ETBC - part 3

The season was mostly uneventful. I played in every game I suited up for and started in some. I missed two road games, one due to injury and the other due to not packing my uniform. After having a missing uniform I required the manager to always pack an extra uniform whenever we took a road trip. It came in handy later in the season when Waymon didn't have his uniform in his bag when we got to the away gym. Here are some of the highlights I remember.

We played Tyler Junior College in Tyler. They won the national JUCO championship either that year or the next and were continually in the playoffs. They had scrimmaged our varsity prior to the season and had beaten them soundly. They had a 6'4" guard named Poo Welch who was supposed to be the second coming of Pete Maravich. In fact, he was signed to go to LSU but couldn't quailfy academically. He was averaging 35 points a game and I was assigned to guard him. He actually ended up at Houston after leaving Tyler. I "held" him to 25 points, primarily because he sat out the last 10 minutes of the game. They won 120-something to 40 or 50.

Tyler had a lot of height and a lot of great basketball players, mostly Division I caliber players who couldn't qualify academically. Playing in their gym with their referees was a nightmare. They didn't need the help but one hot dog referee was intent on giving it to them. If I breathed too hard near Welch a foul was called on me. When I blocked out and he came over my back for the rebound a foul was called on me. When they set a screen on me and I quickly rolled around it, getting between the screener and the basket so they didn't have an easy pick and roll, a foul was called on me. They ran a full court man press. I jab stepped and the defender jumped toward the feint. The referee had his back to the play but, when the crowd "oohed" due to the good move, he figured I must have travelled and blew the whistle. Sometimes on the foul call he would run across the floor and come sliding in on his knees, blowing his whistle to call the foul. He was a real showboat. Obviously, I fouled out. To give you an idea how totally overmatched we were follow this description of the last 17 seconds of the first half. "Tyler shoots, no good. Tip, no good. Tip again, no good. Tip up on the right side, no good. Tip front the left, no good. Tip again, no good." Over and over they tipped the ball from all sides of the rim until finally, "Tip in, good! And, that's the buzzer to end the half." They tipped the ball for 17 seconds with no one having control until it dropped in for the score.

In another game we were playing a 3/4 zone trap. The guy from Cushing was supposed to be playing the point on the press but he just couldn't figure it out. I was trying to tell him what to do but he couldn't do it. Finally, we swapped positions without asking the coach and we started running a successful trap and causing several turnovers.

As the season went along I found myself often playing a forward position against guys as big as 6'7". The only way I could compete was with elbows, hard fouls, and hitting them when the ref wasn't looking. I got tons of retaliation fouls called against the other team. In some respects I became the enforcer on our team because I could hit guys and get away with either no foul or a foul called on them, and I wasn't afraid to take them on.

One game late in the season was played in our gym. The other team had a real hot dog guard who mouthed off a lot and had scored a number of points. He had 20 points or so and they were winning about 70-60 with just a few seconds to go in the game. For some reason, they called time out to set up a play for one more score and that made us mad. By this time I was guarding the guy and all our players were encouraging me to deck him when play resumed. The ball was being inbounded right in front of their bench and they were obviously going to throw it into this guy. As the ref handed the ball to their player to inbound the ball I bellied up to my guy and grabbed his shorts with my left hand, hidden from the referee by our bodies. He felt me grab his shorts and tried to push off on my chest while he broke away for the pass. As he was pushing away I lifted his legs and lower body up by his shorts causing him to lose balance and fall. On my upward motion I released his shorts and showed an open hand in a defensive position. I had put him on his ear and the ref saw nothing. Their coach saw it all clearly and was screaming bloody murder. No foul was called and the remaining seconds ran off the clock with no other scores.

One thing I failed to note about the Tyler game occurred on the drive to the game. I was driving the coach's car with the a player sitting between the coach and me in the front seat and 3 guys in the back. I was telling them about Lee Shaw of IM Terrell and how he had to go to a small college because he only made a 4 on the ACT college entrance exam. The coach punched me and shook his head at me to be quiet. When we got to Tyler JC he told me there were guys in the car who didn't make that high a score!

With that kind of scholastic apptitude it is no wonder that only 6 guys were left eligible after grades came out. Joe, Donny, the soph Indiana guard, Frank, and and other guy (I think Waymon) and me were the only guys eligible. One road trip (Ouchita) was cancelled because they didn't have enough guys eligible to have a JV team and the team we played in the last game only had 5 eligible players.

We had played this team earlier in the year at their place and had beaten them 100-90, or something like that. One guy for sure and maybe more weren't on the team when we played them before. I think they picked them up so they wouldn't forfeit. The "new" guy was 5'7" and slow. He was supposed to guard me. On defense, we played a 1-2-2 zone and I played the position on the right side at the free throw line (left side from the offensive point of view). When the offense took the ball to the right offensive corner I slid down for the offside rebound. Over and over again they would take the ball to the right corner and shoot. The ball would bounce off the rim over to the offside where I would rebound it and head downcourt on the fastbreak. I scored 27 points with 20 rebounds and 20 assists. Our coach kept telling us to quit running up the score but we ignored him. We won 130-something to 40-something.

That ended my playing career at ETBC except for the tryout day for high school seniors. I'll tell you about that in another post.