

Remembering Sports

By

Charles E. White

Copyrighted by Charles E. White and Published by Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

ISBN No. 9780463802175

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Baseball, basketball, and football have changed dramatically over the past several decades. I preferred the way the games used to be played, but that's not the way they are played today. A new generation has grown up in a world where everything moves faster, and sports are no exception. As we age we tend to want life to slow down, stay it as it is for a while as we endeavor to savor the moment. As a child growing up sports were an important part of my life and I was fortunate enough to experience many games via the radio, television, in the stands or playing games in a friend's backyard.

I was introduced to sports as a youngster by my dad who took me to high school, college, semipro, and pro games. My dad loved football and baseball and played both sports in high school. He played football one year in college and semipro baseball until he reached his late thirties. He played basketball in high school, but lost interest because the games were played outside in the cold temperatures. Television spiked my interest in sports in the early fifties and gave me the opportunity to see how college and pro teams played the games. Most of my sports experiences have been gathered by watching rather than playing on a field or a court.

BASEBALL

I was about four years old when I saw my first semipro baseball game featuring the Oine Red Devils, a rural team in Warren County, North Carolina. Oine consisted of two stores and the baseball field and was located about four miles from our home town of Norlina. Oine is pretty much the same today except there is only one store open while tall pine trees occupy the lot where the baseball field used to be. On weekends throughout the season dad drove my mom, my sister and me in his red 1950 Ford pickup to the games.

Dad played second base for the Oine Red Devils. He took great care of his uniform and insisted mom wash it after every game, even if the next game was the following day. The uniform was made of white wool. The front of the shirt had large red letters sewn on that spelled out Oine Red Devils. There was a thin red stripe running down the side of each pants leg. The baseball cap was bright red and was also made of wool. The baseball shoes were made of real leather manufactured by a United States company. Dad's baseball glove was a four finger model made by Rawlings, also a U.S. company. Dad used burnt motor oil, which was in readily available supply as he owned several vehicles, to soften up the pocket. The last part of the uniform was a "thing" called a jockey strap, an elastic belt with a little pocket hanging down the front that a baseball player would wear around their waist instead of their drawers. I had no idea what this strap was for but dad had one and kept it hung on a nail in our kitchen pantry. When I asked my mother what a jockey strap was for she replied it was for the player's wacker. The tallywacker was the official name. I believe I first heard about wackers on our school playground at big recess circa 1952. It made no sense to me why a grown man would opt to replace his drawers which dad had copious pairs of with this jockey strap, especially since his ass was sticking out of the rear of the thing.

During those Sunday afternoons I didn't spend much time watching the baseball game, but instead created other more interesting activities behind the bleachers with my cousins who usually showed up at the ball park since their dad also played with the Red Devils. Five of the Red Devils players were related to my dad. All I remember from dad's play was one game where he hit a grounder to shortstop and during his sprint to first base he fell down and started to roll as if he were tumbling down a hill, but before he reached first base he regained his footing and ran across the base. He was called out at first by some man with a black cap. I found out later this man was an umpire who decided who was safe and who was out which was a big part of a baseball game. I didn't know much about the game at that time.

In the early fifties playing semipro baseball was what many adult males in Warren County did on weekends. Most of the players came from farm families who worked hard all week growing crops of tobacco. Tobacco was the main crop in Warren County at the time and most of the population either owned farms or worked on farms owned by others. My grandfather farmed a few acres of tobacco until he retired in the mid fifties, but his prime vocation was well drilling and plumbing. My dad continued my grandfather's business after he retired. He had worked for my grandfather since the late forties and had learned the business quite well, something I never wholeheartedly embraced. As a youngster I spent many summers at my dad's business cleaning and putting things on shelves and occasionally I went with him to drill a well or on a plumbing service call. I tried but I never was interested in this kind of work.

The Oine Red Devils team had no source of income so each player identified a local businessman that agreed to provide money to buy a uniform. The name of the sponsor was sewn on the back of the baseball shirt to let everyone know who contributed to the uniform and to serve as an advertisement for the sponsors' business. Business contributions also helped pay for the teams' bats and balls. The wool uniforms kept the men as cool as possible during a long hot nine inning game. The players had no batting helmets, batting gloves, leg protectors or jewelry. When a batter stepped into the batter's box he had to be ready to swing at the next pitch or stay loose in case the pitcher tried to brush him off the plate. I saw semipro batters get hit with a baseball, but I never saw anyone get hit in the head.

By 1955 my dad was in his late thirties and very reluctantly stopped playing baseball. I started attending Norlina's semipro baseball games since the baseball field was close to my house. There were many good baseball players on Norlina's teams, but I don't recall any players ever making it to the next level. The best batter I ever saw on the Norlina team was Bobby Harris, who did make it to the Pacific Coast League, not as a player but as an umpire. He was always best in a clutch situation, especially with men on base. Additionally he managed the local team for a brief stint. One year at the annual semipro all star break Norlina was in first place and hosted the conference all stars at W.R. Davie High School's baseball field near Roanoke Rapids. In a late inning with Norlina down 6-5, Harris then managing the team, entered the game to pinch hit and got a base clearing double and Norlina went on the win 8-6. We also had another player, Bubba Overby, a left-handed pitcher, who had pitched for N.C. State. Over the course of two weekends one summer he managed to strike out 45 batters. Another former N.C. State player, Clint Hege, also my high school agriculture teacher, was a great leadoff hitter for Norlina. He coached my junior high basketball team to an undefeated season in 1958.

After dad stopped playing he didn't attend semipro baseball games often, but instead seemed satisfied to watch Major League games on our Westinghouse television. Dad drove a truck during World War II to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington and on days off he would take in some Major League baseball games. He mostly attended games in these cities when the Yankees were playing. He got to see Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio plus other Yankee greats play. Since dad was a New York Yankees fan I naturally gravitated to the pin stripes. My boyhood baseball hero was Mickey Mantle. Mantle was the greatest player I ever saw play. He had it all, speed, power, and finesse. He still holds the record for the switch hitter with the most career home runs (536). To this day I have never seen any other player lay down a drag bunt between first and second and beat it out for a base hit. Often teams would shift their infields on the right side in hopes they could field any grounder Mickey might hit, unfortunately on many occasions they had to turn and watch one of his long drives clear the right field fence. There's no better vintage baseball video a fan can watch than one where Mickey Mantle steps into the batter's box, either from the right or left side and gets in his stance for the next pitch. His stance was simply a thing of beauty; he even looked good when he struck out! Mantle won the American League Triple crown in 1956, with 52 home runs, 130 runs batted in, and a .353 batting average. Only a handful of players in either league have ever won the Triple Crown.

As a kid I liked to play baseball with other kids whenever possible. Sometimes it was difficult to get enough boys together to have two full teams so if we didn't have enough boys we made up some new rules to reflect the number of players we had. If we only had three players per team we had a pitcher, a first baseman, and a right or left fielder that doubled as a second or third baseman depending on which side of the plate the batter hit from and who the batter was. A younger boy was not likely to hit a ball into the outfield so we would play up in the infield. We were extremely lucky if some kid brought a new baseball or bat to our game. Some kids didn't have baseball gloves so when an inning was over the team coming to bat shared gloves with teams going into the field. Sometimes we could play after school on our playground, but other times there were other events which prohibited our game. One kid had a pasture in town, a field behind our house and when we played there we always had to watch for piles of cow shit for it was a working cow pasture. Several kids who lived in the country had plenty of fields for a game, but transportation to the kids field was the problem. When we finally got a game started it was indeed because of many factors coming together. Water? None of us ever thought of bringing any water to the games, and there was none nearby to drink. Plastic bottled water was not available for decades. The lack of these little bottles didn't seem to affect our play. Dehydration was a word I didn't hear much about until decades later, now we can't seem to walk a city block without fear of being dehydrated. Sunscreen? What is that? Those of us now with brown sports all over our dam face know what sunscreen is now, but then, well, the sun was good for you, well until you got burnt to hell, then the conclusion was you simply "got too much sun." A few kids wore hats to shield the sun but not wearing a hat was a sign of being cool. I had a hat, but I left it in my bedroom. If we were lucky and had a nickel after a tough baseball game we could head to the local grocery stores or better yet visit the drug store for it was air conditioned! The ladies at the drug store could make us a fountain Pepsi with lots of ice or maybe even a Cherry Coke, either one would clinch our thirst or so we thought. During those long, hot, humid North Carolina summers if I had the money I would easily put down 5-6 soft drinks per day. I didn't much like water especially if I could get a soft drink. We enjoyed playing baseball regardless of how many boys played except we never got used to the summer heat and humidity.

I've always liked the smell of new things, new clothes, shoes, baseball gloves, and of course baseball bats. I liked the aroma of baseball bats, the new ones as well as the old ones with the handles taped. Any broken bats were taped up with whatever tape was available, black friction tape or white adhesive tape. Occasionally, a bat might require hammering nails into both pieces before taping. The only bat that could never be salvaged was one broken into two pieces. I enjoyed visiting hardware stores and inspecting a wooden barrel of new baseball bats, taking them out one at a time to smell that newly lathed ash wood. I enjoyed reading the names of the major league star's autographs on the bats. I always looked for a Mickey Mantle autographed model and if I didn't find one I had serious concerns about the quality of the rest of the merchandise in that store. I owned two new bats as a youngster, a J.C. Higgins model I purchased via the Sears Catalog, and the other one my uncle bought me one summer when I helped him drill wells. I intentionally broke a bat in half one time by hitting it time and time again on a tree until it broke. I needed to boast to others I had broken a baseball bat. I sadly discovered the bat could not be mended. It had been a good bat, just the right length and weight. Maybe a broken bat was not something I needed to experience.

Sometimes watching baseball games I noticed that before some players stepped into the batter's box they often put dirt on their hands or spit in their hands and rubbed them together. I found this spitting on your hands practice totally disgusting. Some players had a jaw full of chewing tobacco and sometimes they would step out of the batter's box and spit. I also found this ritual totally disgusting. After a game was over the field was littered with big wads of moist chewing tobacco.

My little league coach told us to have the bat's trademark facing us before batting because if we didn't and hit a baseball on that trademark the bat would break. I never understood why that was the case, but when I played I always turned the trademark toward me. I noticed later major league players on TV never turned the trademark facing them, but turned them facing the opposite direction. I never found out whether hitting a ball on the trademark would cause a bat to break.

From little league to semipro, I never saw more than 3-5 new balls used during the course of a game. During a nine inning game the baseballs certainly got dirtier than when the game started, but they continued to be used until the games conclusion. There were always kids at games willing to run up the foul balls for the home team manager for a free admission. On game days when I had no money I asked the team's manager to let me "run up balls" for free admission. One day a friend and I were assigned to run up balls, but while we were running up foul ball for nine innings we found two nice balls we decided to "lose"until the game was over. A few hours after the game we returned to "find" those baseballs to take home. There was one semipro game one Sunday played in a misty rain. The moisture made it impossible to keep the few baseballs dry, but one imaginative player pulled his car down next to the home team's bench and in between innings he took 1-2 balls and placed them in front of the heat vents to dry them as much as possible. The balls never got entirely dry, but they were better than soggy baseballs. I don't remember the players name but I was running up balls that day so I helped him hold the balls next to the heat vent.

The umpires for semipro games were usually local men, someone team managers trusted to call balls and strikes fairly. There was only one other umpire on the field and just before a game a volunteer would be coaxed from the stands to make calls in the infield and outfield. He usually set up somewhere just off the infield. There were a few games where the behind the plate umpire had no protective gear so he set up behind the pitcher and called balls and strikes from that position. I don't recall a semipro game where at some point during the game a player or manager or both didn't contest a call made by an umpire and get into a big argument, but it was all part of the game.

I loved the hardnosed play of the semipro players, guys sliding into second, men trying to make a double play without fear of being spiked, players caught in a run down between bases not hesitating to run over the man with the ball if he thought he could jar the ball loose, and players falling into the bleachers trying to catch a fly ball. These men played hard on the weekends and most returned to a hot tobacco field early Monday morning.

There were no admission fees for semipro games, but at some point during the game the home team manager solicited someone to "pass the hat." Those in attendance would put whatever amount of money they thought the game was worth to them in the hat and pass the hat to the next person seated in the stands. The manager's expectation was that there would be enough money in the hat to pay the umpires and to cover the cost of new baseballs for the game. The system seemed to work. My dad briefly managed the local semipro team one summer in the late fifties. He bought new balls and several new bats but I don't recall him requesting the hat passed around.

I went out for a Pony League team in 1956 which included mostly seventh and eighth graders and a few sixth graders with above average baseball skills. I was not talented enough to make the team, thus I wound up on a Little League team. The next year I went out for the Pony League team again and this time I made the squad and played in half of those games. I got no hits during the entire season, but I did get walked a lot, being so small the pitchers had a hard time finding my strike zone. My biggest thrill during the season was when our coach had me go in and pitch the last three innings in two games where we had big leads. Why he had me pitch I have no idea, I certainly didn't ask to pitch and I never even threw batting practice, but I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to stand on the mound, wind up, and try to throw strikes. I did manage to strike out two batters in one of these games. I never got to pitch again and I never thought about pitching again either. I played right field my last year in Pony League. I was leadoff batter and reached first base half of the time, mostly walks again, but I did manage to go three for three in two games.

