Tales from the Minnesota Sports Beat by Patrick Reusse

Author:Patrick Reusse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press

8FINDING HOOPS HEAVEN

Want to experience Reusse’s nirvana? That would be an important Big Ten basketball game on a Saturday afternoon in late February with Bill Musselman or Clem Haskins prowling the sideline of the elevated court at Williams Arena.

Recently, Gophers basketball has lost its high standing in the sports market, and the evolution of the game has changed the way this crusty old sportswriter views the sport.

■ ■ ■

When I was a kid, high school basketball was a phenomenon in small-town Minnesota. You played football, but it didn’t really lead to anything; there was no state tournament.

High school basketball in the winter was the thing. The farmers were active in the fall when the football season was going on. But in the winter, the whole town had their eyes on the basketball season. If you were looking for something to do, you’d go to the local gym to watch the basketball team.

In the ’50s, before all the mergers, we probably had 200 more high schools than we have now. All these small-town teams were your rivals back then. Glencoe is now merged with Silver Lake, but they used to be big rivals.

I came from District 8, down in the southwest corner of the state. About 30 miles west of Fulda, Edgerton was a small, ragamuffin town. It had about 900 people in 1960.

Edgerton made it to the district final in ’59. Then in 1960 Edgerton was unbeaten heading into the last game of the season, but they had played the little towns up to that point. Luverne scheduled Edgerton for that final game. And Luverne played in the Southwest Conference, which included Marshall and Worthington and Windom and Slayton—bigger towns.

My buddies and I drove over from Fulda to Luverne for the game against Edgerton. It was standing room only in the gym, and we were standing up against a wall. They showed the game on closed-circuit TV next door in the cafeteria.

Luverne got off to something like a 10–0 lead. We were thinking, Yeah, we knew these farm kids were frauds.

Richie Olson, who was in his first year as the coach of Edgerton, called time-out following the slow start. He gave his players a pep talk, and they came out of the time-out and started making every shot. I thought, Holy Christ. Look at this. They were making shots from all over the place.

Starters Darrell Kreun, Leroy Graphenteen, Dean Veenhof, and Dean Verdoes made all-state from Edgerton. And you’re not a real Edgerton savant if you don’t remember the fifth starter: Bob Wiarda.

They beat Luverne and went on to win District 8 and the regional. Now the whole state was excited, because we loved it when a small school made it to the state tournament.

Edgerton played Chisholm in the first round of the state tournament. They outshot Chisholm and beat them in front of more than 18,000 in Williams Arena.

The second night they played Richfield, a suburban power that had the great Bill Davis. The refs ruined that game for both teams, calling fouls on everything.

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