But in 1979, the popularity of AAU was definitely on the rise. Our teams had certainly lent to that, winning the title in Cincy in '77, and falling in the title game in '78 in Iowa (more about that team later). Facing the "Kanawha Valley All-Stars" as we called ourselves were teams that included, Mark Cline from Williamson, Jeff Overstreet from Huntington, Chuck Cantrell of Ceredo-Kenova, and our former teammate, friend, and Most Valuable Player of the '77 national tourney Gay Elmore, playing on a South Charleston entry. If you look at the box scores after the three title games, most of the top players of that era were involved.
Game one didn't draw a lot of media attention, but it did display the scoring ability of Buster Duiguid. Game Two brought a lot more of both...
(click to enlarge)
Chuck Landon did what he did in those days to shape a good story. He probably found out that Buster and I had come from a track meet (we'd ridden together with my Dad and had a Wendy burger before the game) because not only did we wear our track sweats into the gym, kids being kids, we brought our trophies in, too.
What I wish I'd told Chuck that would have made a great end to the story, as I mentioned in the reunion program, was that Buster was the person who beat me in the long jump to disrupt my perfect "40" at the track meet.
One aspect I didn't realize about the semi final game, because again in memory it didn't seem close -- two of their six players (including Gay) fouled out, leaving them to finish with four -- although Wilbur Jenkins had a fantastic game and wasn't even mentioned in the article: SC shot a paltry 21 of 47 from the foul line. If they'd even shot 60 percent they might have downed us and changed history.
I've got to dig for the title game... ... FOUND IT! In Rodger's tub of memorabilia. A lot of familiar names in these box scores. The Gazette staff did a cracker jack job with these briefs. Steve Nage (Alex) shot enough to score 21 points. I can't believe it! He must have taken all Buster's shots in this game. Buster, what did you do to make him mad at you? It's funny, I have absolutely no recollection of this game, unlike the contest against SC the night before. And, I vaguely remember a "Lacey" on the squad (Danny, from Marmet research tells us). He's in the box score, but he must have split even before the post-game picture was taken. Baseball priority or a playing time issue?
(click to enlarge)
Front row: Bruz Hicks, Alex Nagy, David Bradley, J.T. Morris, Buster Duiguid. Back row: Rodger Monk, Willie Jenkins, Brett Harrison, Andy Spradling, Mike Reed, Ricky Trammell, Ron Dawson, and the late George Jefferson.
Here's a picture of rail-thin and highly intense Rodger Monk coaching the 15-16 year-olds at the same West Virginia state tournament. Steve Vorholt and George Jefferson are seated on the bench. David Bradley is at the table. That team went on to Oklahoma for the AAU National Tournament just the week before 14-year-old tournament was to begin in Charleston. Rodger took me with that team to act as a manager, but mainly to see the talent. And there was plenty of it! Ralph Jackson, that went on to play at UCLA, comes to mind. We all bussed over there, but when the team was eliminated, Rodger and I flew back. We were both getting sick as we left Oklahoma as was pointed out by Chuck Landon after our first game of the nationals...
The 15-16s that went to Oklahoma: front row l-r, Steve Vorholt, John Mawyer, DeHan Jefferson, Brian Eddy, the late George Jefferson. Second row, l-r, Rodger Monk, Todd Ellis, Jay Hampton, David Walker, Jeff Eddy, Larry Bryson, David Bennett, Jimmy Miller, Steve Lineville, Kevin Hudson.
That was one long bus ride to Oklahoma...
No comments:
Post a Comment