My high school baseball career was rather short lived. I went out for the team my sophomore year and although I was on the team I never played one inning the entire season. Coach worked me out at first base and I found the new position much harder than playing right field in Pony League. You had to be alert all the time whereas in right field I had time to observe birds flying over or time to take my glove off and check my nails for dirt. Anyway, at first I found that the ball was getting to me much faster than I preferred, in addition everyone else on the team was older, larger, stronger, and better than I was. Although there were some days I thought I could play with these guys, like the day we had an intrasquad game and I hit a double down the right field line, I thought I was pretty good after that game. At the end of the 1960 season I retired from organized baseball. My career numbers were off the charts, 0 hits, 0 runs batted in, and a .000 batting average. I have never regretted my decision.

My contact with baseball after high school was confined to mostly to observing games in front of a black and white television. I became familiar with the names of all the teams, the managers, the players and their positions. The TV announcers who got me hooked on watching major league games was Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner. Buddy kept you current with, score, innings, next batter, etc, but "Ole Diz," well there has never been another who could just make you feel a part of it and make you comfortable with the game no matter which teams were playing or what the score was. At the beginning of every game Buddy would give opening remarks then introduce Dizzy, then Dizzy come on and say, "howdy podners," you felt like you were in the booth with these men! I loved to hear Dizzy say, "thar she goes,' in reference to a player's home run. Other times I loved to hear him introduce Yogi Berra coming to bat with men on base, "here comes good old Yogi to the plate," and Yogi was quite a clutch player with men on base. And when Dizzy referred to a sharp hit to the outfield he referred to it as "a blue darter." When Ryne Duren came to the Yankees from Kansas City in 1957 I immediately selected him as one of my favorites. When the Yankees were on TV and Duren came in the relieve the starter Diz would utter, "And from the Yankees bullpen comes old Ryne Duren." He would make some comments about Duren's eyesight and the very next pitch I saw Duren throwing the baseball over Yogi's head. When Duren came into the game Diz mentioned Yogi would need a larger catcher's mitt to handle Duren's pitches. Duren did at times have control issues, but he had some velocity on his fastball. Later Diz teamed with Pee Wee Reese, but Diz carried the show and he was who I preferred to listen to.

In 1957 I was collecting quite a few baseball cards, but day after day going to the same grocery stores, I realized it wasn't much use buying more cards with more gum for I kept getting the same players' cards. I was envious of my neighbor because he got to buy baseball cards while visiting Richmond so when he returned he had cards of different players I didn't have and couldn't get. I couldn't trade any of my cards with him because he already had all of those so I was constantly frustrated. One day a friend mentioned he'd heard that some major league baseball players would send kids an autograph picture if they wrote a nice letter requesting one. I thought, what the heck, might as well try, so I wrote a letter to Mickey Mantle, but never received a response. Another player I really liked was a first baseman for the Washington Senators, Roy Seivers. In 1957 Roy hit 42 home runs which led the American League. Sometimes I pulled for the Senators when they played teams other than the Yankees. They never won many games so I felt sorry for them and allowed myself occasionally root for them. I drafted my letter and took it to the post office to mail hoping Roy Seivers would respond. Several weeks went by, and I had forgotten all about sending my request for an autograph picture. One afternoon, as I did most days, I went to the post office to get the family mail. I dialed in our secret combination on the two dials and opened the box and pulled out our mail. As I sorted through several letters and as I neared the end of the stack of mail there it was, an autographed postcard picture of Roy Seivers! There was no message or anything just my address on the reverse side, but I didn't care, I had an autographed picture of Roy Seivers! I have treasured that picture all of my life and I still have it. Roy Seivers would never know how special that picture was to me.

In 1959 I attended two Carolina League Class B minor league baseball games. At the time the Carolina League featured teams from across North Carolina. I saw a game in Durham at Durham Athletic Park on Duke Street that featured Dick McAuliffe, who would later play for the Detroit Tigers on the 1968 World Championship team. Also on that same Bulls team was a pitcher, Mickey Lolich, who would go on to have a pretty good career pitching for the Tigers. That same year I saw another game at Raleigh's Devereaux Meadow which was just off Capital Boulevard. I saw Carl Yastrzemski play with the Raleigh Capitals. Yaz went on to play 22 years with the Boston Red Sox. He led the Carolina League in batting in 1959 with a .377 batting average. It is well documented by many sports writers that Yaz played "in the shadow" of Ted Williams and maybe so early, but once he career was over and you look back on his accomplishments he didn't play second fiddle to anyone. During his career he had over 3,000 hits, few players have done that. He had over 450 home runs over his career and in 1967 he was the American League MVP while winning the Triple Crown and few major league players have won a Triple Crown. He holds his own place in major league baseball history.

The first Major League baseball game I attended was August 30, 1960 in Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. with my dad and a cousin. I was excited to see Mickey Mantle, but unfortunately Mantle went 0-4 that day and the Yankees lost 3-1. Hector Lopez hit a home run in the ninth inning. Perhaps the biggest excitement of my day was when my cousin asked me to give him the baseball I brought for he was going to the Yankee dugout to get an autograph. When he got down to the dugout area the closest player was none other than Enos Slaughter. My cousin said, "Hey Enos, you want to sign a Norlina ball?" Enos replied, "Why sure I'll sign it." I was so excited and pleased my cousin was willing to get my ball autographed. I kept the ball for many years, but one day my son wanted a baseball to play with, but the autographed ball was the only ball I had so I gave it to him. Soon the ball had dirt and grass stains all over it and I couldn't read the Slaughter autograph. I still kept the ball for years, but the last time we moved I got rid of the baseball and my baseball glove I had bought from a friend who needed some quick spending cash one day. Enos Slaughter had a good career with the Cardinals before being traded to the Yankees in 1954. He wound up with a .300 lifetime batting average and was elected to the Major Leagues' Hall of Fame in 1985. Slaughter was originally from Roxboro, North Carolina and retired to the area after he left baseball. One Saturday night in the late fifties dad, two cousins, and me went to Roxboro to see our local semipro baseball team in a tournament. When we arrived Roxboro was playing another team and Robert Slaughter, Enos' brother was just stepping in to bat. Before we got our snack and found seats Robert hit a home run, I mean a blast, over the center field wall. I sat there the rest of the night trying to figure out why Robert Slaughter was still playing semipro ball and not in the majors. Our local team lost their tournament game later that evening.

I traveled with my dad again to Griffith Stadium in Washington on August 13, 1961 to see a Sunday doubleheader featuring Maris and Mantle who were locked up in a race to unseat Babe Ruth as the all time major league home run king. In the first game Mantle (No. 45) and Maris (No. 44) both hit home runs, but the Yankees lost the game 12-2. In the first game I got to see Al Downing pitch his first major league baseball game. Al went on to play for 17 years in the majors with the Yankees and three other teams. In the second game Maris (no.45) hit his second home run of the day in another losing effort, 9-4. This was the last time I saw the Yankees play and my disappointment was that in the three games, this doubleheader, plus the game I saw in 1960 the Yankees lost every game. It wasn't too long after the doubleheader Mantle went on the disabled list and did not return the remainder of the season. Maris would hit his 61st home run in the last game of the1961 season, but it took him 162 games to do so. The commissioner, Ford Frick threatened to put an asterisk by his total as he "suggested" since the Babe hit 60 in 154 games then Maris numbers were perhaps a different record as he took 8 more games to hit his 61st. The most home runs Maris hit in with the Yankees in a season after 1961 was 33 in one of his remaining five seasons in New York. Maris ended his last two years in the majors as a St. Louis Cardinal. He has never been voted into the Major League Hall of Fame (HOF). He was MVP of the American League twice, but wasn't good enough to get voted into the Hall of Fame. By the time I entered college in 1962 my interest in baseball was beginning to fade. When I was home for summer vacations I seldom watched a baseball game on television. By then the local semipro teams were defunct so I couldn't attend those games. I managed to watch a few more Yankees games especially after CBS acquired the Yankees in 1964.

In 1967 I visited Houston's famed Astrodome, the first domed stadium in the United States, and I must admit it was quite a showplace. Initially the dome had clear panels to emit sun in to help grow the grass. Early in the first baseball season it was determined that players couldn't see fly balls well, so the panels were painted. Once the project was completed the sun couldn't shine through the panels, so the grass couldn't grow. Astroturf was soon installed as a replacement for grass turf in many ball parks since it didn't wear down as fast as grass. Several cities also decided to build ball parks to house baseball and football and use Astroturf on the field. A few years later it was determined that these dual purpose ball parks were not the ideal setting for the fans, so teams begin to build new baseball only parks with real grass as the playing field. Since 2010 twenty eight major league parks returned to real grass on the baseball fields.

During the fifties the westernmost team in the Major Leagues was the Kansas City Athletics transplanted from Philadelphia in 1955. It was a sad time for New Yorkers when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the Giants moved to San Francisco for the two clubs had been great rivals. I reason that most fans if polled today would rather have the Dodgers and the Giants return instead of the Mets representing New York in the National League. The Mets have won the World Series twice, 1969 and 1986 but I doubt either win replaces the euphoria of Dodgers beating the Yankees in 1955 which was their only Series win in Brooklyn and the Giants beating the Indians in 1954. For some strange reason I never thought the Dodgers and Giants would remain on the west coast. After they relocated to California the distance and time change reduced the fan base even more than the initial fan disenchantment over the move to the west coast. I never cared for either team, especially anytime they defeated the Yankees. I do remember listening to a few west coast games late at night in the early sixties, but it was 11-12 o'clock at night! One night the announcer was describing a long drive by Duke Snider in the L.A. Coliseum that seemed to take three days to clear the 440 feet right field wall. I wondered why anyone would try to play a baseball game in a stadium especially built for football. At the time of the move the only stadium available in Los Angeles was the Coliseum, a 90,000 seat football stadium, but the Dodgers did manage to attract very large crowds which brought in more money for the owners. I listened to several of these late Dodger games because having a west coast major league team was unique. My fondest memory was the stretch of games in 1968 when Don Drysdale pitched 58 straight innings of scoreless baseball and I listened to all of the games.

Even though I was still a Yankees fan I opted to follow other teams too. I finally reasoned that it would be OK to pull for the Yankees in the American League but pull another team in the National League. My first National League pick was the Cincinnati Red legs (later shortened to Reds). In 1957 when fans picked the All Star team Cincinnati fans saw to it that Reds players got the most votes to start in 7 positions. Stan Musial and the pitcher Curt Simmons of the Phillies were to be the other 2 starters. The commissioner stepped in and put Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in the lineup in place of Wally Post and Gus Bell. In all 5 Red legs started the game. After that game the coaches, managers, and players started picking the squads until 1970 when once again the fans were allowed to vote for their choices, not necessarily voting for the players having the best seasons but picking their favorite players. Anyway, I decided to pull for the Red legs because I liked their red and white uniforms since my dad's semipro teams' uniforms were red and white. I also liked the Red legs' sleeveless shirts because they were very different. My final reason for pulling for the Red legs was because I had second baseman Johnny Temple's autographed baseball glove.

After a few short years I switched my National League allegiance to the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was nice to pull for a team I could regularly hear on the radio. Bob Prince was the radio announcer and he kept my interest in listening. I liked Dick Groat, the Pirates shortstop, who was a Duke graduate. He was also a great basketball player at Duke and was All American in 1951-52. His scoring record in 1952 of 48 points in a game against UNC stood until 1988 when Danny Ferry broke the record by scoring 58 against Miami. Groat was National League MVP in 1960 and also won the National League batting title that year. He always felt he was a better basketball player than the baseball player and while at Duke he participated in both sports. I never saw him play basketball, but I did see him play baseball and I thought he was pretty good.

One night in 1959 I listened to a game when Pirates pitcher Harvey Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves only to lose in the 13th when Joe Adcock hit a home run marred by some base running confusion by Hank Aaron. After Adcock hit the home with Felix Mantilla on he scored but Aaron failed to complete touching all the bases so his run did not count nor did Adcock's home run count since he passed Aaron running the bases, but the umpires ruled Mantilla's run stood and the Braves won 1-0. Haddix never got credit for a no hitter because the major league baseball rule is a no hitter is when a pitcher completes 9 or more innings without allowing a hit and Haddix was pitching in the thirteenth when Adcock hit the home run. What an unforgettable game.

Another Pirate pitcher I liked was Elroy Face, one of the first big time major league relievers. In 1959 Face went through a stretch where he won 17 straight games in relief and I was on hand to either listen or watch most of those games. Face wound up with an 18-1 record for the season. His most famous pitch was a fork ball and I remember a TV interview where Face showed the grip he used on the ball, I tried to learn how to throw the Face forkball but had no success.

The last Major League game I attended was in Cincinnati in 1976, the Reds vs. the Mets. We arrived a little late and as we entered the right field section where our seats were there was a roar from the partisan Reds crowd. As we neared our seats a baseball landed two rows in front of us. Pete Rose had just hit a home run with a man on in the bottom of the first inning. We missed the Mets scoring a run in the top half of the inning and the game ended 2-1 Reds. Has ANYONE played the game harder or loved the sport more than Pete Rose? The guy gave it all, most hits in the Major League, even more hits than Cobb! He was also one of the greatest switch hitters of all time. It's a shame Rose will never be elected to the Major League Hall of Fame.

Other players who made impressions on me.

Rocky Colavito - Colavito played for the Cleveland Indians. He had 374 home runs over his thirteen year career and between 1958-1962 he hit over 35 home runs each year, but still to date he is not in the Hall of Fame. When I watched him on TV I loved what he did with his bat before stepping into the batter's box. He took the bat and pulled it from behind his neck all the way down his back holding the bat with both arms. I've never seen anyone else then or now do that, I like it so much I mimicked it when I played little league baseball. Sometimes between pitches Rocky would step out of the box and repeat his move.

