So I really haven't felt up to writing much of anything or really doing much of anything. The only basketball related thing I've done this month was watch the Hope women beat Ohio Northern and I took in a high school district championship game, mostly out of curiosity.
Returning to the where it all began
Back in 1982, I was 11 going on 12. Some of my first basketball watching memories were of our high school team that year. They were then and probably still are today one of the best teams that school has ever had. I can still name the starting 5, Dave Beechler, Joe Jecks, Jim Blood, Mike Warner and Tony Nichols (Nichols went on to play at Albion). At some point in the year Eaton Rapids was ranked in the top 10 in Class B. The number one team that year was defending Class B Champion Okemos who also happened to be in the same conference and unfortunately the same district.
The two teams beat each other by 2 or 3 points on each others floor so when the two were paired together in the district semi-final it was a pretty big deal. It was my first experience of this wonderful thing called March Madness. District '36' was in Charlotte (shar-lot) that year, only about 9 miles away and at the time probably the 2nd largest high school gym in the Lansing Area. Even well into the 90's it was well regarded and even hosted some state quarterfinal games.
All I really remember was it was standing room only, it was a heck of a game with lots of screaming and yelling and Eaton Rapids lost a heart breaker by 3 or 4 points. That game was on a Monday and even after losing me and a neighbor friend made it over to each session the rest of the week. Okemos went on to win the rest of their games in the tournament by 20 or more points and won a second consecutive Class B Championship.
That particular Charlotte gym has had a prominent place in my basketball watching memory and just plain memory. Just a year or two later I saw Terry Mills' Romulus team play a quarterfinal game there. I saw all of the local rival Eaton Rapids and Charlotte games. My Freshmen year in high school our wrestling team won a state championship in that gym, and for some reason I was there along with half the town. In the last couple years of my high school years ER was good at basketball again and Charlotte had a future Michigan recruit by the name of Jason Bossard. Those were some pretty good and heated clashes. Later in life I worked with a woman who was a cheerleader at Charlotte at those same games.
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| Jason Bossard is #22, best weight lifter in the Fab 5 era |
Charlotte's gym is a dump now, or at least it looks like it to me. I wish it had some catchy name like 'Oriole Dome' or something but it has no name and it looks quite a bit like Holland High's 'Dutch Dome'. The place was built in the early 70's, a quarter of its bleachers have been replaced by an ugly iron gate that houses the weight room in one balcony. Bleachers have been removed from one end completely and downsized at the other. Its wooden bleachers replaced by the horrible modern plastic variety. I bet it holds half the number of people it did in its hay day. At one end hung the same faded and torn 1970's era girls golf state championship banner that was faded and torn in the 80's. Needless to say its long been surpassed in quality by many suburban Lansing area gymnasiums that have been built in the last 20 years, but this year it was once again Charlotte's turn to host District '36'.
Schools have moved in and out of this district quite a bit over the years, but its always been the Class B schools in Lansing and South of Lansing. This year it was Eaton Rapids, Charlotte, Leslie, Olivet, Jackson Northwest and Parma-Jackson County Western. What made this year particularly intriguing was that none of these 6 teams had a winning record. 6-16, 3-18, 7-14, 10-13, 4-17 and 10-10. A combined 40-88, a .312 winning percentage.......and I'm guessing some very poor efficiency numbers.
What often happens when you pit teams of equal competency or incompetency together is you get very entertaining games. Of the six games 4 were decided by 10 points or less with one buzzer beater and two games where one team had a chance to tie on their last possession. In the final Olivet met Eaton Rapids. So I went to watch out of a sense of former community pride but also morbid curiosity. It would be the first and probably only high school game I'll watch this year and I kind of wanted to see the old gym again. The game turned out to be pretty entertaining. I'd estimate the pace at about 85 points, the fact that the final score was 48-44 probably points to the fact that it wasn't a very well played game. Lots of up and down action with nothing much but missed shots happening.
Neither team led by more than 8 and only for a brief minute or two, and most of the 4th quarter was spent with both teams having numerous opportunities to seize the game but failing in some spectacular and 'losing record high school team' ways. With the score tied Eaton Rapids had the ball and was probably attempting to hold for the last shot, but somehow their best player found himself absolutely wide open on the baseline from 10 feet, so he took the shot with about 30 seconds left. Unfortunately it missed and it was rebounded by Olivet's 6-8 moose of a center. I learned this because the Olivet fans would howl 'mooooose' every time he touched the ball.
| Mooooose! a.k.a. Quentin Harris |
The big moose ended up laying one in on the other end to put the Eagles (not comets) up 2. ER had one more chance though and with the clock winding down their best player drove the lane as a mass of Olivet humanity collapsed on him, he went flying one way and his errant shot flew off into big moose's hands. Could have easily been called a foul but wasn't. Moose hit 2 ft's that sealed the victory.
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| Has nothing to do with any of this, but its from 1982...and awesome |
When an ACL tear is not an ACL tear
Part of Olivet's poor record can be explained by the absence of the moose the last 8 games of the season, the Eagles went 1-7. Quentin was told he had a torn ACL, which somehow turned out to be just a deep tissue bruise. So Quentin was able to suit up again in time for the state tournament. He was obviously still hobbled by it but Q-moose did two things really well. 1) Keep the ball away from shrimpy high school basketball players and 2) make free-throws, so Olivet won. In case you were wondering moose will be playing basketball up with the moose at Michigan Tech.
Olivet's big prize for winning what might have been the state's worst district was a trip to the Regional's at Jackson Lumen Christi, where they would play Jackson Lumen Christi and lose by 47!!!
My March Madness With a Twist
It was good to be back in that gym, see some old faces in the Eaton Rapids crowd I hadn't in a long time. One face in particular kept grabbing my attention. There was a guy photographing the game, obviously a professional and obviously someone I knew or had once known. After the game as he was snapping photos of the Olivet team and I asked him if he was such and such and if he went to Hope College. I already knew the answer but it was good to hear him confirm it anyway. As it turns out he and I lived on the same floor of the same dorm my Sophomore year at Hope. He's quite an accomplished photographer and does freelance work that is frequently published in the Lansing State Journal. Such as big Q-Moose above.
You never know what will happen or who'll you'll see at these things, sometimes its madness........like two student sections sitting next to each other and doing the 'harlem shake'.
Olivet and Eaton Rapids share a 'harlem shake'
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