The Second Dynasty: When Middletown Reigned Supreme in Ohio Basketball

By Richard Paul Jones and Jerry Lucas

THE SECOND DYNASTY explores how the bold initiatives in the 1920s led Middletown, Ohio's high school basketball team to its first state title in 1944, launching an unparalleled dynasty that lasted for sixteen years; ten Final Fours, seven state championships, two national titles, and an unmatched seventy-six-game win streak . And analyses what made the wheels come off.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479758722

Richard Paul Jones

Richard Paul Jones earned a BA from the University of Minnesota and enjoyed a fruitful business career before finding his passion for writing. He stumbled into sports reporting and moved to short stories, publishing both fiction and nonfiction on the Prairie Home Companion and other websites. After sweeping nine of Georgia Writers Association's monthly contests in 2010, Jones made the leap to full-length books. DYNASTY is his first nonfiction effort and begins with his own recollections of seeing the "Middies" wallop a tourney opponent 50-7.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Richard Paul Jones.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2012922640

ISBN:

   Hardcover   978-1-4797-5871-5

   Softcover     978-1-4797-5870-8

   Ebook         978-1-4797-5872-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover design by Xlibris displays Middletown, Ohio’s seven state basketball championship trophies.

Original trophy photo provided by Paul Walker, Jr.

Interior photos provided by and with permission of Middletown Historical Society unless otherwise indicated.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1    Age Of Discovery

Chapter 2    The Architect

Chapter 3    Depression Descends

Chapter 4    Pioneers

Chapter 5    Prelude To Glory

Chapter 6    On The Brink

Chapter 7    The Magic Begins

Chapter 8    Toledo Or Bust

Chapter 9    Bellevue Blues

Chapter 10   Perfect Season

Chapter 11   One And Done

Chapter 12   Victory Parade

Chapter 13   Transition Time

Chapter 14   Seasons Of Sorrow

Chapter 15   Time For A Change

Chapter 16   Tired Of Shooting

Chapter 17   Top Of The Heap

Chapter 18   Going For Three

Chapter 19   Beginning Of A Dream

Chapter 20   The Legend Of Sunset Park

Chapter 21   The Greatest Season

Chapter 22   Shattering The Records

Chapter 23   Alone At The Top

Chapter 24   Black Friday

Chapter 25   Out Of The Ashes

Chapter 26   Reflections

Acknowledgments

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The sign that welcomed visitors to Middletown for many years now welcomes you to the exciting story of how Middletown became the basketball capital of Ohio.

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Wade B. Miller, MHS principal 1917-1944 and superintendent 1944-1953; always the force behind Middletown’s dynasty and the city’s #1 sports fan.

DEDICATION

The Second Dynasty is dedicated to two very special Middies, who will always live within its pages as symbols of the unforgettable assemblage of Middies who rewrote the record book and established the greatest basketball dynasty in Ohio history.

For a long time, Tom Turner was the only Middie I could find from the mid-1940s era. He was retired in St. Augustine, Florida, and I could hear the excitement in his voice as he told me one story after another about growing up in Middletown and playing for the Middies. Tom had been a key player on the team that brought home Middletown’s first state championship and launched Middie Magic. Then one day his obituary arrived in my e-mail. Tom had never mentioned the cancer; we had been too busy reliving those amazing times we both remembered.

I had the privilege of meeting Bob Cole on two of my visits to Middletown, and he always seemed eager to share his experiences with me, even while he was struggling with the agony of chemotherapy. He probably told me more about the city’s culture and basketball heroics than anyone and gave me a copy of his life’s story that he had written some years before; he called it Intestinal Fortitude. Bob had been a widely acclaimed scorer on the Middies’ 1956 state championship team that Coach Paul Walker called the greatest in his thirty years at the Middie helm. And then one day Bob didn’t answer his phone, and I learned that he too had lost his valiant battle with cancer.

I miss both of them as though we had been lifelong friends.

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Elmo Lingrel, MHS coach 1923-1929 and athletic director 1929-1970. Set high standards for Middletown sports teams.

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George Verity, founder and chairman of Armco, Middletown’s primary industrial engine and most generous benefactor.

Foreword

JERRY LUCAS (DR. MEMORY)

I was asked to write the Foreword to this book because I am a part of the story. And what a story it is!