Harmon Hillebrew – For a long time I fantasized about Killebrew being a New York Yankee, but it was never to be. He started out as a Washington Senator in 1954 with the Senators later moving and becoming the Minnesota Twins. Killebrew remained a Twin for the remainder of his career. During his 22 year career he hit 573 home runs and I saw him hit quite a few on the Saturday TV games. He was never on a World Championship team but did play in one World Series against the Dodgers in 1965.

Frank Howard - Howard broke into baseball with the Dodgers and played for them for 7 years before being traded to the Washington Senators. I mostly remember him as a Senator where he played for 7 more years before ending his career in Detroit. From 1968 through 1970 he hit over forty home runs a year and led the American League in home runs in 1968 and 1970. He hit 382 home runs during his career. He had several nicknames, but for me I thought of him as the "gentle giant." He stood six feet, seven and when he stepped onto the field around other players he stood out, well because he was much bigger and when he came to bat he appeared as a man among boys. When he held the bat in his hands it looked more like a toothpick than a baseball bat. Yet to me he had a gentle demeanor and if he struck out or was called out on strikes he "gently" returned to the dugout. Howard wore glasses; the only other player I remember with glasses was Ryne Duren. Frank Howard is not in the Hall of Fame.

Herb Score - In 1956 Score won 20 games with the Cleveland Indians. In 1957 he won only 2 games and for half of hid seasons in the majors he had a losing record. On May 7, 1957 Gil McDougald hit a line drive that hit Score injuring his eye. He eventually recovered from the injury but never had the same success on the mound and played only 8 major league seasons. Being left handed I always had a fondness for left handed pitchers so I pulled for him to do well especially after his injury.

Lew Burdette - Prior to the 1957 World Series I liked, somewhat, many of the Milwaukee Braves players and had most of their baseball cards in my collection. I had baseball cards of Aaron, Matthews, Spahn, Logan, Crandall, Adcock, Mantilla, Buhl, and Lew Burdette. It was Lew Burdette that forever changed my opinions about the Braves even after they relocated to Atlanta. Even in a new city with entirely different players over the decades, their runs in the post season, I couldn't support them because of Lew Burdette. The Atlanta Braves were only 250 miles from my home town, so why not pull for them; after all I supported the Redskins mainly because they were the closest team to my home town. Burdette came into the 1957 Series and beat Bobby Shantz 4-2 in the second game, pitching a complete game. Four days later he returned and beat Whitey Ford 1-0, again another complete game. He has defeated my Yankees twice and two of my favorite pitchers. I mean what's this guy doing? Then as if two wins weren't enough he pitched the 7th and final game and goes all the way besting Yankee starter and perfect game winner in the 1956 series, Don Larsen, 5-0. The man pitched 27 innings giving up only 2 earned runs and only a handful of pitchers ever did that. Burdette did it, he beat my Yankees and at the time I was as loyal a Yankees fan as there was and for Burdette to do that was totally unacceptable! Burdette had an 18 year career winning 20 games only two times, but only had 3 losing seasons during that span. Over his career he didn't have many strikeouts, but is third all time in fewest walks which is a good statistic to own. He was also the winning pitcher against the Pirates' Harvey Haddix in the famous 12 perfect innings game. Burdette is not in the Hall of Fame.

Tony Kubek- Kubek played only 9 years, but was on 6 World Series Championship teams with the Yankees. In a World Series game against the Pirates in 1960 Bill Virdon hit a ground ball that took a bad hop hitting Kubek in the throat. I was watching the game that day and I can still see Kubek getting in position to make a play. He later discovered he had an earlier injury which could have exacerbated the throat injury thus collectively the injuries would shorten his career and in 1966 he retired at age 29.

Bobby Shantz – Shantz broke into the majors with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1949. In 1956 he was traded to the Yankees where he remained for 4 years. His best year was in 1952 as an Athletic when his record was 24-7 and he was named American League MVP. The most games he won as a Yankee was 11 in 1957. Before the designated hitter was introduced pitchers batted and in 1951 Shantz batted .252 with 18 hits in 72 at bats, which is not bad for a pitcher. I liked him because he was small, only five feet six, left handed, and played for the Yankees.

Elston Howard - Howard was the first African-American baseball player to play for the Yankees. His first game was April 14, 1955. Most of his career he was a catcher, but he also played outfield. When he joined the Yankees he played behind Berra so it took a while for him to establish himself. In 1963 he was named American League MVP, the first African-American to win that honor. That year he batted .287, had 28 home runs, and 85 runs batted in. Howard played on four World Series Championship teams. He was only 51 when he passed away. He is not in the Hall of Fame.

Whitey Ford - Ford played all 16 seasons with the Yankees. He won 20 or more games only two times. In 1961 he was 25-4 winning the American League Cy Young award, and in 1963 his record was 24-7. He went 10-8 in all World Series decisions. He did not play major league baseball in 1951-52 due to military service. In 1974 he was elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. He had only had 2 losing seasons during his career and those two were his last seasons in baseball. He was left handed and I always liked his wind up and delivery to the plate, which I tried to emulate.

Earl Battey - Battey entered the majors with the Chicago White Sox in 1955. He was traded to the Senators in 1960 and was with the team when they moved to Minneapolis in 1961. He was one of the best defensive catchers at the time and was the first Twin at any position to win a gold glove which he did for 3 years, 1960-62. He hit over 20 home runs in each of 4 seasons. What I liked most about Battey was his nonchalant walk while dragging his bat behind him to the batter's box. I thought, "now there's a cool, easy going, relaxed player." The things I remember.

Hoyt Wilhelm - Wilhelm was born in Huntersville, North Carolina. Wilhelm fought for his country before baseball pursuits and was at the Battle of the Bulge. He played in the majors for 21 years with 9 different teams. I followed his career when he was with the Orioles. He was a relief pitcher during his stint, but did start some games. To be able to play a game you love for two decades is what any athlete in any sport would desire to do and for Wilhelm to be able to do that might be better than a shortened career with a bunch of records. If you truly love to play a game, you want to play as much as you can regardless of the level, little league or major league. He learned early how to throw a knuckle ball and that pitch probably gave him longevity. Oriole's catchers needed a larger mitt to handle his knucklers. As a Giant in 1952 he had the lowest earned run average in the National League, 2.43. In 1959 he had the lowest earned run average at 2.19 with the Orioles in the American League. He did pitch a no hitter against the Yankees in 1958. He never had a 20 win season but did gain entry into the Hall of Fame.

Truman Clevenger - Tex was a nickname given to him by a teammate early in his baseball career. Clevenger spent 9 years in the majors, 5 years as a reliever with the Senators, but never won more than 9 games in a season. When I watched or listened to a Senators game I just liked to hear the announcer say, "now coming in to pitch for the Senators, Trooooooman Clevenger," he seemed to say the name so seriously, I just liked his announcement.

Joe Collins – Joe spent 10 years with the Yankees mostly at first base and appeared in 7 World Series. His best season was 1952 when he hit 18 home runs and batted .280. When the Yankees opted to trade him to the Phillies in 1958 Collins retired and stated as he walked away, "If I can't be a Yankee I'm through with baseball." Reading our morning paper the next day I read Collins' quote and never forgot it. I don't know of any other athlete quitting or retiring because he couldn't remain on his current team. He was a vital cog on a good early fifties infield with Carey, McDougald, and Martin. I always respected his decision to retire.

Don Larsen – Anyone living in the fifties who followed major league baseball remembers Larsen's perfect game. Unfortunately I was in school during the game so I had to listen to the game wrap up later on TV and read about it next morning in our copy of the Durham Morning Herald. Who can forget the last pitch which was a final strike to Dale Mitchell to end the game and to see Yogi running out to jump on Larsen to give him a bear hug? The famous "no windup" that some sports experts believe helped Larsen achieve the perfect game would become a staple over time with many pitchers. To pitch a game with no runs, no hits, no errors, no base runners, no nothing in a World Series game, well it just hasn't happened before or since. He went to a three ball count one time the entire game! Larsen spent 15 years in the majors and lost more games than he won and the most games he ever won in a season was in 1956 as a Yankee when he won eleven. He did have a winning record as a pitcher with the Yankees. He was the 1956 World Series MVP. It's still one of the few "big games" in my life during the fifties and sixties that I didn't see and I still regret that.

Curt Flood - Flood should probably be remembered more for his accomplishments off the field than on. I hope today's players are aware of what he did to make possible the big contracts and free movement between teams. He took on the establishment at a time where it took guts and for him even more so because he was African-American. After a good year in 1969 Flood was given a raise in salary, but he informed management the raise was not enough. The Cards decided to trade him to the Phillies but Flood refused to be traded and under the reserve clause was not allowed to talk to other clubs. He sent a letter to the commissioner requesting free agency, but the commissioner said no. Flood took his case all the way to the Supreme Court and lost. But in 1970 the owners and players came up with a new agreement that would allow players to go to independent arbitration to settle grievances and from then on things improved. In 1975 an arbitrator threw out the reserve clause. In 1998 Congress passed the Curt Flood Act which effectively removed major league baseball from its antitrust exemption. Flood died in 1997 and never got to experience the new freedom of movement and negotiating power players had. Somewhere along the way someone flies a lonely flag and decides something is wrong with the way things are and vows that however long it takes change will come, that person was Curt Flood.

Rip Repulski - Repulski spent 9 years in majors as an outfielder. He was with the Cards for four years and his best year was 1955 where he had 23 homers, 73 runs batted in, and a .270 batting average. His career batting average was .269. I liked his name, Rip Ripsulski, you got to like Rip Repulski.

Ritchie Ashburn – Ashburn played centerfield for Phillies for 12 of his 15 years in the majors. Ritchie had a lifetime batting average of .308 and had over 2500 hits. He only hit 29 home runs over his career. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1995. He led the league in batting in 1955 and 1958 and got over 200 hits per season 3 times. I loved the bat he used, same as Nellie Fox, one with a thicker handle than most bats. I hoped our little league team would get such a bat but they never did.

FOOTBALL

In the early fifties my high school, Norlina High School (NHS) (grades 1-12, called a union school) played football games on the field next to the school building that was also used during school hours for a play ground. The games were played Friday afternoons after school. Sometimes Norlina High played night games in Warrenton, on John Graham High School's field since they had lights and when John Graham had an away game. When our school got the lights I started going with dad until I was old enough to want to go with my friends. Dad never liked to sit in the bleachers; he walked the sidelines following each play. The sidelines were roped off and set back about ten yards from the playing field to keep fans from entering the field. The sidelines were grass and by game time the grass was wet so as I walked up and down the sideline my shoes got wet and I was uncomfortable the rest of the game. Wet shoes didn't seem to bother my dad. During the week our coach used to cut the grass on the field with a small push mower. The mowing took so long that by the time he finished it was time to start over. If you were the coach you cut the grass, lined off the playing field, set up the snack bar, and if you had any time left you prepared the team for the upcoming game and maybe even prepared to teach five classes the next day because you were primarily hired to teach, the coaching was secondary. Or was it?

Norlina High's lights were installed on a new football field constructed next to the playground in 1954. Our school colors were navy blue and white. For the away games the uniforms were all blue while for home games the team wore white jerseys with the same blue pants. There were no nose guards unless a player broke their nose and thus had one specially installed on their helmet. Walter Hundley, an NHS halfback in the early fifties, had a special nose guard so he could play. A year or two after that the entire team had those clear plastic looking face masks that covered a good part of a players face. A few years later the team switched to the single bar across the front of the helmet. The uniform consisted of, jersey, pants, helmet, shoulder pads, hip pads, and leather shoes with cleats which the players had to buy. The shoes were high tops and the only color choice was black. Our team used mostly old worn out game jerseys and pants for practice sessions. No one wore gloves or any kind of "stick 'um" on their hands to help catch the football better. No quarterbacks had hand towels hanging out of the front of their pants. No quarterbacks had the plays attached to their wrists. For night games the teams used a white ball with black stripes. The NFL stopped using the white ball for night games in 1956 replacing the ball with the brown leather with white striped ball. I liked the white ball, you sure could see it better. I still have a picture of myself in my football uniform holding a white football (see book cover) with the black stripes as if I'm preparing to throw a pass. I also had my red helmet on which I later painted, blue, then repainted white, then threw the helmet in the garbage can. You could throw football helmets in the garbage in the fifties.

The first games I attended were the games played in the afternoon. Since I was already at school all I had to do was walk from the school building to the playground to watch the game. What I liked most about those early high school football games was the anticipation of seeing what colors the opposing team's uniforms were. I doubt anyone else ever had such a bizarre expectation. During school before those afternoon games I used to speculate as to what colors the visiting team might wear. To this day I remember Rich Square wore red and white, Aulander wore green and white, Windsor wore gold and navy blue, Littleton was royal blue and white. As far as the play by play action of any game I have no recollection whatsoever. Most of what I remember was players running one way for a while and then the same players running the other way for a while. There was a lot of cheering from the side of the field where the team that scored a touchdown's fans were seated.

