From 1948 to 1961, the Texas panhandle community of Pampa was most fortunate to have a very talented basketball coach, and therefore it had winning basketball teams. The town folk followed the Pampa Harvesters like any larger city supporting the college or professional team headed for the finals…Every game was a capacity crowd; the remaining population not in attendance would listen to Warren Hasse’s sportscaster on KPDN radio. Coach McNeely brought the best out in his high school players, and as a result, they dominated every team they competed against. What great years those were.
In 1953, Coach Mac put four sophomores on the team, due to a problem with some of the older teammates. I was one of the four. We were privileged to be a part of that great ‘53 Harvester team. After 26 straight wins, we were on our way to Austin, Texas, as one of the final four competing for the state championship. The starters were four very talented seniors and a super-talented junior who became a high school “All American” and then on to a college “All American.” His name was Bond… “James Bond”… but we called him Jim!
As truth would tell, the only time we four sophomores entered a game was when our coach was sure the game was won and “in the bag.” Yeah, we were called the lowly subs. “We,” being Ken Hinkle, Harold Lewis, E. Jay McIlvain, and myself… Gary Griffin. Of course, we thought, “if it weren’t for us pushing those upperclassmen so hard in practice, they wouldn’t be going to State!” So, naturally, we didn’t tell the seniors…us being low men on the totem pole.
Before I go further with this tale, I must mention our bus driver. This guy was a “riot”... he kept all of us in stitches. What a sense of humor he had. That first day on our way to Austin for the finals, John Oden, senior guard, had stated that every bus driver should be named “Clyde!” And so it was from then on, and he loved it. Our “Clyde” could play cards while driving the bus. In a game of Gin, Joe McNamara, the trainer, would hold the cards, and Clyde would look at them in his rearview mirror and then tell Joe what card to play. By the time we arrived in Austin, Clyde was one of the boys. By the way, his real name was Kenneth Williams.
So, it was off to Austin to prove to all of Texas that Panhandle boys knew how to play this game called “Basket-ball,”…which got its name from throwing a soccer ball into a peach basket. A gentleman named James Naismith nailed a straw basket up on a “gymnasium” wall in 1891 at a YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Assoc) Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the game was born. It spread through the organization, which was located all over America. I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Naismith’s son. Well, I digress…let me get back to my story….
Coach Mac believed in going “first-class,” so we traveled in a brand new Trailways bus and stayed in a brand new motel named The Mount Vernon Motel. We even ate in all these fancy restaurants. Nothing like Pampa had. I’m talking about places with cloth napkins and the like. The first time we went into one of these places, I made the mistake of asking, “Hey, you guys, I’ve got TWO forks…anyone need a fork?” (And I have never lived that one down!)
We arrived a week early in Austin, Texas, to adjust to the lower altitude, heat, and humidity. Our motel even had televisions. You see, in 1953, television was very new, and we stayed in one of the few motels with a TV in every room! There was no color TV or cable, and the boxy-looking things had these antennas called “rabbit ears” on the top of them. All TVs were this way. The rabbit ears focused the black-and-white picture, and there were only ten channels of choice. Most of the channels looked like they were in a Texas panhandle snowstorm with so much interference on them.
It was a Sunday evening, and after eating, we ran back to our room to watch Milton Burl on “The Texaco Hour,” then “Steve Allen” and his talent show. Next was “Amos and Andy,” “What’s My Line,” and oh my gosh, then came “The Three Stooges!” E. Jay had jumped up on our bed to imitate Curly by slapping himself on his head and making those funny noises when there was a knock on the door. We all thought it would probably be some upper-classmen ordering us to do something for them, like sneaking over to a Seven-Eleven store for chewing gum and candy or those drinks we were not supposed to touch called “cokes”! We were only allowed to drink Delaware Punch (which tasted like grape juice.)
Opening the door, we were surprised to see Coach Mac and the motel porter. They entered the room, and Coach said, “It’s ten o’clock; time for lights out. Time you were in bed and NO more TV after 10:00.” While he was telling us this bad news, the porter had walked over to our TV and, using a special key, switched off the picture. We were all in our boxers except E. Jay, who was wearing the pink pajamas his mom had made, thus the nickname PJ for him. We always gave him a hard time about those “jammies.” The coach flipped off the light, and we lay in bed while PJ kept a lookout until Coach Mac returned to his room across the way. Once PJ said, “Coast is clear,” we all grabbed our pillows, and the pillow fight was on! We had the bathroom light on with the door partly closed in order to see.
I must stop here and tell you a bit of pertinent information about our room. This new motel had the latest floor coverings, drapes, fixtures, and…walls…yep, I said walls. Unfortunately, these walls had been sprayed with tiny pebbles…sharp tiny pebbles. We didn’t discover this until we had ganged up on Harold and had him cornered when he fell against this “pebbled” wall and slid down it with the sharp stones cutting into his back. We were all laughing our heads off until Harold turned around, and blood was streaming down his torso. Well, that stopped the pillow fight for the night. After that, we made sure we didn’t touch those dumb walls again!
The next day at breakfast, we seriously discussed how to keep the TV turned on after hours. We could bribe the porter or, better yet, try to get an extra key from him. So after Monday morning practice, we spread out around the motel looking for the porter. Within five minutes, we had located him and had ourselves a “deal” after several minutes of negotiation. We would pay him $1.00 per day (a quarter per sophomore) to “fake” the 10:00 p.m. turn-off. In addition, we promised to keep Coach Mac distracted while he pretended to turn our TV off. So we each paid him a quarter and then anxiously waited for the Monday night test.
