Senior Year Basketball - District Play

Non-district play and the tournaments are over and the calendar has turned over to a new year (1968) as we begin district play. Due to intergration I.M. Terrell and Dunbar, the two all-black high schools, were added to our district creating a 9-team district. Rather than have a 16 game district schedule, the school district opted to split the district into zones.

Poly, Arlington Heights, Trimble Tech, Dunbar, and EHHS were placed in one zone. I.M. Terrell, Paschal, Carter-Riverside, and North Side were placed in the other zone. I can't remember if Diamond Hill was also in that zone or iff they played in a lower classification. If they were in the zone that would have made it a 10-team district and an 18-game schedule without the zones. Paschal, Carter, and North Side were all poor teams giving Terrell a free shot to the district championship game. Poly, Heights, and EHHS were all musch superior to any team in the other zone except Terrell. Dunbar and Tech were as good as any of the other teams, so our zone was much tougher. In the pre-district forecast the Star Telegram rated us as "probably the 4th best team in their zone on paper, but they'll find a way to finish second." Riddle was our tallest player at 6'4" and the other teams all had bigger guys. They were right, we did finish second.

Our first game was against Arlington Heights whom we had just beaten by 30 points in the Lions Club tournament. Our team wasn't a 30 points better team. We were really very evenly matched, we were just super hot in the tournament. The district game was a much closer game. It was also one of only a couple of games that we had that were filmed. We played our 1-3-1 zone with me on the top, Riddle in the middle, Hall and Worley on the wings, and Groody on the baseline. Heights attacked the zone differently than they had in the tournament and exploited the baseline. They drove the baseline and were either getting around Groody or getting fouls called on him and really beating us underneath. One of my worst memories was at the end of the half. They scored with three seconds to go and went ahead by one. I grabbed the ball out of bounds and tried to throw it downcourt so we'd have a chance at a last second shot. One of their guys was in my face as I threw and deflected the ball into the lane by their basket where another guy picked it up and they scored again. A horrible play on my part. I had no business trying to force the pass. They went on to win the game by 5 or 6 points. We all made so many mistakes that Coach Howerton, after making us watch the entire game film once, said he was going to burn it. WE NEVER SAW IT AGAIN.

Our next game was against Poly. They were the favorite to win our league. The had a 6-9" post man who was very good, Bob Bounds a 6'5" or 6'6" forward who was really good, a really quick 5'11" left handed point guard and several other good players. They could play an 8 or 9 man rotation without a drop off in quality. We played a 6 man rotation. In preparation for the game we made a couple of changes. I was moved to the baseline on the 1-3-1 so that no one could beat us down there again. Worley was moved to the point and Groody was moved to the wing. With me on the baseline the wing guys had to be more active (remember Coach Howerton was trying to get them to do that back in the Castleberry game) and they did. Our defense was now actually better. We also worked on a spread 4-corners offense to use against Poly to try and neutralize their height advantage. We could also use the 4-corners to stall away the end of the game in normal situations. Frankly, I didn't like it as an offense to run as a base offense during the game. We started the game well against Poly. Running our normal rotation offense we got ahead by 6 points in the first quarter. We were playing well and they couldn't stop us. Coach Howerton had us change to the 4-corners spread offense for the second quarter and the wheels came off. We lost our intensity, we had a couple of bad calls, and we let them get back in the game and go ahead by half. We went on to lose a close game but now had started out district 0-2.

We beat Tech and Dunbar as expected and were 2-2 for the rematch with Arlington Heights. It was another close back and forth game. There were two plays I vivdly remember late in the game. On one fast break the lead pass to me was thrown too far. I finally grabbed the ball on a full sprint directly under the backboard with Charlie Jenkins their 6'1" guard on my back. As I grabbed the ball I jumped back as best I could toward the basket and flipped the ball behind my head toward the basket. It went in and I was fouled. A picture of the play ran in the Star-Telgram. Later with 11 seconds to go we were down by one. I had the ball on the left side of the court beyond the top of the key. I drove the free throw line, squeezed by Jenkins and split between him and the post guy coming up to help, shot, scored and was fouled. I was excited. I had just scored to put us up by one and the the free throw would make it two. But, wait. The ref said "No basket!" He said I was fouled before the shot. I made the free throw and we won in overtime. I'm still hacked that I didn't get the basket and a free throw. In later years I would make a similar play to "win" the Arlington Church League city championship only to see the ref not only disallow the basket but call a charging foul on me.

I don't remember anything about the Poly rematch except that we lost and I fouled out. Linda Kaye, the freelance photographer who shot mostly for the Fort Worth Press, took my picture on the bench. The Star-Telegram used that picture in their article about me. Again, it was a close game but they were simply bigger, deeper, and better. We akso won the rematches with Tech and Dunbar. I think the Tech game was the last game of the year. As I was dirbbling up court our fans, led by Marge Johnson, started yelling "Shoot Charlie" and laughing. As they continued to call for me to shoot, I decided "Why not!" and put up a 20-25 foot jump shot. Swish, nothing but net! And, so ended my high school career. I averaged 9.5 points for the season and 8.5 for district play. I played almost every minute of every game, at least while the game was in doubt. I had a good season and loved it. It is a memory I will treasure always.

I hope I didn't bore you too much. There are hundreds of details I could have added, but I think you get the picture.