Watching college and pro games on TV I was beginning to better analyze what the offense wanted to do against the defense to score. Watching high school games had been much harder because you never had a good view of the field. Standing on the sidelines you saw little and if you got a bleacher seat the view wasn't that much better. About all you saw was one player running wide right or wide left until he got tackled or chased out of bounds. Often it appeared to me, given all the cheering, that the back was making a big gain only to discover when the official marked the ball very little yardage had been made. Once in a while there was a pass, but most nights, most of the passes were either tossed over the receiver's head or thrown too short. A completed pass was a real game highlight. In the early fifties our high school teams weren't very good and lost more than they won until about 1957 and 1958 when they won six games each season, then in 1959 they had an undefeated season and made it all the way to the semifinals in the state championship finals before losing. The 1959 team was the best team Norlina High School ever put on the field.

To be able to see a real college football game on a college campus was a big thrill for me. My dad took my sister and me to our first college football game in November of 1955 at Duke University which pitted Duke against in state rival Wake Forest College. Duke had a quarterback named Sonny Jurgensen and a halfback, Bob Paschall who were pretty good players. When we got to our seats in Duke Stadium we noticed our seats were wet as it had rained earlier in the day. I wasn't too excited about sitting on a wet plank for three plus hours but I had no choice. Duke won the game that day 14-0. I recall when Duke changed from an offensive possession to playing defense 4-5 new players came onto the field to replace 4-5 offensive players coming off the field. Bob Paschall was also the punter and punted the ball further than I had yet experienced from punters in the high school games. I don't remember anything about Jurgensen's game that day, but I started to follow the remainder of his college career at Duke after that. I started keeping a scrapbook of pictures from weekend college games and would do so until I got a car and my driver's license. I quickly found more to do than pasting pictures made with homemade flour paste in a dam scrapbook. In comparing Jurgensen's passing prowess for 1955, during the entire season he threw only 69 passes, completing 37 for only 536 yards total. The game has indeed changed, as there are some college quarterbacks who will throw almost 69 passes in one game. During that season Duke was ranked in the top twenty for most of the season. Bob Paschal rushed for 750 yards total for the ten game season, which in those days was pretty good. Another back, Aldridge rushed for 404 yards, so between the two of them they gained over 1,000 yards for the season. Duke ended up as co-champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) tied with the Maryland Terrapins. I started following the College football rankings that year and followed the polls each week. After Bud Wilkinson retired from coaching the Oklahoma Sooners he had his own Friday evening TV show where he showed game footage of upcoming college games and predicted which teams would win on Saturdays. I never missed a show.

During those years our local weekly newspaper, The Warren Record, had a pick the winners football contest during the college football season. Each week on the last page of the newspaper was an entry form with a list of the key matchups for the upcoming Saturday. The winners were announced in the following week's paper which circulated on Fridays. Each week I couldn't wait to get a copy of the paper to see who the winner was only to find it was not me, EXCEPT that fateful day when I opened the paper to the pick the winners page and saw MY NAME! I couldn't believe it, I'd won, I'd picked the winners. I think I won ten dollars for my efforts and I was so proud of my abilities. In high school I was in a class of only 26 and among the males except for me and maybe another boy or two none of them gave a rat's ass about sports in general, much less who was going to win a college football game, they just weren't as interested as I was. I thought finally I had a lock on a skill no one else had, maybe I could be good predicting the winners of football games since I wasn't a great athlete. I did not win any more pick the winners contests. I moved on to other pursuits.

Dad took me to Durham in November, 1957 to see Duke battle Clemson. Duke won the game 7-6. That game was the first time I saw Wray Carlton from Wallace, North Carolina play. I also saw Harvey White of Clemson play that day. He had a long run from scrimmage against the Blue Devils. In 1957 White led the ACC in pass attempts, completions, total yards, and touchdowns. Wray Carlton led the ACC in rushing with 833 total yards and averaged over 5 yards per carry. Carlton was my favorite player during his years at Duke. He went on the play with the AFL Buffalo Bills and was on the Bills' AFL Championship teams in 1964 and 1965. I also liked George Dutrow, the other Duke halfback who gained 625 yards that year.

1957 was the year Duke was expected to win the ACC Championship. They won their first five games in convincing fashion, then there was the big showdown with their biggest competition to date, N.C. State College. The Wolfpack had Dick Christy, a halfback with versatile skills. In that big matchup Duke went out to an early 14-0 lead, but eventually State, led by Christy, made a comeback and the game ended in a 14-14 tie. Both teams remained tied for the conference lead until the final Saturday when Duke went down to a UNC team they were expected to defeat, 21-13. On that last Saturday State had its hands full down in Columbia, South Carolina with the USC Gamecocks. USC managed to tie the game with about a minute left in regulation. After USC kicked off on the first play from scrimmage a State pass was intercepted and USC was thinking they had a win, but the officials ruled pass interference giving the ball back to State on the USC 30 yard line with time for about one more play. Dick Christy who had already scored all 26 points in the game attempted a 46 yard field goal which sailed straight across the uprights giving the Wolfpack a 29-26 win and their first ACC Championship. The field goal was Christy's first and only field goal in his college career. I cannot recall another game with this kind of ending. Unfortunately the game was not telecast so all I got to see were the highlights on the eleven o'clock sports news. I can still see the video of Christy making that field goal. Following a brief stint in the pros Christy was tragically killed at age 30 in a car accident in Pennsylvania. Since N.C. State was on probation that year Duke got the invitation to participate in the 1958 Orange Bowl in Miami. Duke played a very good Oklahoma team and lost 48-21. That was the last time Duke played in the Orange Bowl. Duke participated in the 1961 Cotton Bowl defeating Arkansas 7-6 and that was the last major bowl they have participated in. The early fifties into the early sixties provided me with thrilling moments each week of each season, it was the games and the players I got to watch which kept me yearning for more.

The Duke vs. UNC rivalries have always been sports events to anticipate, probably more of a basketball rivalry than football now, but in my day, the fifties and sixties, it was "the" football rivalry. Prior to 1959 the two teams had never played each other on Thanksgiving Day, but that summer the schools reached an agreement with NBC-TV to have the game on this traditional holiday. I remember the anticipation of seeing this game on TV as at that time I was a big Duke fan, starting back in 1954 after seeing Duke play Wake Forest. Plus my neighbor friend was a Carolina fan so for sure I couldn't pull for Carolina. I also looked forward to filling my face with turkey and all the fixings before the 2:00p.m. kickoff in Duke Stadium. Duke was favored to win but on that day the UNC squad did everything right while the Duke team did everything wrong. I sat there early hoping Duke would get back into the game on the next possession, but it never happened and they never scored, the final score was UNC 50, Duke 0. After the game I didn't venture outside because I didn't want to see my neighbor. He always liked to rub it in on Saturdays when UNC won and Duke lost. In July of 1959 UNC lost their head Coach Jim Tatum. He had previously coached at UNC, but after stints at Oklahoma and winning a national championship at Maryland he returned to coach at UNC in 1956. Coach Tatum was replaced by one of his assistants, Jim Hickey who went on to win a big Gator Bowl in 1963 against Air Force. My cousin, Gordon Haithcock, a junior wingback on that team, was killed in an auto accident on a rural road in Warren County on October 31, 1964.

On October 25, 1958 my granddaddy and his brother took me to Chapel Hill to see UNC play Wake Forest. UNC was led by halfback Wade Smith who later would carve out a successful career as an attorney in Raleigh and Wake's quarterback Norman Snead. On that Saturday the Deacons were no match for Carolina as the Heels won 26-7. Prior to the contest I was very familiar with Snead's play. At Wake Forest he had a productive tenure there. In 1958, his sophomore season he passed for over 1,000 yards. The following year he increased his total passing yards by 300 and in his final season he threw for almost 1700 yards. 1959 Wake Forest won 6 games, but in 1958 and 1960 they didn't win more than three games, so Snead's numbers were more impressive given the limited success of the team. In 1959 and 1960 Snead led the ACC in pass completions and total yards and also led the NCAA in pass attempts and total yards. Snead was picked second in the 1961 NFL draft by the Washington Redskins and in 1963 he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles and stayed there for 7 years. He completed his pro career with the Giants in 1976. His best year was with the Eagles in 1967 when he threw for 3399 total yards and 29 touchdowns.

Another Wake Forest player of the time was a hardnosed running back named Bill Barnes. In 1956 Barnes rushed for over 1,000 yards on a team that won only two games all season. He gained that many yards in a season when most college teams had at least three backs running the ball so gaining that many yards while sharing the load was a big accomplishment. He was the first back in ACC history to gain 1,000 yards and at a time that teams played a 10 game season. His yardage total placed him second in the country in 1956. In 1957 Barnes was drafted by the Eagles and made some Pro Bowls before being traded to the Redskins in 1962. He was on the Eagles 1960 NFL Championship team. He returned to the Eagles in 1965 and retired from pro football in 1966. I remember a picture of Barnes I cut out of the newspaper for my scrapbook which showed him late in a game all muddy running through two opposing players picking up a few hard earned yards. Barnes was also a third baseman on Wake Forest's 1955 National Championship baseball team. That year he had a .319 batting average.

On October 8, 1960 dad took me, my sister, and her boyfriend to Riddick Stadium on the campus of N.C. State College to see N.C. State and Maryland play. The game was the first college night game I ever attended. State's quarterback was Roman Gabriel, from Wilmington, N.C. The Wolfpack was down in the game early but in the second half Gabriel made a long run after being forced out of the pocket on a pass attempt and N.C. State went on to win 13-10. Also playing in that game were two brothers, Collice and Roger Moore from Littleton, Warren County, about ten miles from my home. A few years later Roger suffered a freak accident working at his father's tire store in Littleton and died. Roman Gabriel went on to have a great career in the NFL with Los Angeles Rams, was MVP of NFL in 1969, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Eagles.

In 1967 I enrolled at N.C. State University for a year to take the necessary courses to attain my secondary education teaching certificate. Since I was a full time student I could get season tickets so I decided to attend some games. I didn't have high expectations of much success of the football team, in fact when I arrived in Raleigh I hadn't given one thought to the football team. During those years male students and most male fans in general, especially older fans, dressed up in sport jackets and ties. The first game of the season was with UNC on September 16, 1967 which used to be the first game of the football season for both teams. I was ready as I put on my new plaid sport coat and navy blue tie, I thought I looked sharp. Being my first visit to Carter Stadium I wasn't that familiar with the seating arrangements. When I finally found my seat it was on the east side facing the sun and being September and having on a dam sport coat I quickly removed the coat. As the game commenced I noticed the "students" seemed to cheer more for the Tarheels than the Wolfpack, soon I realized why, my seat, unbeknownst to me was smack in the middle of the Carolina students who had made the trip over from Chapel Hill. Well, I sat and watched and did little cheering. The game was close, Carolina led 7-6 at the half, but State prevailed in the second half and won 13-7, which was the beginning of an eight game win streak. Near the end of an expected loss by the Tarheels the UNC students began an unusual cheer I've not heard before or since. When UNC had the ball with time running down the students yelled, "Dam good team, dam good team, dam good team," until time expired. There were several Wolfpack players that day I would hear often the rest of the season and beyond. Chuck Amato, one of State's linebackers was a good one, he later was a coach with Bobby Bowden at Florida State before returning to coach the Pack. Jim Donnan, the quarterback, would later coach the Georgia Bulldogs. Ron Carpenter, a defensive tackle was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals and played for seven years, and Dennis Byrd also a defensive tackle was a two time All American was drafted by the Buffalo Bills, but due to injury only played two pro seasons. Byrd returned to North Carolina to teach and coach in high school for 30 years before retiring in 2004. Byrd was also enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. The season marked the beginning of the "white shoes defense," only the defensive players wore white shoes while the offensive players wore the traditional black. The defense managed to hold their opponents to 8.5 points per game for the entire season. Perhaps the biggest win for the Pack that season was when they went to Houston to face the No. 2 Houston Cougars and Warren McVea (McVey later played for Chiefs) in the Astrodome winning 16-6. State was undefeated going to face Penn State in Happy Valley on November 11, 1967. My roommate and I went home for the weekend, but decided to return to Raleigh on Saturday to see the game on closed circuit TV in Reynolds Coliseum. The feed was awful making it hard to see very much of the action. On a late drive by State they had a first and goal and the next three plays are still vivid in my mind for they were the same three plays by the same back in the same hole and every time Penn State stopped the runner. I don't remember what State ran on fourth down but they didn't score and lost the game 13-8. Immediately after this game we drove to Greenville to take in the East Carolina and West Texas State game. ECU was coached by the legendary Clarence Stasavich. ECU was 8-2 that year playing in the Southern Conference. ECU had a thousand yard rusher in Butch Colson (1135) a tailback who ran from the single wing. West Texas State, featured Mercury Morris, who had 1447 total yards for the season. West Texas State won the game 37-13. Morris would later star with the Miami Dolphins on their undefeated team in 1972.

The following Saturday State (8-1) had to go to Clemson and Death Valley to play the Tigers in a key ACC matchup that would pretty much decide the ACC Championship. With my roommate and another friend I got up early Saturday November 18 to drive from Raleigh to Clemson, South Carolina to attend the big game. Upon arrival and after purchasing our tickets I noticed a man selling huge pictures of a Tiger and he asked did I want one, I said no, I needed a Wolf instead. Once inside the stadium and the game got started we looked around for someone selling some Cokes or other soft drinks we could mix our whiskey with but saw no one. By the half we realized, for some reason, they didn't sell concessions in the stands. We left our seats and found concessions behind the stadium, but the lines at each stand were a mile long so we gave up, kept the liquor in our pockets and walked back to our seats. Clemson's coach, Frank Howard had his team fired up all week and they expected to win. Howard's comments after the Penn State win was he was sorry they won because it "spoiled it" for Clemson, they had hoped State would come in undefeated so the Tigers could upset them. Clemson was led by quarterback Jimmy Addison, a diminutive yet very good field general who made the right plays at the right time all day and led Clemson to a 14-6 win knocking State out of the ACC Championship. State participated in the Liberty Bowl on December 16, 1967 defeating Georgia 14-7 and ending the season at 9-2.