Middletown, Ohio, was pretty much a typical Midwestern town during the time frame of this book and was designated an All-American City in 1958. There was a wonderful sense of community spirit at that time, and the city had a strong industrial base that attracted commuters from as far away as Cincinnati and Dayton. Life during the Great Depression, World War II, and the postwar era was much different than today. It was a simpler time, characterized by respect for authority and unity of purpose, and cars and computers did not dominate young people’s lives.

Farmers throughout the Midwest planted crops in the spring that matured through the summer and were harvested in the fall. Middletown had a unique annual crop that also was planted in the spring, but it wasn’t planted in soil; it was planted on the concrete courts of the city’s numerous parks, most notably one called Sunset Park. That special crop also matured through the summer, and it was harvested in the fall by the Middletown High School basketball program.

The seeds of those crops were young boys who wanted more than anything to be Middies. Through superb training and tireless efforts, they matured into exceptional basketball players, earned a remarkable number of college scholarships, and left a mark on Ohio basketball history that remains unmatched even today.

My own Middletown foundation and the success of my teams led to my being the first player in history to win a basketball championship at every level of competition: high school, college, Olympic, and professional (NBA). It all started for me, as it did for so many others, as a seed that blossomed on the concrete court at Sunset Park.

In this book, you will read about a time and a basketball program that left a unique heritage in American society. You will enjoy that time in our history, the people and the events that gave birth to Middletown’s sixteen-year basketball dynasty, dubbed Middie Magic.

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Ohio State University co-captains, Jerry Lucas and Larry Siegfried crown coach Fred Taylor after Buckeye’s NCAA championship in 1960.

Photo provided by Jerry Lucas.

Preface

As 1944 dawned, the tide of war in both Europe and the Pacific was turning decisively in favor of the Allies. Axis forces were in retreat on virtually every front. Americans were beginning to foresee an end to the war in Europe but feared a prolonged island-hopping conflict in the Pacific.

In March of that year, three months before the Allied invasion of Normandy, the high school boys’ basketball team from Middletown, Ohio, captured its first state championship, triggering an unparalleled dynasty that lasted for sixteen glorious years.

During this ostensibly magical period, the Middie teams made ten trips to the Ohio state Final Four and won the state championship a record seven times. In the ensuing years, no Ohio school has matched the Middies’ seven state titles, nor has any ever equaled the Middies’ astonishing seventy-six-game win streak amassed during the peak years of 1955-1958, during which the Middies also were honored by the National Sports News Service with two consecutive national titles.

Middletonians universally agree that the greatest of these Middie teams was the 1955-1956 squad—starring phenomenal sophomore Jerry Lucas, which compiled a 25-0 record and consistently dominated its opponents by lopsided scores. Although Lucas was the unmistakable star of that team, all five of the starters were later offered Division I college scholarships.

It has now been over half a century since that era when Middletown reigned supreme in Ohio basketball. During that span, the Middies have made only two state tournament appearances and each time met defeat. The Second Dynasty is a behind-the-scenes examination of Middletown and its high school basketball program that provides insight as to why this explosion of success occurred at that particular moment in history and why it came to an inevitable end. And of course, it seeks to immortalize those dedicated boys and men who made it happen.

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Middletown High School, opened in 1926; one of biggest in Ohio and one of first with gymnasium equipped for basketball.

Chapter 1

AGE OF DISCOVERY

My friend Smitty and I lived in a pleasant middle-class neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio, and came of age during the Great Depression and World War II. On December 7, 1941, Smitty and I listened in stunned silence to the live radio reports describing the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and heard President Roosevelt’s speech the next day when he said, This day shall live in infamy, and asked Congress to declare war.

The war didn’t affect our day-to-day lives very much. Some things like meat and gasoline were rationed, women couldn’t buy silk stockings, and you couldn’t find anything but synthetic rubber tires; but that was grown-up stuff. What really hit home for us was when Hershey bars went to war. I guess when we saw Patton’s tanks rout Rommel’s forces in North Africa on The March of Time at the movies, it was sort of like kids today watching reality shows on television.

Smitty and I became basketball junkies after my dad mounted a hoop on the back of our garage. We played basketball, followed our favorite teams in the Dayton Daily News, and talked about the game every chance we had. When basketball season started in the fall of 1943, we started riding the bus to and from the Fairgrounds Coliseum to see the local high school teams play. Between trips to the Coliseum, we devoted our time behind the garage to emulating the high school players and used our newfound skills in two-on-two games against the other kids in our neighborhood. At school, we tested our capabilities in gym class and couldn’t wait until we were old enough to try out for Belmont’s ninth-grade team.

