Finally we realized why. It came our turn to take a 90-degree turn down a narrow closed-in set of wooden stairs. There was light at the other end of the tunnel. And noise.

Now we knew what gladiators entering the Coliseum in Rome felt like. Suddenly we were on Wasilla’s basketball court. With bright lights reflecting off its shiny wooden surface, the floor had no sideline markings. The walls were the out-of-bounds markers. We ran around the edge once, and then broke into two lanes to shoot lay-ups. The veteran seniors casually dropped theirs in easily, then we second-stringers dribbled in, shot, and crashed into wrestling pads nailed against the walls. Duh. The backboards were fastened flush to the end walls.

Then it was time to practice shooting from around the court. The seniors tossed up flat shots that rarely went in; we newbies launched balls that hit the ceiling and caromed off, sometimes hitting teammates on the head. More time was spent ducking than shooting.

Ah ha. The tops of the rectangular backboards touched the ceiling. That’s why the Warriors shot so flat. A lesson in geometry and physics combined.

The Wasilla boys were pouring in baskets left and right at their end. In our fancy warm-ups, chasing mainly unsuccessful attempts, it didn’t take us long to work up a sweat. Time to take off the bulky outerwear. But where to put it? In fact, where was our coach? Where was our bench?

Again, senior leadership. The veterans jogged over to the far sideline, just below the mid-court stripe, and there was Coach Byron Jones, sitting on a kindergarten chair, in a recessed boxlike hole filled with ten more tiny wooden chairs. The ceiling was not high enough for even our shortest player to stand. Jones had his feet tucked under him so his legs would not stick out across the sideline marker, which extended flush with the base of the wall.

A few feet above our bench was a small balcony, filled with raucous Wasilla fans that leaned over the railing with glee. At least there couldn’t be too many of them, and they weren’t armed with pitchforks The whole facility wasn’t much bigger than Teeland’s Store.

The legend goes that after Gladiators battled in Rome, the winner turned to the crowd to decide whether the loser should live or die. Thumbs up meant he should be spared; thumbs down was not good news. Red-faced farmers in the front row gripped the metal railing tightly with bare appendages. They all had big thumbs, and were used to butchering livestock.

Coach Jones taught World History at CHS, and had served in the Marines during the Korean Conflict. Soon we would be hidden in our bunker, and try to mirror his calm.

Well, inevitably, it was game time. The facility alone was good for a 30-point home court advantage; plus by the standards of those days, Wasilla had a very tall team. Their lineup featured several big muscular starters that must have spent their summers in the hayfields. Half of them seemed to be named Carney; a player named Erling Nelson stood 6-3. Point guard Larry Teeland had plenty of places to deliver the ball. Nelson and Doug Carney went on to play small college ball at the University of Alaska.

Let the game begin. Not much question about who controlled the opening tip. Other lessons quickly followed.

To inbound the ball, it was necessary to hold one foot touching the wall, which was the out-of-bounds marker. The defender was supposed to stand 3 feet back. I can’t recall if there was a 3-foot restraining line on the court, but it didn’t matter. The tallest two Warriors would double-team the in-bounder, and it was impossible to pass over them. The ball hit the ceiling every time.

If we did get the ball in play, a trapping full court press created the same result. A majority of shots we did get off also hit the ceiling. As the frustration and scoring deficit mounted, Coach Jones started running in bench players. Most of us were shorter, and popped out like gophers from the cubbyhole. Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em big, why not try small?

We tried odd inbound strategies, such as faking high and then trying to roll the ball between their legs, or deflecting it off their shins to a teammate. Alas, the farm boys were quite nimble afoot, perhaps from dodging cow pies.

The result was a debacle. As far as I know, the worst defeat in CHS history. No one scored 100 points back then. With the advent of the three point shot in 1985, big scores and high scoring individual efforts are now more common.

Not surprisingly, the Wasilla big men had a big game. A sports story in the Alaska Dispatch News, dated 28 January 2016, included a list of all the high school players in the 49th State who had scored 49 or more points, as well as the year they did it. Guess who scored 50 points in 1960, long before the three-point arc? Erling Nelson of Wasilla.

Nelson has passed away, and what team these players racked up their big totals against was not listed. Further research was fruitless, but I would venture $103 it was against a team that wore Blue and White.

The farmers in the galley departed quietly. They didn’t even have to bother with thumbs up or down. They had witnessed a slaughter.

What happened when we exited the gym via that narrow stairway was also not a Wolverine Highlight. The first senior in line punched a hole in the drywall. The next one did the same. Hey, follow the leader, especially if you’re an underclassman. By the time we reached the top of the stairs, there were ten nice round holes in a symmetric linear upward pattern.

Coach Jones was not happy with the way we had been manhandled; but he was even more unhappy about the way we had handled it. He was a quiet, soft-spoken mentor, a great college basketball player, and a gentleman. He apologized to the Wasilla school administration and promised Cordova would pay for the damages.

Did we ever.

What happened at Monday’s after-school practice following this defeat was literally a down payment.

Clarence Barney Anderson was the Cordova School Superintendent at the time. He had coached some fine Wolverine teams, including a memorable squad that lost to Nome in a best two out of three State Class Championship playoff. He was also a disciplinarian.

That Monday practice started with him present, hands behind his back as he delivered a stern lecture. We then lined up in a row, facing the windows on the south wall of the court. Next we were told to drop our drawers.

You could hear the smack of a wooden paddle coming down the line.

School Annual photo of the famous 1956 squad, that came so close to capturing Cordova’s first Class B title. Not shown is Ted Siemion. CHS Annual Photo

Teddy, Skookie, and Carl

Class B Tournament | Anchorage, Alaska | March 1956

TEDDY, SKOOKIE, AND CARL. THEY STOOD 5’7, 5’4 AND 5’6" respectively. Collectively, they were probably the finest small trio to ever play for Cordova High. Sixty-one years later, their names still bring back memories of one of the best CHS teams that never won a state title.