My first experience with professional football was when I first saw the Redskins in 1954 on TV I came to really like the Redskins play by play announcers, Jim Gibbons and Eddie Gallaher. I can still remember the commercial for the games' sponsor, Amoco, "All around town for all around service, visit your Amoco dealer." These two men gave the fans key information about the game being played and that's all. They didn't try to second guess the coaches or predict what play was next, but told us simply what was going on at the time. Every telecast would begin with the playing of the "Hail to the Redskins" fight song, one of the few pro teams to have its' own fight song. At this time the Redskins were the only team in the South, but more importantly, they were the closest team, 200 miles, from my home, so naturally I pulled for them. The games were mostly on Sunday afternoon so I had plenty of time to watch. It was years before I knew the Redskins uniforms were gold and burgundy.

1957 was an exciting pro football season for me. The Redskins games were carried every Sunday by one of our local channels. Ed Sutton, a former UNC halfback, had recently been drafted by Washington, as had two other rookies, Jim Podoley from Purdue and Don Bosseler from Miami of Florida. The Redskins had three rookies in the backfield to go along with veteran quarterback Eddie LeBaron, one of my dad's favorite players. I was particularly interested in Sutton as I'd seen him in a few UNC live games on TV Saturdays plus the delayed broadcast shown every Sunday on UNC-TV. I wanted him to play well and I was happy for him when he scored touchdowns. He managed to gain 407 yards in his first year, his best year, and scored 5 touchdowns. He played for the Redskins for only 3 seasons and a total of only 4 seasons.

Sonny Jurgensen was drafted by the Philadelphia out of college and was on Eagles NFL championship team in 1960. Jurgensen was traded to the Redskins by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1964 for Norm Snead. By the time Sonny was traded to the Redskins he was my favorite player. It was reported over the years that Sonny enjoyed "the night life" and over a few seasons developed a bit of what we called a "beer gut." Anyway, it became obvious as time went on that he labored to run past many defenders, but if he had time which was not often as the Redskins pass protection was not always that good he could throw the football. One time a reporter asked Jurgensen about his "middle" and did it affect his passing to which Sonny responded that it was not a problem as he didn't throw with his stomach! I thought that was a good reply to a dumb ass question. In 1967 Jurgensen threw 508 passes and completed 288, the most of his pro career. He never played on great teams in Washington, but he managed to lead the NFL in passing for five years. Sonny was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1983. He is from Wilmington, North Carolina.

The most bizarre Redskin game I ever watched on TV was November 27, 1966 when they played the Giants and the final score was Redskins 72, Giants 41. It seemed neither team could stop the other for very long. Even though Washington scored 72 points Jurgensen only threw 16 passes the entire game and completed 10. The Redskins had 132 total passing yards for the day while the Giants managed 278 yards through the air. Charley Taylor had 124 of the Redskins total yards with pass catches. He went on the have a great 13 year career with the Redskins and was one of the first of the great outside receivers. Taylor was enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame in 1984.

Jim Brown was considered by many to be the greatest offensive pro football player of the fifties and sixties and many will attest he's still the greatest ever when compared to the players of recent decades. I think it's hard to make comparisons between athletes because you build your criteria as to why they're the greatest then someone comes along and says, "yes, but what about these stats, etc, etc." I like to look at the years they played and look at who else played then, look at the rules, the fields, the equipment, the preparation for a season, the off season training, who else was on the team and how good were they? By the time I analyze all these factors my conclusion still is, there have been some really great players then and now, but let's just say they're all great and leave it at that? Back to Jim Brown, he was a hard runner, bruising runner, big runner when he played. He suited up and played the game as a pro and the Browns were pretty dam good when he was on the field. I doubt many are aware that in 1961 and 1962 Brown caught over 40 passes each year not to mention all the yards on the ground he amassed. In the nine years he played there were only two years where he didn't rush for over a thousand yards and in those two years he was over 900 yards, all done at a time most halfbacks weren't gaining many yards in a season. Also I mention, for example, in 1963 he rushed for over 1,800 yards in 12 games, not four additional regular season games like today's' backs. And when he was in his prime, I mean what else could he have accomplished, he walked away from the game at age twenty nine. At the time he was doing some acting and decided he wanted to do something else with his life. How many players walk away at the height of their pro careers? Perhaps more important for Jim Brown is his legacy fighting for social justice in this country. What I disliked most about Jim Brown the player was that of all the Redskins games with the Browns I saw on TV I rarely saw a game where the Redskins won and Jim Brown was most of the reason, the Redskins had a hard time figuring out a way to stop him. Now there were games where the "Skins had a lead and it looked like they would finally win, but at the end the scoreboard showed the Browns had more points than the "Skins, so another loss. The Redskins did manage to beat the Browns one time in 1955 and twice in 1956, but the rest of the fifties they returned to the lockers rooms with losses.

Watching enough pro football I noticed that for each team there were different 11 players on the offensive team and 11 different players on the defensive side. In high school I noticed when teams changed from offense to defense a few different players ran onto the field, but not 11 new players. In the mid sixties college teams switched to a mostly two platoon system, one offensive team and one defensive team. Later a third team, special team, was added for fourth down punt situations, kick offs, or field goal attempts.

I didn't hear too much about the great defensive players in the fifties except I remember one defensive back, Jim Patton of the Giants on TV doing a cigarette commercial. Then came the rivalry between Jim Brown and the Giant's Sam Huff and a lot of talk about how Huff was going to stop Brown. Anyway I knew of Sam Huff as a great linebacker and soon there were more. I also remember Bill George of the Bears because he was from Wake Forest. Gino Marchetti of the Colts was a great defensive end and later made a bunch of money with a chain of fast food restaurants. Most football experts rank him as one of the best defensive players ever. Dick Butkus was also one of the first defensive "big names" in the NFL and is considered one of the best ever to play the position. After football he did some acting and some sports commentary. My favorite linebackers in the NFL were two men from our Big Four schools, UNC and Duke. Chris Hanberger from UNC played for the Redskins and had a wonderful 14 year career ending up in the NFL Hall of Fame in 2011. The other player, Mike Curtis from Duke, has not yet been inducted into the Hall, but when I watched these men play on Sundays what I remember most was that on most plays they either made a tackle or were somehow involved in the play. They played every down and gave a supreme effort.

I used to enjoy watching the College All-Star games. The games were played in August at Soldier Field in Chicago for 40 of the 42 years they were played. Three of the years I watched the All-Stars won, beating the Browns in 1955, the Lions in 1958, and the Packers in 1963. I loved the challenge, the best college players coming out of college taking on the NFL's best, how much better could it get? For me it also signaled the beginning of the football season and a few exhibition games

In 1960 we welcomed the new kid on the block, the American Football League (AFL). With the new league there were new teams, unknown players, and different stadiums and that was exciting. The games were originally telecast by ABC mostly on Sundays so I had a choice between the AFL and the NFL. If there were two games in both leagues being played at the same time I switched back and forth if one game became more interesting than the other. I was sixteen years old and what I saw from the AFL games was more explosive offenses with more passing and more willingness to call unexpected plays and that interested me. I wanted these new teams to succeed and give the hometown fans a team to support. I had no idea what direction the league would go but I thought it was fun as a young fan to have a choice. Initially I had one AFL team I liked, the Buffalo Bills because Wray Carleton, a halfback from Duke, was on the team. Once Joe Namath came into the league I switched allegiances to the New York Jets. Unfortunately I had to listen to the radio for most of the Jets games because the AFL Sunday game was not always featuring the Jets. I can still hear the Jets announcer, "Jets come to the line, flankers left and right (they would be Don Maynard, George Sauer, or Bake Turner)." I learned to pull for those guys receiving Namath passes. I also liked the two man pro set backfield of Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer, which coupled with Namath and the receiving corps gave the Jets a great offense. But that was nothing compared to the hipe over the Third Super Bowl, the Jets against the Baltimore Colts, where before the game Namath guaranteed the Jets would win. On that famous day he was in total control, managed the game quite well, completed 17 of 28 passes and came away with a 16-7 victory. Unitas was inserted into the game for the Colts but was not able to bring them back. The most important outcome of the game at the time was the first Super Bowl victory by an AFL team.

The next year the Kansas City Chiefs repeated the feat with a victory over the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7. Shortly after that win the leagues merged into the current NFL. Today's Super Bowl with all the pre and post game hoopla has become a different game and since people pay a lot of money to see other kinds of entertainment other than the game its fine with me. It's become a rich man's leisure activity. I watch, but when all this other stuff starts I mute the sound or go get a snack, I'm entertained enough by the game.

As I got older I tried to better understand what the teams were trying to do on the field. One way was to identify the formations they were in and to try and pick up on the handoff from the quarterbacks and determine who actually was carrying the ball. I learned during the fifties the "T" formation was a standard formation not only for high school teams, but colleges and the pros. Some credit George Halas, coach of the Chicago Bears, with creating this formation. Once in a while I saw a winged T with one back being split out from his usual position next to the fullback. In those days the quarterback called the plays in the huddle and seldom did play calls come from the sidelines. Sometimes coaches would send subs in with a play call or at critical downs they would call a timeout and the quarterback would come over to the coach and get the play call. With the "T" formation the offense had two halfbacks, a right and left half, a fullback and the quarterback. The line had 2 ends, 2 tackles, 2 guards, and the center. There were no "tight ends" or split ends or wide receivers in those days. Most of the plays were running plays with the halfbacks doing most of the running, running around left or right end or running through holes in the line. Between each linemen the space or "holes to run through" were numbered, even numbers on one side and odd numbers on the other side. The backs were numbered, so when the team huddled after a play the quarterback called the play by the first number, the number of the back like left half was 1, so play 12 was the left half running through the number 2 hole which was off guard, left or right depending on how that team's numbering system was set up. Halfback sweeps were called, halfback 1 sweep right around right end or halfback 2 sweep around left end. My favorite play call in high school was the halfback sweep, run/pass option where the right or left half would get the handoff from the quarterback and sweep right or left and he had the option of running if the side of the field was open, if not, looking down field for an open receiver. I only saw this play called 2-3 times per game, but when it worked it was a big play. Most of the game was confined to running for two plays, then if third down was short yardage the team would run again, if third and long a pass play would be called. I liked the game being played this way because I liked to see players running the ball rather than so many long incomplete passes as I often saw. As I attended the college games I noticed they seemed to play a similar way, run 2 downs, pass if the down was third and long. Recently I reviewed the stats from college games in the fifties and found in some instances a team only threw maybe 100 passes the entire year! The game today has been changed, pass first almost every play, occasionally run, but teams are mostly pass oriented. The plays now are communicated from somewhere in the stands to the coaches on the sideline to the quarterback. From the fan perspective it appears the quarterback has little say in the play calling, although at times during a game in a timeout maybe the QB gets to negotiate some of the plays with the coaches.

Viewing video footage of games from the fifties and sixties I found that there was quite a bit of deception between the quarterback taking the snap and the final ball carrier getting the ball. The quarterback might fake to the right half going one way, fake to the fullback up the middle, then hand off to the left half going another way. There was more faking handoffs to backs than one might think. When there was a halfback sweep the plays called for 2-3 backs being out front blocking on the corners or down field.

There were a few teams that employed the single wing where the quarterback was not under center but in a crouch position just behind and between the right guard and right tackle. This player was used often to block for the runner. Most of the running plays were by the tailback who got a direct snap (much like many quarterbacks today at all levels) and maybe ran left, right, or up the middle or spun around and handed it off to the remaining back or faked a handoff and kept the ball for a run. This play is similar to plays every team at every level runs today, the formation today is called the shotgun or pistol, a direct snap to the quarterback who puts the ball in the tailbacks gut, or keeps the ball while he reads the defense and at the last minute pulls the ball out and runs or hands it off to the tailback.

The players decades ago were much smaller than they are today. Recently, I reviewed the rosters of some college teams in the thirties and found that UNC's1932 varsity football roster had only three players weighing 200 pounds. Compare that stat to the latest college football varsity roster. Just how much larger will players get? Many teams of past decades had backs who weighed 150-175 pounds. There were injuries then as now, but I wonder today how many injuries occur because of the sheer size of the players. Take offensive linemen, they all wear these knee braces, yet there are still injuries. On every play big guys, offensive and defensive, hit the ground and since these guys have so far to fall I wonder what impact their size can have on injuries.

I detest it when I try to watch a pro game and after a dead ball the cameraman focuses on the quarterback waiting to get the play call from the sideline. Gone are the days the quarterback on the field made the call and managed the team. Johnny Unitas did a pretty good job managing the Baltimore Colts. Everything now is controlled by the sidelines or the booth. Coaches have to cover their mouths with their play sheets while they talk to players for fear someone from the opposing team is observing their every word from afar in an attempt to find out what the next play is. Now really, what in the world can an opposing team determine by using binoculars to spy on the opposing team's coaching staff? Every team has its own play language so even if a guy with binoculars is lip reading every word how can he interpret what the words mean as far as a play is concerned? This I think is going way overboard.