In February 1944, Smitty and I caught tournament fever. The district and regional basketball tournaments for both Class A and Class B schools were played at the Coliseum, and we made the bus trip to our favorite haunt three or four evenings a week. That is when we discovered Middletown.

The first night of the Class A district tournament, one of the games was between Dayton Kiser and Middletown, a place we would have been hard put to find on a map. But the Middletown players caught our attention as soon as they took the floor in their classy purple and white warm-ups. None of them was tall enough to stand out in a crowd, but they captured our imagination as they went through their warm-up drills and shootaround.

After a few minutes, Smitty turned toward me and said, Take a look at number 3. He hasn’t missed a shot since they came out of the locker room.

Number 3 was shooting one-hand push shots from the corner, and we watched in awe as he drained eight in a row. If he keeps hitting like that, it’s going to be a long night for Kiser, I replied, feeling a surge of anticipation.

When they introduced the starting lineups, we found out number 3’s name was Will Smethers. On the opening tip-off, Middletown’s center, Chick Boxwell, outjumped Kiser’s taller center, Uglaki. Tom Turner won the race to the ball, dribbled across the centerline, and rifled a pass to Smethers, who calmly sank a one-hand shot from the corner. Middletown led two-zip.

Yeah, a very long night, Smitty belatedly mumbled without taking his eyes off the action.

Middletown played a hard-nosed man-to-man defense, and Kiser couldn’t seem to work the ball inside. Boxwell intercepted a pass intended for Uglaki and fired a long pass to Smethers, who raced down the floor for a layup. The next time down the floor, a Kiser player named Pflum launched a prayer from out beyond the circle that didn’t touch iron, and Howard Schueller captured the rebound for the Middies. Seconds later, Boxwell scored and was fouled; he calmly sank the free throw, and Middletown led 7-0.

Kiser tried in vain to penetrate the Middies’ defense. Paul Lansaw intercepted a pass, and Smethers hit again to end the first quarter with Middletown in front 9-0. Smitty feigned a puzzled look and followed it with a chuckle that contained a hint of sarcasm.

Kiser’s game went from bad to worse in the second period as Middletown scored twenty points to build its lead to 29-0 at the half. A lot of the fans in the Kiser section seemed to be heading for the exits, and I jokingly told Smitty it looked like a shutout was brewing. Smitty answered with a Who knows? gesture and followed it with another derisive chuckle.

Three minutes into the second half, Kiser ended our shutout speculation with its first basket but trailed after three quarters, 41-2. Coach Royner Greene cleared the Middies’ bench early in the final period, and Middletown won by an astonishing 50-7 score.

Smethers led the scoring with sixteen points, and sophomore Don Bolton tallied twelve off the bench. Three Kiser players had one field goal each; Uglaki was blanked by Boxwell, except for one measly gift toss. Smitty and I just shook our heads in disbelief; we were hooked on the Middies.

We had favorite players on some other teams too, but that night, the Middies became our team. I don’t think it was just because of the way they had demolished Kiser. We liked the Middies’ smooth style of play and the poise and confidence each of them displayed. And we quickly became fans of the slick new one-hand push shot that seemed to be a Middie trademark.

As we continued to watch the Middies play and follow them in the newspaper, our favorite Middletown player became Richard Chick Boxwell. At six feet two, he wasn’t as tall as a lot of other centers; but he consistently out jumped them and always managed to score, block a shot, or snag a rebound at the most crucial moment.

Then there was Will Smethers, who played the double pivot with Boxwell and could drain one-handers with robotic regularity. Smitty and I tried to copy Tom Turner’s deadly two-hand set shot and Paul Lansaw’s devastating dribble drive every chance we got. The fifth starter was Howard Gunther Schueller, a gangly six-foot-three inside player, who gobbled up rebounds and always found a way to score when the game was on the line.

Of course, Smitty and I never stopped to think about why Middletown played with such smooth precision and always seemed to make the right play at just the right time. But unbeknownst to us, and probably to many of the Middletown players and fans, every aspect of the Middies’ success was part of a carefully designed plan dating back almost half a century.

