Basketball - Junior High Style

In the summer after my 6th grade year we moved out into the country to what is now a housing development on the corner of I-20 and Pleasant View Drive. When we moved there it was a 1/4-mile dirt and gravel road off a bumpy, very narrow, barely 2-lane Pleasant Ridge Drive. While the mailing address was Route 2 Box 296, Arlington before being changed to various other route and box numbers and finally 4250 Pleasant View Drive, it was in the Fort Worth school district. In the Fall of 1968 the area was changed to the Arlington ISD.

Anyway, we had left the friendly confines of the green and gold Berry Bears for the Purple and White Handley Greyhounds. It wasn't until we proudly wore our green and gold Berry letter jackets that we learned that our arch rival Meadowbrook Junior high bore the colors green and gold. We didn't wear the jackets much after that and I think they are now up in the cabins in the mountains.

Handley didn't have a "real" 7th-grade football team. Only the 9th grade had a regular schedule of games. The 7th grade practiced every day during the season and had one final scrimmage type game at the end of season. Still, the football players were the accepted jocks and the coaches knew them. We had basketball tryouts for two weeks, mostly run by the 7th grade football coach and Biology teacher and watched some by the head basketball coach Mr. Baldwin.

In those days of short, short basketball shorts I wore some bright gold shorts about as long as today's uniforms. Tryouts were conducted for an hour before school and watched by anyone who wanted to show up. Mostly, we had full court games with players rotating in and out. I can remember hearing 8th and 9th grade guys laughing about my shorts but also talking about how fast I was. After the last tryout session Coach Morris, the Biology teacher, said Coach Baldwin was going to make the final selection for the team the next day. Coach Morris was going to recommend the following people and he named them. They were all football players. That left Gary and me out. We went home that day thinking we probably wouldn't make the team. In talking about it in later years, Gary said he was terribly upset thinking that we hadn't made the team. All I really remember was thinking that the football coach didn't know basketball and when the basketball coach made the ultimate decision Gary and I would be there. Sure enough, when Coach Baldwin announced the team it was the guys who could play basketball, not just the football players, and Gary and I had made the team.

Gary and I were the starting guards for the team. John Tandy, Kim Riddle, and Alan Stanford were the 3 big men inside. We all played later at Eastern Hills High School. Gary was a starter on the JV as a sophomore, a squadman on the varsity as a junior, and didn't play as a senior. Alan also was a starter as a Soph, squadman as a junior, and lettered as a senior. John, Kim, and I all lettered as juniors and seniors. As 7th graders we had a pretty good team. We won the majority of our games, but I can't remember if we actually had a true league with a formal champion. I don't remember any particular game except that I had my tonsils out and missed the Christmas tournament. I also remember playing in a gym on the second floor of William James Junior High. I always thought that was so dumb and had never seen it before or since until our church built its gym. Stanford was our big scorer followed by Gary.

Our 8th grade year was pretty much a repeat of 7th grade without the tryout suspense. We had tryouts but we knew we were going to be on the team. Eighth graders were eligible to play on the 9th grade team and we all got to suit up for the final 9th grade home game against Meadowbrook. The only other thing of note was a new kid, Tommy Taylor. Tommy was a 7th grader but he was older than me and as old as Gary. His parents held him back and had him repeat 7th grade for athletic purposes. His dad was one of the top Southwest Conference football and basketball officials and Tommy was really good athelete. He played quite a bit on the 9th grade football team as a 7th grader.

For the 9th grade season I was relegated to 2nd team much of the time and Tommy took my place in the starting lineup. Carter Riverside had a guard who shot from his hip and was their leading scorer. In the first quarter in our gym he had already scored 10 or 12 points so Coach Baldwin pulled Tommy and put me in to shut the guy down. In the first few seconds that I was in he took a long shot and scored. He didn't score another basket the rest of the game. I totally shut him down. We slowly made up the deficit and had the game tied in the last minute of the game. They had the ball but we batted it loose toward mid court. Gary and I ran after the ball with the Riverside game between us. As we got to the ball we bumped one another and the Riverside guy fell down. The ref called a foul on Gary and we lost the game 42-41. It was a terrible call. We beat them later on in their gym. This time I started and totally shut the guy down again. I remember partially blocking one shot out at the top of the key, running around the lane, and catching the airball under the basket. We did have a City Championship game against Meadowbrook that we won. I started but got pulled for taking and missing a long shot, so I mostly sat the bench for the game.

Coach Baldwin was really a good coach and a great guy. Of the guys on that team only Kim Riddle and I started in high school. Another guy from Handley, Ricky Hall, started as a junior and senior but he didn't play in 9th grade because he broke his collarbone in football. In fact, he didn't play much in 7th or 8th grade either but got a whole lot better in high school.

That's part 1 of Junior High basketball. That discussed the school part. Later, I'll tell you about RA (church) basketball.