Team officials at all levels talk about safety each and every year and certainly the equipment is much safer than a generation ago, but what about blocking and tackling techniques, are they as safe as they could be? Decades ago a tackle was when the defensive player put his shoulder into the thighs of the runner, with his head up and outside of his thighs and wrapped his arms around his thighs and brought him to the ground. This action was caused a tackle. Later, in the early seventies I was hired to coach a high school junior varsity team and prior to my team starting practice I was invited by the head varsity coach to participate in preseason varsity practices. Early on I noticed the coaches were teaching a new tackling technique, called spearing, the defensive guy would put his face in the chest of the runner, wrap his arms around him and bring him to the ground. Leading with the head, I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now. Today the defensive players leave their feet, "launch themselves in an attempt to bring down the ball carrier. I think this is not safe, but this is how the players are taught. I seldom see a real tackle anymore.

There have been improvements in helmets, sure, more nose/face guards so now opposing players have more to grab on to bring runners to the ground and if the refs don't see it all the better for the defense. I wonder with the introduction of the one bar wrap around nose guard back in the fifties and sixties were broken noses reduced then? What is the extent of nose/face injuries now? If they are about the same why should we need this cage other than the company who makes them would have to retool to make the one bar nose guard again.

Entertainment at games now is at the peak of ridiculousness. We get excited, buy our tickets in advance, pay for parking when we used to park free, pay three times more for two slices of pizza than we would at a local pizza joint, but we're football fans, we're here, we have our seats and let the game begin. If we wanted other entertainment there are concerts, plays, movies, but this is a football game, which should be enough excitement for us. If this was 1958 it truly would be all you would get which for me was enough. On one fall day in 1958 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina I got to see UNC play Wake Forest, that is all I needed, the game featuring the players I came to see. Fast forward to 2015 we arrive at the UNC and Miami game in Kenan Stadium. That year Carolina had a really good team and put up over 50 points on the Hurricanes that afternoon. Before the game all I can hear is some unrecognizable music coming out of some large speakers in the end zones. This unidentified music continued until the school band marched onto the field to play the National Anthem, which is at least still what a college band gets to do. The game began with mostly passes right and left and far down the field. A running play today is an anomaly, but I watch anyway. Halftime and the teams head to the locker rooms. The next thing I know the loud music from the big speakers begins again. After a few minutes the band is allowed to march onto the field. After all members are in place the conductor gets the band started with a forgettable number. After that one song the band promptly leaves the field and heads back to their assigned seats in the west end zone. That's it! That's our halftime show by the "traditional" college band. Our loud music commences until the players return to the field for warm-ups before the second half kickoff. That was halftime at a major college football game in the new millennium. I don't like it, but it's not changing, if I'm at home watching on TV I can mute the sound, which I normally do.

I do miss the cheerleaders, although we still have them for high school and college games they perform differently today. At some point the pros added cheerleaders. Cheerleaders in the earlier decades did just that, they led the cheers, they got the fans involved. Chants of "push 'em back, push 'em back, way back," "fumble play, fumble play, we need a fumble play," "grass skirts, Betty Grable, come on boys we know you're able." As silly as these cheers might sound today they did get the fans involved. Today most "cheerleading I see has to do with routines, like stage productions, some acrobatics, some waving of pom poms and that's it. It's more of the entertaining aspect rather than getting fans involved in cheering for their team. Occasionally I witness the use of a megaphone, but not like the old days where the cheerleaders were such a big part of getting the fans into supporting the team.

I don't like instant replays in college or pro football. Every time a team has momentum there is a stoppage of play for "further review," sometimes allowing me time to go outside and wash my car, return and fix a snack before returning to the action after a few commercials and the final decision on the play from some guy(s) in New York or an undisclosed location. Throughout all the years of playing the game of football with officials on the field they have overwhelmingly gotten the calls right, or perhaps missed a few? Yes, but that's part of the game. If a team plays poorly enough most of the game then gets back into the contest late and the outcome comes down to some refs making a bad call, what about the lousy playing that got the teams a close game with time running out in the first place? The officials on the field should control the dam game, not someone in a booth or another city. This will not change either, but I don't like it.

Why do the college coaches dress out all color coordinated, except the head coach who normally wears a different color cap or a different color shirt or coat? Where are the days of George Halas, Paul Brown, Bear Bryant, Jim Tatum and Tom Landry who wore suits or sport coats and ties and hats? Yes, money drives the outfit selections and there's no turning back on that either. Also no turning back on the sports networks deciding when games are to be played. In the fifties a college football game kicked off at 1:00 or 1:30P.M., a fan always knew this and planned accordingly. If a game is played in a northern state in November why start the game at 5:00 or 8:00, it's colder! Play the game when the warmest temperatures are present, which is early afternoon, but no, today the networks look at the game matchups and conclude they have one game switch to 8:00. That way they can telecast a big 1:00 game and make that second matchup available to view at 8:00, never mind about the poor slobs who paid for a ticket to see a game in person, does the network care if that fan freezes his ass off? No. Big money drives college and pro football more than fans drive the game, if fans stopped going it might change, but who's attending these games? Yes, younger people who probably don't care about getting cold, they grew out with games they watched on TV or attended played at all kinds of crazy times, that's all they know, they have nothing to compare.

How many more people are we going to have on the pregame show to break down what either the coaches are going to do or should do to win the game. How many of you give a dam what they say, because anything they say doesn't matter, they are not on the coaching staff, they weren't in on the game planning sessions about what the coaches want to do to try to win so who really gives a rat's ass as to their opinions. They have opinions, I have opinions, and we all have opinions about the outcomes of games and who cares? Seems like every season the NFL adds one or two more has-beens to the table to share what they know and what they think. Give it up, you played, you retired, move on to something else, try real estate or go out on your ranch and chop wood, build a playhouse, have an affair, do something but talk to us about what's going to happen today in the game I'm about to watch. I also hate post game wrap up shows. The game is over, you lost, you're the coach now go inside a little room and take a bunch of silly ass questions about why happened or what didn't happen and why. Try to have patience and fully explain to the best of your ability your answer to the silly ass questions. Let's bring in the losing quarterback because today the quarterback is the star, he makes it happen or not, the outcome is with him and the other 10 plus 11 on defense are just out there, this team is his and he'll do the talking. Not going to end this exchange either, it's here to stay even though it's still a team game or is it?

BASKETBALL

The first basketball game I attended was in a National Guard Armory in Warrenton, North Carolina in 1952. Neither John Graham High School in Warrenton nor Norlina High School had gyms; consequently both schools alternated playing their home games in the armory.

High school games in the fifties commenced with the women's team playing first. Every season our women's team was highly competitive. In 1956 one of our players scored 107 points in one game, still a state record in North Carolina. She was about six feet tall and camped out under the basket. There were no lane violation penalties so once she set up under the basket there was nothing the opponents could do, no team had anyone tall enough to guard her so she scored quite often. There were 6 players on a team, 3 forwards and 3 guards, the forwards could only play in the frontcourt whereas the guards could only play in the backcourt and could never shoot unless they were fouled. No player could take more than 2 dribbles. The rules makers determined that women "couldn't take it," were fragile and didn't have the stamina of their male counterparts had so they created these silly women's' rules. During the 1958-59 season one of our forwards averaged 26 points a game; we never had a male player with those numbers. Later women's' basketball went to the "rover" system whereby two players, rovers, could play in the front or backcourt. I coached a women's' high school basketball team under this system and it seemed equally as silly as the six on six play. Our team did play a one game five on five without any particular problems other than we lost another basketball game. Today women play the same five on five game as the men except their basketball is slightly smaller in circumference, 28.5 to 29 inches and the women's three point line is a foot closer to the rim than the mens. In college the women have 35 seconds to shoot whereas the men have 30 seconds.

Men's' high school basketball during the fifties was pretty much a half court game. The "playmaker", a guard usually jogged up the court with the ball and proceeded to pass it "around the horn" until someone was open long enough to take a shot. If a team had a tall center they usually had an advantage down low especially if smaller players were assigned to guard them. Until about 1956 the free throw lane was six feet wide which gave taller, more skilled athletes greater scoring opportunities. When the lane was then widened to 12 feet it reduced the inside effectiveness of taller players. Today the lane is 16 feet wide.

Teams mostly played a 2-3 zone defense, but occasionally an innovative coach would play a box in one to try to stop the opposing team's star. A few teams played man to man late in a game if they were behind. It was rare that a team employed a full court press, but later there were a few teams that used it for a large part of the game. My first experience with full court presses were listening to the West Virginia Mountaineers basketball games. After I got my first radio I listened to many different teams, including the Big Four (Duke, Wake Forest, UNC, N.C. State). I could get the WVA games so I listened to them often. I recall on numerous occasions WVA would be down twenty points. They would employ a full court press and soon they would be back in the game and most of the time they won those games. Those were the days of Hot Rod Hundley and "Zeke from Cabin Creek" (Jerry West). In high school when I played or watched there were few teams we played that used a press at any time so a player didn't need exceptional dribbling skills to play the game.

By the fall of 1956 I was really into college basketball, in particular listening to games on the radio. As the season progressed into the late fall UNC- TV of Chapel Hill started telecasting UNC games via what they called "broad vision." Broad vision allowed fans to view the game while selecting your favorite radio station and commentator for the audio portion of the contest. It seemed like a silly idea but we got to see the UNC Tar heels and Lenny Rosenbluth. Rosenbluth interested me in following the Tar heels as he seemed to be larger than life listening to his play on the radio, but then getting to see him on TV was overwhelming. I believe making comparisons between basketball players is hard to do, especially when trying to make the distinction over decades. Lennie Rosenbluth, given when he played was as good a college player as there was. Consider this, Rosenbluth a five forty plus scoring games in his three year varsity career with the Tarheels. In a stretch of 7 days in 1957 he had two consecutive 40 point games, who else before or since at UNC has done that? He also had 20 consecutive 20 points or more games in 1956-57, far and away ahead of all other UNC players. He played in the fifties and most people who watch college games today probably never heard of him. As the Tar heels season progressed they were involved in several close games but prevailed and went on the win a national championship in Kansas City. If you live in North Carolina you probably know as much about that magical season as I do and you have many great memories of how the season played out. I have to share the last minute or so of the Kansas game, the finals, UNC is down by one and Joe Quigg, UNC's center was fouled. I was watching with my dad and I was on the edge of my seat. When Quigg stepped to the line I couldn't take it any more so I went to the bathroom. While in the bathroom, which was next to our TV room, I could still hear the play by play announcer. "Quigg steps to the line and eyes the basket." There was a pause and I was trying to pee. Then I heard announcer's voice, "he shoots and it's good." At that point I knew the game was tied and if Quigg made the second at least for the moment UNC would be ahead, but Kansas would still have the last possession with time running out. The announcer was back on and said, "Quigg is ready for his second shot, he shoots it up and it's also good, the Heels lead." You know the rest of the story, Kansas tried to pass the ball to Wilt, of course, why not, and Quigg batted the ball away, Tommy Kearns, the guard got the ball and heaved it into the air. Game over. UNC won and finished the season with a perfect 32-0 record and from then on college basketball, especially in North Carolina and for me, was never the same. After the season was over I had the pleasure of watching Rosenbluth play against a group of Warren County All-Stars against Rosebluth's All Stars featuring Rosey, Danny Lotz and Ray Stanley from the '57 squad. I wasn't impressed when midway in the second half Rosenbluth often didn't even run back down the court on defense, but waited on his end for a pass so he could shoot again.

After the 1957 season I couldn't get enough basketball. I spent most of my time playing by myself in my backyard. I would create the teams and each time I made a basket I would switch teams and the next shot was for that team, if I missed the next shot was for the other team. Most of the teams were my Big Four teams. I preferred playing with other kids but it seemed harder to get several other kids together at the same time to play a game. We got to play against each other at school when we had recess but it was hard to get into a game when you only had 15-30 minutes to play. In 7th grade two days per week in PE class our teacher would take us to the gym so we could play basketball, the other days she made us dance, which I hated. That same year I went out for the junior high team, didn't make it though, but it didn't diminish my interest in the sport. I kept practicing and practicing in my backyard just in case I might make a team later. The next year, my last year in elementary school, I made the team and was so proud of myself. I didn't get to play much so I was frustrated for I loved the game. Our team was undefeated for the season which was a good thing.

After the success of the 1956-57 UNC Tarheels I returned to the team I was pulling for before their run to the National Championship game, the Duke Blue Devils. In 1958 dad took me and a friend to see my favorite Duke team play N.C. State at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh on February 11, 1958. Duke won the game 65-48. All five Duke starters that year, Jim Newcombe, Bob Vernon, Bucky Allen, Paul Schmidt, and Bobby Joe Harris averaged double figures for the season. Duke really had a nice team chemistry going that year into the ACC Tournament at Reynolds Coliseum. The Blue Devils were upset in the semifinals by a Maryland team seeded fourth coming into the tournament. Maryland would go on and win the ACC Championship in 1958. Then in 1959-60 with an entirely new cast of Carroll Youngkin, Doug Kistler, Howard Hurt, John Frye, Jack Mullen and a new head coach in Vic Bubas, Duke won the ACC Championship and advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to NYU and Satch Sanders who went on to play for the Boston Celtics. Dad took us to see Duke play South Carolina on January 30, 1960 in Duke Indoor Stadium; Duke won the game 79-65. I did switch allegiance from Duke in 1961-62 when Wake Forest had Billy Packer and Len Chappell. Wake also won the ACC Championship in 1962 and still is the only Final Four team the Deacons have ever put on the court. They lost to Ohio State in the semifinals for the second time that year. They were no match for Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried.