Chapter 2

THE ARCHITECT

Middletown was first settled in 1791 on the banks of the Great Miami River between Cincinnati and Dayton. At that time, America’s principal population centers were clustered along the Atlantic seaboard and the nation’s vast network of navigable lakes and rivers that provided the primary means of transportation. Cincinnati, strategically located on the Ohio River, grew and prospered as the nation’s foremost pork-processing center while nearby Middletown became a pork packing and shipping hub.

By 1825, the growing industries of southwestern Ohio were clamoring for direct access to the bustling markets and ports of the northeast, and the Miami-Erie Canal was constructed to connect the Ohio/Miami Rivers with Lake Erie. With its southern terminus at Middletown, the canal quickly became an important cog in the commercial life of the United States and a doorway to world markets. By 1830, the population of Middletown had grown from fifty to over three hundred.

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Canal boat used to carry freight on Miami-Erie Canal, circa 1800s.

The next era in Middletown history began with arrival of the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railroad in 1851 and the Cincinnati and Springfield Railroad in 1872. The resulting industrial development brought the Edward Jones Meat Packing Company to Middletown in 1836, the Sorg Tobacco factory in 1878, and the Middletown Machine Company in 1889. By 1900, Middletown was a thriving industrial town with a population of just over nine thousand.

As the new century dawned, a development occurred that would define the future of Middletown for most of the next century. In May 1900, arrangements were completed with George M. Verity to move his American Steel Roofing plant from Cincinnati to Middletown. A year later, the company began operations at its new facility and was renamed the American Rolling Mill Company (Armco).

Subsequently, the company developed an innovative method of producing rolled steel for the burgeoning automobile industry, and Armco became one of the most successful and profitable companies in the nation. Other companies flocked to town to facilitate doing business with Armco, and by 1930, Middletown had been transformed into a steel town whose population had ballooned to almost thirty thousand.

*     *     *

In 1893, James Naismith originated the game of basketball at a YMCA facility in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the game quickly spread to other YMCAs. Just two years after the game’s humble beginning, the Middletown Y moved into a new building, replete with a gymnasium fully equipped for the popular new game. Two years later, the Middletown Y team won the Miami Valley basketball championship, which in retrospect seems to have been prophetic.

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Middletown YMCA built in 1895 (only 2 years after game of basketball was invented). Had gymnasium fully equipped for the new game.

By that time, basketball was beginning to gain popularity in America’s high schools and especially in the Midwest. The new game was a perfect fit for the farm belt since the season started after the fall harvest and ended before spring planting began.

The roundball game became the new rage, in part because it only required a ball and a hoop or even just a peach basket with the bottom cut out. It also offered the opportunity for fun and challenging competition for a solitary farm boy with a hoop nailed to the barn or a group of kids playing in an alley or driveway. Backboards and hoops were erected on school playgrounds and in city parks while the YMCA became a popular place to play on a regulation court. Teenage boys did not have the luxury of cars and computers in those days, and when school was out, most of them headed for the parks and playgrounds.

By 1909, the new game was spreading among Ohio high schools, and Ohio Wesleyan University started the Inter-High School Basketball Series to determine a state champion. Popularly known as the Delaware Tournament, it was an invitational tourney with all games played at Edwards Gymnasium on the Ohio Wesleyan campus in Delaware, a few miles north of Columbus. The first year, only seven teams participated, and the title was won by Manchester High School.

In 1917, under Coach E. O. Smith, Middletown was undefeated in twenty-one regular season games and was invited to the Delaware Tournament. The Middies defeated Springfield for the South title but lost to Cambridge in the championship game.

By 1922, just thirteen years after its humble beginning, the Delaware Tournament had grown to an unwieldy 160 teams and was discontinued. That year, Dayton Stivers defeated Toledo Woodward Tech, 26-19, for its fourth Delaware title in six years, thereby earning the honor of being the first dynasty in Ohio basketball history.

The next year, the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) sponsored the first official state tournament. All of Ohio’s high schools were divided between Class A and Class B, based on the number of boys enrolled. The schools were geographically divided into sixteen districts, each of which held separate tourneys for its Class A and B teams. The thirty-two winning teams, sixteen each for Class A and B, advanced to state tourneys at the Columbus Auditorium where state champions were crowned in each class.

Wade