1956 looked like the year that the Wolverines might finally capture a Class B Championship. Teddy Siemion, Martin (Skookie) Parsons, and Carl Arvidson terrorized visiting teams at City Gym with their quickness and steals that led to easy lay-ins. Crowds packed the second floor cracker box now known as Bidarki Recreation Center to roar their approval.

C.L. (Barney) Anderson was School Superintendent then, and also their coach. The back line of an all-senior starting five was manned by Ralph Fenner and Ray Behymer, both 5’11". The three speed merchants on the perimeter averaged five inches less, but scored most of the points.

The ’56 Wolverines excelled at what was a modified 2-1-2 zone defense. It later was named a triangle and two, with Siemion, Fenner, and Behymer played a 1-2 zone, and the speedy Parsons and Arvidson double-teaming and chasing at random out in front.

This latter two were particularly adept at forcing a dribbler to turn one way, with the other one somehow appearing like magic from the backside to strip the ball from behind. Since the top of the free throw circle almost touched the outer edge of the center jump ball circle at City Gym, it was a very short trip for a score off the turnover.

Sixty-one years later, Parsons said: We played whatever defense the coach wanted. Man to man, zone. It didn’t matter. We were fast …back then.

Arvidson added exactly the same phrase.

By their senior year, Siemion, Parsons, and Arvidson had all spent summers in Cordova’s commercial fisheries. They were strong, solid athletes; and excellent ball handlers. Each had their unique shooting style.

Siemion, who was a lefty, played offense on the baseline, and had a fade-away left-handed jumper that was impossible to defend. Strangely, he favored the right side of the basket. The ball would literally go over edge of the backboard and then drop in as he was falling out of bounds.

Parsons was the point guard, and had a unique long shot that involved a step-forward pumping action with the ball coming up from waist height to eye level for a quick release. Arvidson was also deadly from long range, with a more traditional higher release-point bordering on a jump shot.

I was in 7th grade when they set the town ablaze with Wolverine Fever. All these years later I can still envision them racing out for pregame warm-ups from the City Gym locker room door. The uniform jerseys and trunks never were the same color. If the jerseys were white, the trunks were blue, and vice versa. They never wore matching tops and bottoms.

Skookie was surprised, when I mentioned to him during a phone conversation in February 2017, that such pairing was now illegal, with the uniforms tops and bottoms currently mandated to be the same color.

Back in the mid-50’s, road trips were few and far between. There was no State ferry system; in fact, there was no State. Alaska was a territory until 1959. The teams boarded oil-streaked WWII DC-3’s with Cordova Air painted on the side for rare road trips.

Airline owner Merle Mudhole Smith gave the teams discounts on flights, and longtime Cordova youth benefactor Bob Korn used proceeds from the Alaskan Bar and his taxi business to help cover the tab.

Because travel was restricted, CHS, like most Alaska high school teams of that era, competed in Men’s City League. The league standings and game write-ups were a common part of weekly newspaper reports.

The games were usually played on Tuesdays and Fridays, so as to not interfere with Elks, Moose, and VFW meetings; nor disrupt Saturday night activities at those lodges or nearby pubs including the Alaskan, Club Bar, and Cordova House. Usually all the thirst-quenching establishments, plus the Emergency Room of the Cordova Community Hospital, had an uptick of activity during or following Men’s League games.

For more than a few older players, it was down the stairs, out of the gym, across the street, and up the stairs to the ER, as the hospital was conveniently located right near City Hall. I often wonder why the Hospital didn’t sponsor a team. It would have made good business sense.

The high school squads usually dominated City League play, as the competition seemed to run out of steam late in the games. However, such action did not do a very good job of preparing high school teams to compete with their counterparts, especially when it came to full court pressure or run-and-gun styles.

Cordova’s 1956 team roared through their Men’s League Schedule. One Cordova Times article described in great detail Siemion racing downcourt so fast he couldn’t stop after a layup and shot through the gym entrance beneath the hoop, only to be saved from tumbling down the stairs by a nurse named Alyce Baxter coming up to watch the game. Both he and his Florence Nightingale received a standing ovation when they emerged back into the gym.

By the end of regular season play, Cordova had lost only 4 of 21 games. Two were to Anchorage High, one to Wasilla High. They won City League easily, with only one loss, to the Moose squad.

There wasn’t much doubt that they were a guard-oriented offense. At the end of regular season play, Parsons led the scoring with 303 points; Arvidson was close behind with 299. Siemion chipped in 258, Fenner 128, and Behymer 92.

Back then, teams from western Alaska converged in Anchorage for tournaments.

Southeast Alaska had its own separate format, with schools of all size gathering for playoffs at Juneau, Ketchikan, or Sitka, which were the only cities large enough to host the affair. For many years, the team that won the smaller school classification faced the winner of the large school division for the Southeast Crown, a tradition that continues to this day. Eventually, the Southeast Champion then played the Western Alaska Champs for the true state title.

The Anchorage-based Western Alaska championships were broken into Classes A, B, and C. In 1956, CHS, with an enrollment of 55, competed in the Class B tournament. Other schools at that playoff included Valdez, Wasilla, Eielson AFB, Kodiak Naval, and Nome.

The Nanooks of Nome were a traditional Class B power. They won the Class B title in 1951, 1953, and 1955. Records are elusive, but it appears Class B tournaments were first played in 1951.

One thing was for sure: Cordova had never won.

1956 was going to be their year. They flew to Anchorage on Sunday, March 4, in pursuit of their dream.

By that time, the Cordova Times, once a daily paper, was