I loved the old fifties and sixties ACC Basketball Tournament, all 8 teams were included and whoever won the tournament was the conference champion and representative in the NCAA Tournament. Everyone was fair game and it didn't matter how you performed in the regular season one loss in the tournament and you went home. In 1958 Maryland won the tournament as a fourth seed and during the fifties no seed lower than a four ever won the tournament. As the ACC added more teams and more tournaments the lowest seed to ever win the tournament was a sixth seed. Nowadays all a team has to do is be fairly good, have a few "quality wins" during the season, win about twenty games, with half of the wins sure thing cupcake teams along the way and you're in the NCAA Tournament. Where's the pressure, maybe for the middle to lower positioned teams but if you're in the top 6-8 at least in the so called Power Conferences, no problem you're probably going to get in. How does a team get better if being bunched somewhere around the middle of the pack is the goal? Why do they even have tournaments in the major conferences anymore, what's the point? Well, the only point is as long as people pay to see the games then the conference tournaments will be played. I enjoy watching normal conferences, the ones where a team has to win the tournament to advance into the NCAA. Those players play hard; they know that a loss means they go home, so the games mean more to those teams. Perhaps the NCAA should do away with all conference tournaments, have a regular conference season with the team in first place at the end of the season declared the champion, then start a national tournament with every NCAA Division 1 team included. Schedule a first round of games where every team plays one game, then a few additional rounds, but when you get to the final 16 have a round robin with double elimination, and then the final 2 teams play best a best 2 out of 3 series to determine the champion. Yes, I think that's a great idea!

The tournament I enjoyed probably more than the ACC or NCAA Tournaments in my youth was the post Christmas Dixie Classic, which was played for twelve years in Reynolds Coliseum at N.C. State College. After Santa had left the building and all of my presents had been opened the next thing I had to look forward to was the Dixie Classic. State's legendary coach Everett Case, originally from Indiana, came up with the idea of a post Christmas tournament that would pit the Big Four teams against four other worthy opponents from across the country. On the first day the Big Four teams would play an outside opponent, then on the second day the winners of the first day played each other and the losers played each other and this format continued until the final day with a championship game and a third and fourth place game. There were four games each day and fans could come early, stay late and see some really good college basketball. No team outside the Big Four ever won the Dixie Classic. Due to point shaving scandals involving a few N.C. State and UNC players the tournament ceased to be played after the Christmas tournament of 1960. There has never been a preseason or post Christmas tournament to rival the Dixie Classic and it's still a shame a few selfish players made some poor decisions that cost many other players the chance to compete in this most prestigious of tournaments. The most famous Dixie Classic, for me anyway, was the 1958 tournament that not only featured some very good Big Four players like Lee Sheaffer of UNC and John Richter of N.C. State, but "Jumping" Johnny Green of Michigan State and Oscar Robertson, aka "the Big O," of Cincinnati. Cincinnati came into the tournament ranked Number Two in the country and with Robertson averaging over thirty points a game everyone, including yours truly, expected the Bearcats to win. N.C. State ranked fourth had a great team that year while Michigan State came in ranked ninth and UNC ranked third. For many years fans would say the day UNC beat Cincy and State beat the Spartans was the greatest day in Big Four basketball history. I never got to attend any of the Classic games, but I did listen to many of the games and in 1958 I was certainly glued to my radio. I remember the first game of the Classic Cincinnati played against Wake Forest, the Deacs played close for a while, but in the second half the Bearcats pulled away winning 94-70, but Wake had somewhat of a moral victory because they "held" Oscar to 29 points. Oscar scored 29 the next day against N.C. State, but State won 69-60 setting the stage for a date with Michigan State having defeated UNC 75-58. The next day, Dec 31, 1958, UNC defeated the Bearcats 90-88, Cincy's second loss in the tournament and State defeated Michigan State by a 70-61 score. N.C. State would go on to win most (7) of the Dixie Classic tournaments. Later, from 1971 to 1981 there was a Big Four Tournament, but it never achieved the popularity of the Dixie Classic.

N.C. State also won the ACC Tournament for the 1958-59 season, but could not participate in the NCAA Tournament because of probation. UNC lost to State 80-56 in the ACC Tournament finals after having beat State twice in the regular season represented the conference instead. UNC lost the first game in the NCAA Tournament to Navy, 76-63, a squad they were heavily favored to defeat.

Vic Bubas at Duke had a very successful run coaching the Blue Devils. For the 1960-61 season Bubas recruited Art Heyman from Rockville Centre, New York. Heyman would help turn Duke into a perennial basketball power. For the 3 seasons at Duke Heyman averaged over 25 points per game and over 10 rebounds per contest. He was a two time All American. The next season Bubas brought in Jeff Mullins from Kentucky to team up with Heyman. For 3 seasons Mullins averaged over 21 points per game and 9 rebounds. In the 1963 NCAA Duke advanced to the Final Four before losing to Chicago, Loyola, 94-75. In the 1963-64 season with the loss of Heyman Bubas brought in Jack Marin and Duke promptly won the ACC Championship and played UCLA for the National Championship and lost 98-83. But Bubas was still not done as in 1964-65 he brings in Bob Verga, who over three seasons averaged 22 points per game. In 1965-66 Bubas added Mike Lewis from Montana to the roster and with the addition of Lewis to go with Marin and Verga plus a competent supporting cast; Duke was Number 1 for most of the season. I had the pleasure of attending a game with Penn State in Duke Indoor Stadium on January 3, 1966. At that time they were ranked Number 1 in the country. Duke won the game handily 83-58. They waltzed through the ACC and heading into the NCAA Tournament Duke stood at 23-3. Duke made it to the Final Four for a date with Kentucky and Dan Issel. Verga suffering from a bout of the flu played sparingly, scored 4 only points, and Duke lost 83-79. Bubas coached Duke three more seasons, but failed to have the same success as in his previous seasons. After two straight seasons of playing and losing in the NIT plus a season where he went 15-13 he was selected to be the Commissioner of the new Sun Belt Conference. Bucky Waters, a former N.C. State basketball player under Everett Case was hired to coach the Blue Devils. A few years later former Utah coach Bill Foster took Duke to the finals in 1978 before losing again to Kentucky. Duke went 27-7 which was Foster's best team. Foster had Mike Gminski, who scored 20 points per game and gathered 10 rebounds, Jim Spanarkel, at 20 points per game, Gene Banks averaged 17 points per game, Kenny Dennard at a little over 9 points per game and Johnny Harrell a transfer from N.C. Central averagd about 8 points per game. Mike Krzyzewski succeeded Bill Foster in 1980-81 and you know Coach K's history.

Soon there was more TV coverage of more big games with big time college players. The ebb and flow of the games seemed to be the same, pretty much a guard trotting the ball up the court the ball, "setting it up" on offense, passing the ball around until there was a shot. Trying to get a rebound on a missed shot off the offensive board seemed to be a much larger part of the game than it is now. Players still get offensive rebounds, but rebounding doesn't appear to be a major focus as it used to be. When I watch a game today and a player shoots and misses everyone on the team retreats to the other end to respond defensively to the other team acing down the court. Since every team now does the same thing, shoot and run to the other end before the opponent gets there, it seems to me offensive rebounding is not a priority. They must get back to defend because the other team is pushing the ball up, why, because the offensive team did not aggressively go after a rebound. The chicken or the egg hypothesis maybe? Anyway, in the days of offensive rebounding the best offensive rebounders I ever saw were Paul Silas, Buck Williams, and Moses Malone.

Regardless of the team(s) I pulled for there were other lesser known players I really enjoyed watching play. Bob Lewis of UNC was a player I liked. He came to UNC when Billy Cunningham was a junior on the varsity. College teams still fielded freshmen teams until 1972. It didn't matter how good you were as a freshman you still had a wait one year before joining the varsity. One Saturday after a UNC football game a friend and I went to Woollen Gym to see the Tarheel basketball varsity team play the freshman team. I was excited to see Cunningham play and he made some great moves around the basket. At 6'5" Cunningham was quite a leaper. I had read about Bob Lewis and his potential for stardom at UNC. Anyway, the game started and moved along, all of a sudden Lewis got the ball in the corner, shot and made the basket, then for the next few possessions he continued to hit shots. I don't remember much about the rest of the game or even which team won, but I left thinking, "this guy Lewis can shoot that basketball." Lewis went on to have a really nice career at UNC. As a junior, Bob Lewis put up 49 points against Florida State on December 16, 1965. A week before on December 8, he had scored 43 against Richmond. His junior season was his best season as he averaged over 27 points per game, for his career he averaged about 22 points per game, a better average than his teammate Larry Miller who was ACC Player of the year for 1966-67 and was a second team All-American.

During the 1961-62 season when Wake Forest made its run to the Final Four there was another player, other than Packer and Chappell that I liked because of his clutch play. His name was Dave Weideman; who over his career averaged around 11 points and was a good defender. He played a key role in Wake's two victories in the 1960-61 NCAA Tournament against St. John's and St. Bonaventure. In 1963 when Wake entered the NCAA Tournament Weideman made big shots when needed and big defensive plays to help the Deacons win. Wake defeated Yale, St. John's, and Villanova before losing to Ohio State.

Bob MacGillivray was a forward for N.C. State on the 1958-59 ACC Championship team that went 22-4. MacGillivray was another journeyman player, a hard worker, team player that made big plays when needed. I fondest memory was in the ACC Tournament with State down late to the Gamecocks of the University of South Carolina, when MacGillivray made a three point play to tie the score. The game went into overtime and State eventually won 75-72.

During the 1965-66 season N. C. State and UNC played Utah and West Virginia over two evenings. These games were not a tournament format, UNC and State just swapped opponents on alternate evenings. I was lucky for the two games I opted to attend, N. C. State defeated West Virginia 94-77 and UNC defeated Utah 90-85. The next night the tables turned with Utah defeating State 85-72 and West Virginia beating Carolina 102-97. I got to see Utah's Jerry Chambers play. I'd never seen anyone jump as high as he could. He was almost unstoppable against UNC. Bob Lewis and Larry Miller provided UNC's challenge to Chambers and did most of the Tarheels' scoring. UNC had this offense where the center, Bob Bennett would take a pass at the top of the key, then turn and look for either Lewis or Miller to break across the lane or get open in the corner and feed whoever was open to go one on one and make a play. They ran this offense all night and it worked against Utah just not West Virginia the next night. State was led by Larry Lakins, who averaged over fifteen points per game in his three years at N.C. State. During his junior year he averaged over 20 points per game.

I was a student at N.C. State during the 1967-68 season and had season tickets for N.C. State basketball games at Reynolds. The best game I saw that year was a game State lost. State played Indiana and the game was back and forth all evening. The high scoring affair ended in overtime with Indiana winning 101-97.

Living in the Raleigh area I frequented the Players Retreat, a popular watering hole on Hillsboro Street and I sometimes I saw Ed Beidenbach with friends there. Beidenbach was a guard on the N.C. State basketball team I had seen during the 1967-68 season. He was a great playmaker, good shooter, and exceptional defensive player. I wanted to go over and tell him how much I enjoyed watching him play basketball, but I never did. Beidenbach went on to have a successful coaching tenure at UNC-Asheville and recently retired. During one of those visits to the Retreat I saw Pete Maravich. Pete did not get accepted at State and wound up at Louisiana State University where he had a great college career. He went on to play with New Orleans in the NBA but was never on a championship team.

Over six plus decades I've seen many games, mostly on TV and have for the most part enjoyed the time spent just watching others play. The sports I have alluded to have changed over the years as I would have expected. In basketball there was a brief period where teams, a few teams, not possessing the quality of players they thought the opposing team had, opted to slow the ball down or freeze the ball. These games I'm most familiar with involved Big Four games from 1959 to 1968. During this period there were not many coaches employing this slow down strategy. Ironically, the teams that used the slow down tactic I mention did not win the games. The first game I recall involved UNC against the Deacons of Wake Forest in 1959. UNC was two years removed from a national championship and were still fielding very competitive teams whereas Wake Forest was hard pressed to enter the win column. Bones McKinney, the Deacs coach at the time was trying to win a college basketball game with the players he had against a better team. On January 8, 1959, Bones employed the slow down game and for a good part of the contest Wake Forest was in the game, but as the game progressed to the middle of the second half UNC's strength prevailed and eventually wore the Deacs down and they lost 44-34. I watched the game on TV and frankly it didn't much bother me that the game was slowed down, I was just glad it was on TV. Fans began to grumble as they wanted more up and down, back and forth and not this freezing the ball. For the next eight years I only recall two other games in which freezing the ball was the strategy. On March 4, 1966, UNC tried the "deep freeze" in the ACC Tournament, but lost to Duke in the finals by 21-20 when Mike Lewis sank two free throws in the waning moments to garner the victory for Duke. The last game I remember was another ACC Tournament Finals game between Duke and N.C. State. The score was 12-10 with Duke again winning. This time Norm Sloan took the air out of the ball and with a 12-10 score I grew tired of watching this strategy play out. When State possessed the ball their players dribbled around and around up near the mid court area. I mean there were possessions where no one passed the ball. Apparently these slow down games began to get the attention of the basketball elite and almost twenty years later the 45 second clock was used for the first time in college. Eight years later they cut off 5 more seconds and thirty years later they chopped off 5 more seconds to the current standard of a 30 second possession before a team has to take a shot. I didn't mind the infrequent slow down tactic because it gave a team a way to try to win a basketball game. The strategy was employed which if executed to the max a team might defeat a heavily favored opponent with more highly skilled players. A chance, it gave the weaker team a chance, but twenty years later with the shot clock teams had to run up and down the court, transition game as they referred to it, and a team had the horses or they didn't. Rare is the time today that the overmatched under skilled team comes out with a victory. This rule certainly speeded up the college game which is what the fans desired, but it has caused more turnovers, more bad shots, few offensive rebounds, and more laxity in playing a man to man defense for an entire game. I don't understand why coaches think their players are willing to play a 40 minute man to man defense when it's clear to me they don't. There's nothing wrong with a little zone defense now and then.

