The History of Texas High School Basketball Volume I 1970-1974 By Mark McKee Dedicated to my father, Raymond McKee “Thanks for all you gave to your family” For more information, go to www.txhighschoolbasketball.com Contents Preface 5 Acknowledgements 6 The Evolution of Basketball in Texas 7 We All Have A Story 10 AAAA 1970 13 AAAA 1971 60 AAAA 1972 87 AAAA 1973 120 AAAA 1974 157 AAA 1970-1974 189 AA 1970-1974 215 A 1970-1974 232 B 1970-1974 243 Preface TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL HISTORY By Mark McKee Texas High School basketball has been a big part of my life since I was in my early twenties. In over forty years of following basketball closely, I have seen so many changes in the game. I went to the TABC clinic recently in San Antonio, and was awed by the sharp young coaches coming into the profession. My son is one of those young coaches. The lives that he will influence over his days in the classroom and on the basketball court will be enormous. The responsibility of coaches and teachers is sometimes overwhelming, as you try to juggle the dual roles. Also at the clinic, I ran into many of my old friends in the coaching profession that I have admired and respected for so many years. This book is really dedicated to the coaches and players that have made High School basketball great. I have included my opinions on much of the material and listed the results whenever possible. My agenda in simply to inform and communicate the history of basketball as it relates to Texas. Many times, I will try share either my experiences or the thoughts of others, who were part of the game. It has been fun connecting with the players and coaches and reflecting on the past. This book is for the serious basketball fan. Hopefully you will enjoy reliving many of the memorable moments of the games, as it pertains to your life. If it brings to life some of your fondest memories, then my work has been a success. In undertaking this journey, I realized I would have to produce books in volumes. This is Volume I and will cover the decade of the 1970s. The later Volumes will soon follow. Every attempt has been made to validate the accuracy of the material presented. Acknowledgements My Passion and love and respect for the game of High School basketball is the reason this book has been possible. The accumulation of articles, books and everything I could get my hands on that related to high school basketball have been incorporated into this book. There are so many players and coaches to thank I can’t list them all. Special thanks goes to Rick Penny and Charles Freet for their encouragement and help. Also, the great Bill McMurray of the Houston Chronicle, who was the high school sports editor from 1960 through 1995. He was one of the great historians of the game. Nobody covered high school basketball like McMurray in Houston. Billy Wilbank’s is awesome with his attention for detail, as he covered the history of the state basketball tournament on his website. The TABC and Texas Hoops were both very supportive along with Dave Campbell’s Texas Basketball. The evolution of basketball in the state of Texas has been very slow over the years. In the last 25 years, great strides have been made in the state. Today basketball teams in Texas can compete with any in the nation and Texas is well known as a recruiter’s paradise. That was not always the case for the Lone Star State. In 1967, I was a 8th grader in McKinney, Texas, just having the time of my life. I lived across the street from the High School and went to every athletic event possible. I liked all the sports, but was especially drawn to basketball. The close confines and loud active crowds made it an exciting sport to watch for me and my friends. McKinney was a growing community just north of Dallas, and was strong in every sport. It was a great place to grow up and follow your local high school heroes. We had an exceptional group of athletes come through McKinney at the time, and the Lions dominated. The football team went to the state finals and played fourteen games. That meant that the basketball team played until late December without their football players. The basketball coach at the time was Scott Johnson, who doubled as a varsity football assistant coach. McKinney had only two starters who were in the gym prior to the football season ending. The varsity basketball team’s record was a dismal 2-8. This was a typical basketball program in the 1960s and 1970s in Texas. Three starters came in from football and the team went, 15-2 the rest of the season and was one game away from the state tournament, losing to Waxahachie(24-9) 66-65. The Lions had one African American player on the team and he was everybody’s favorite, because of his leaping ability. I remember vividly his pre-game dunks. Although he didn’t start he played a lot. Those were the days of football dominating the Texas sports landscape. Younger readers can’t fathom how the air was taken out of the balls the last day basketball season and weren’t aired up again until October, the first day of practice. McKinney had two full-time basketball players on the team in 1967. Mike Olson, the starting guard, had just moved in from Iowa. Although he could have started on the varsity as a junior, he was forced to play on the junior varsity, because of the U.I.L. transfer rule. Even though Olson’s father had been transferred by his company to Texas, his son was ineligible for varsity competition in any sport. He had to wait till his senior year to play varsity basketball. The other straight basketball player was 6’7” Jerry Denison, who had tried to play football, but was just too skinny. Everybody played football because the entire revenue of the athletic program revolved around football. The coaches all knew their pay check and lively hood were dependent on football and its success, not basketball. The following year, in 1968, pressure grew from the town’s people for the head football coach and athletic director to hire a basketball coach. The new head basketball coach at McKinney was Don Brownlee. Brownlee had a strong basketball background, but he had to coach junior varsity football. There was no off-season basketball program. More progressive areas like Richardson I.S.D., located just north of Dallas, had many people moving in from the north. They began putting pressure on school districts for off-season basketball programs. By the early 1970s things began to move slowly towards off-season programs, but the football coaches still ran everything. All hiring within the athletic program was done by the football coach and athletic director. As a basketball coach, you didn’t want to have too much success in your program, or you would be taking athletes away from football program, and believe me, this just was not happening. So, the life of the basketball coach and their programs fought in the shadows of football. By the late 1970s, and early 1980s, basketball was beginning to make some head way with off-season basketball programs, and summer leagues emerging. In talking to Jerry Stone, the former head coach at Richardson High School, he said that the Eagles had an off-season basketball class worked into their last period of the day. If you look at the schools that had off-season programs, they were much more successful than the other programs. In 1984, Harry Miller of Seguin, who was the TABC president, along with president elect of the TABC, Mike Kunstadt, traveled to Austin to try persuading the U.I.L. to allow Texas kids to participated in summer leagues and summer camps. The U.I.L. finally agreed allowing only three kids from one program on a team and a limit of twenty total summer league games for any one player. The quality of play over-all began to improve. There were always strong teams but the number of outstanding teams and programs began to increase. In the early 1990s the restrictions were finally lifted on Summer league action, giving Texas a level playing field with the other states. In 1989, Kunstadt began the Great American Shootouts, under the same rules. This was really the start of AAU basketball in Texas. In the mid-90s the Basketball Congress International or B.C.I. began holding summer tournaments throughout the state, as well. Prime Time moved into the state and really dominated the club basketball scene in the late 1990s. Kunstadt said the main reason he left Corpus Christi Carroll after 1975 was to get out of coaching football. He got the head job at Irving High school and no longer had to coach football. Ken Norman, at Richardson High School in the late 70s and early 80s, said he had to trade film of the varsity football games after the Friday night football game. Norman would wait for the film and make the exchange with next week’s opponent late on Friday night. This was the life of the basketball programs in the new emerging suburbs of the big cities. In McKinney, the head basketball coach after Brownlee was a former McKinney grad, Bill Justice.