Back in the early nineties my son played youth recreation league basketball. I recall the games were just a free for all, one kid got the ball and dribbled to the other end and took a shot, more often than not a bad shot. Rather than waiting for his team to come down and set up and pass the ball around until someone had an open shot, he fired it up. That's what every game was, run and gun, take a shot, fall down, throw the ball out of bounds, do crazy shit. Fast forward, what is college and pro basketball today? It's the same game as recreation league basketball! The other thing I don't like is that the game is all about the "star," if a team has a star then the star takes most of the shots while the other four position themselves around the half court to watch. Usually a missed three pointer careens off long and of course most of the time the offensive players are not in position to rebound so the other team gets the ball and they run down the other end and someone jacks up a three pointer. The offenses are mostly ball screens, down screens, pick and roll, or just straight out one on one dribbling and dribbling and dribbling until a shot is taken or there is a drive to the basket or a foul. This is where we are. Championships are won by the Star, not the team, but the Star all by himself. Russell made the Celtics better and they won 11championships. The star power today cannot be understated, it is what it is. Shoes, jerseys, commercials, talk show circuits and I guess today's fans love it. If its tennis or golf, fine, relish the accomplishments of one person winning, but a team game, give the glory to the team, not one person.

In the old days there were violations i.e.; traveling, double dribbling, palming the ball, and 3 seconds in the lane. The old rule on a traveling call was like if a player was going in for a layup he would take one long step and the second step to the basket, but an additional step was a penalty. I've watched enough games to question the rule is not what I just explained. The double dribble call is when a player starts to dribble, stops, then starts to dribble again. How many games do I see a pass goes to a player, he bounces the ball and picks it up, and then dribbles again, how is that not double dribble? Palming or carrying the ball used to be called if you attempted to dribble the ball to advance down the court by putting your hand on the side or underneath the ball. View some old footage on Bob Cousy, one of the best guards in his day, you never see his dribbling hand anywhere but on the top of the ball which is where it was supposed to be. Watch a game today and that hand is all over the ball, top, side, bottom, all over, no apparent violation, no call. We are just flummoxed at the dribbling skills of these players, man look what they can do with the ball, of course because there is no palming rule so a player can do just about anything. The dribbling between the legs I don't understand at all, a player gains no clear advantage with that move except for style points. All dunks should count one point as there's nothing involved with that except ability to hold the ball long enough to reach the rim. I hate to see a player in a breakaway situation going in for what should be two easy points but instead of a simple layup he attacks the rim as if to try to destroy the thing and winds up bouncing the ball off of the back of the rim. I don't care such for show time; the game should be played to win.

The NBA games were telecast on weekends as was pro football in the early fifties. The picture clarity was not good but it was better than listening to games on the radio. I saw teams such as the Syracuse Nats, Rochester Royals, New York Knicks, and Fort Wayne Pistons, but once I saw the Celtics I knew which team I would pull for. I liked their hustle and willingness to play as a team even though they possessed a steady supply of exceptional basketball talent. One of the most amazing team stats was that during the 1959-60 season the Celtics had 5 players averaging 20 or more points per game.

The Boston Celtics were my favorite NBA team and Bill Russell was my favorite player. When he was on the court he made the Celtics better with the many rebounds he gathered so his teammates could score. His personal stats didn't match Wilt's or Michael's, but his team stats, 11 NBA championships in 13 seasons have no rival and basketball is a team sport. I respected Russell as much or more for his stands on social justice at a time where few people were standing up to these evils. My favorite story was in 1961 when the Celtics were in Lexington, Kentucky to play an exhibition game to honor Cliff Hagan who played at the University of Kentucky. Russell and some of his African-American teammates could not eat at the same restaurant their white teammates could. Russell went to Coach Red Auerbach and told him they were not playing the game and were leaving. It took guts for Russell to take a stand and throughout his life he has spoken out when he needed to about racism in this country. Not only was Russell the first African-American to coach any professional sports team, but he also was the first to win a championship. He has written several books which I have read. He will forever be my favorite basketball player because he made the team better when he was on the court.

I liked Tommy Heinsohn with his flat top hair cut like mine and that strange jump shot that started way behind his head, but he was quite effective with it. When he stepped to the line to shoot a free throw he always held the basketball in one hand while wiping the sweat off his forehead with the other. He only played 9 years but left the NBA with a career scoring over 18 points per game. Frank Ramsey was the first official sixth man coming off the bench to sub and when he came in he immediately produced points. I also liked the Jones boys, Sam and K.C. Normally they came in together to sub for an aging Cousy and Bill Sharman. K.C. was the defensive star and handled the one of the opposing team's good shooters. K.C. would later become a successful NBA coach. While Sam, from North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central) came in to score and score he did. He was known for his jump shots he banked off the glass, other players over the years have tried that shot but none have been as prolific as Sam was. When Cousy retired and Sam took over in the backcourt he put up big scoring numbers. Sam Jones best season was 1964-65 when he averaged close to 26 points per game. Over his 12 year career he averaged over 17 points per game.

John Havlicek came to the Celtics in 1962-63 and by the following year he led the team in scoring with a 19.4 average. He started out as the sixth man off the bench and later became a regular starter. For 16 seasons "Hondo" averaged close to 21 points per game and was consistently a stalwart on defense. He was one of the best all around players I ever had the pleasure of watching.

Other players who made impressions on me.

Archie Clark - Clark first played with the Los Angeles Lakers. I first noticed him on TV as a Baltimore Bullet. He was steady on the court and seemed to get shots when the Bullets needed it. Over his 12 years career he had a 16.3 average which I think is pretty good. He was one of the players who got traded by the Lakers for Wilt Chamberlain in 1968.When watching the Bullets I noticed when Archie was going to the basket he had this hesitation move then switched hands, called a crossover dribble today, and took it to the basket. The move was different from any other players I watched and that impressed me. Perhaps a more crowning achievement was his involvement with several other NBA players to create The Retired Players Association.

Oscar Robertson - Robertson was known early in college as "the Big O," but I always remember him as "Mr. Always In control," because when he had the ball in his hands he controlled it and any action to the basket. During the 1971 Milwaukee Bucks run to the NBA Championship I saw quite a few of the Bucks games on TV and was always impressed with Oscar's control of the ball and the play. Maybe one reason was his seemingly large hands, perhaps larger than most other players which would have helped immensely with ball control. In his second year in the NBA, 1961-62 he averaged a triple double for the entire year, a feat that wasn't repeated for some 50 years. A triple double suggest the all around player, the guy who can do it all and Oscar did just that. For that season he averaged over 30 points, over 12 rebounds and over 11 assists for each game. He was MVP of the NBA in 1963-64. I've already mentioned how difficult it is to determine the greatest player ever in any sport at any time because there are simply too many variables to consider, but I will say Oscar Robertson stands out in the class of outstanding players.

Wilt Chamberlain - Dominating is the word that comes to mind when I think about Chamberlain. Shortly after the 1959 season the NBA widened the lane from 12 feet to 16 feet because of Wilt. It's hard to believe any one player in the NBA at any time could average over 50 points per game for a whole season, but Wilt did in 1961-62. He played for 14 seasons and led the NBA in scoring for half of those years. In 1962 he scored 100 points in a game in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers were one of the NBA's best teams ever compiling a season record of 68-13 and Wilt was a big part of that success. Later in his career he was on another championship team with the Lakers, who also had Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. Battles between Chamberlain and Russell are already well documented, so no point in discussing which man dominated the other. Looking at old college videos of Wilt shooting free throws made me wonder if he shot fairly well in college what happened in the pros. My theory was he got in a funk, created a mental block about shooting free throws, and got to where he didn't give a dam. Why should he? He was already scoring enough field goals so what was the big deal with free throws? During Wilt's two years at the University of Kansas his free throw average was 62%, not great, but not awful, others have done worse. His free throw career average in the NBA was 51%, so I still think the unsuccessful free throw attempts was mostly mental. Wilt perfected what I call a "scoop" shot; he would get low post position, gather himself, and go up and over anyone who guarded him, extend his arm and roll the ball off his fingertips at the highest point of his leap off the floor and score. Another shot he perfected, which is a tribute to his overall ability to develop additional skills was a fall away jump shot. A seven foot, one inch man developed and became very proficient with a fall away jump shot! I don't recall ever seeing his fall away shot blocked. The other interesting point about this shot was that he banked it off the backboard, a la Sam Jones. He possessed many records during his career, but for me one stands out, in over one thousand NBA games Wilt never fouled out which indicates to me his total control of what he was doing on the floor.

Elgin Baylor - Baylor played 14 seasons with the Lakers averaging over 27 points per game for his career. He was voted on 11 all star games in his 14 seasons. He also averaged over 13 rebounds per game at a forward position. He was the Number One pick of the Lakers in the 1958 NBA draft. In one game in the 1960-61 season he scored 71 points against the New York Knicks, plus he grabbed 25 rebounds. Nagging knee problems reduced his final career stats, but he stills remains as one of the greatest to ever play the game. My fascination with Baylor was his patented drives to the basket and hang time which as a youngster I tried to perfect but once again I failed miserably. He was elected to the Hall of Fame is 1977.

Hal Greer – Greer spent his basketball career with the Syracuse Nationals who would become the Philadelphia 76ers. He was on the 1966-67 NBA Championship team with Chamberlain. His free throw shooting style was very unorthodox yet effective as he shot a jump shot from the foul line and managed to make 80% of those free throws. He averaged 19.2 points shooting 45% from the field during a career which spanned 15 years. He once scored 50 points in a game in the 1963-64 season. He participated in 10 NBA All Star games and was MVP of the 1968 contest. He was rock steady, came to play every night, and had great form on his jump shot.

Rudy LaRusso - Rudy came into the NBA from Dartmouth, an Ivey League college. He averaged 15.6 points per game for his 10 year career. He participated in 5 All Star games while with the Lakers and later the Warriors. He once scored 50 points in a 1961-62 season game. He averaged over 20 points per game over his last two seasons with the Warriors. LaRusso was hardnosed, willing to fight to get a rebound, always hustling on defense, and making big shots when his team needed one.

Jerry West - West averaged 27.0 points per game over 17 seasons. He was All NBA First Team 11 of 17 years in the league. One of his nicknames was "Mr. Clutch" and he was that. I saw him play many games and make clutch shots when games were on the line. Interesting enough West was on only one NBA Championship team, 1972. In 1969 he was named MVP of the Finals, the only player on a losing team to win that award.

In the late sixties there was a new basketball kid on the block, the American Basketball Association (ABA), new competition with the NBA which they didn't want. I've always been a person who chooses the other option, you want chocolate, but I want vanilla; you like steak I much prefer fried chicken. So when the ABA came to town they were my cup of tea. All new teams were formed such as, Squires, Colonels, Cougars, Pacers in cities that had no pro teams in any sport. New rules, like a three point basket to go with a multicolored game ball, Afros for the African-American players, funk, jewelry, heavy mink coats, players with style and swagger the NBA didn't have. The best news for me was that a team would be based in North Carolina, the Carolina Cougars. They originated the regional concept; the Cougars would play games in three different cities to generate interest in the team across the state. The team played most of its games in Greensboro and some games in Raleigh and Charlotte. By playing in Charlotte they hoped to expand fan interest into South Carolina. The largest crowds they drew over their short tenure were in Greensboro. I attended a few games in Raleigh at Dorton Arena on the State fairgrounds and at Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of N.C. State. I never had a problem getting a free parking space at either location and no problem getting a good seat in either arena as attendance most of the time was rather sparse.

The other marketing strategy the Cougars employed was to pick players from Atlantic Coast Conference teams, in particular the Big Four teams. The expectation was if fans enjoyed these players in college they could continue to enjoy them as pros and could see them play more often. The biggest star the Cougars had was Billy Cunningham who jumped from the NBA to play for the Cougars. In 1972-73 Cunningham was named MVP of the league. Other ACC players I saw play were Doug Moe, Larry Miller, Van Williford, Tom Owens, Bob Verga, and Mike Lewis. The Cougars made the ABA playoffs in 1969-70 before losing in the first round to the Indiana Pacers. In 1972-73 the team made the playoffs again and beat the New York Nets in the first round, but lost in the second round to the Kentucky Colonels. The team was in North Carolina from 1969 to 1974 before moving to St. Louis to become the Spirits. The league was indeed innovative, but poor financial mismanagement led to the leagues downfall. Four teams merged with the NBA and two folded, including the Spirits (Cougars).

Many games over many years and I have some great memories. Do I watch baseball today? I watch college baseball, but not major league baseball, it's just not a game that interest me. I watch college football, again a different game, but I can watch it, at times I mute the sound. I watch pro football the same way. I watch college basketball, but I don't like the way the games are played and the same goes for the pros. I have little interest in watching many of the pro games. We don't live in the fifties, this is a new generation and they watch what they like. Fifty years from now someone will remember sports today and write about it. Sports have been good to all of us.

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