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| Originally
published December 26, 2001 :: Home 
Scott Sandsberry |
Years Later, Lynden
Christian And here's why: There were 12 players on that team, not just six. So, to a man, the "Iron" Lyncs don't like to relive, or retell, or hear retold their accomplishments over the final two days of the 1976 Class A tournament. Because, although they know they will always get to be the heroes, they hate that the other six members of that team might just be portrayed or remembered as bad guys. Because they weren't. They were just kids -- 17, 18 years old, products of what was a very different time. If any typical dozen high school seniors had told you in 1976 they had never tried marijuana, probably half would have been lying. That doesn't justify what the "other" six did on the eve of the state semifinals. But it doesn't make them bad guys, either. It never did. It never should have made them pariahs -- but, in some circles, it did. I was working at a newspaper in Texas when the Six Iron Lyncs took their place in sports history. I began working at the Bellingham Herald in 1977, and from the time I did some interviews that year for a where-are-they-now story on the Six Iron Lyncs, I was hooked. I did many, many more lengthy ones in 1985, when my intention was to write a screenplay -- and when the memories were much fresher in the players' minds; sure glad I saved those notes -- and did even more extensive interviews earlier this fall. I've always believed Lynden Christian's 1976 title drive would make the best sports movie I could imagine. Part of that was because it was true -- something that always bothered me a little about the film "Hoosiers." As a film? Wonderful. As history? Horse puckey. All that stuff about the cantankerous, controversial ex-college coach having a surreptitious affair with a teacher? Hogwash. The 1954 Milan, Ind., team -- upon which the film's Hickory High was based -- was coached by a quiet, churchgoing 26-year-old with a wife and two kids. Milan's 1954 championship wasn't even really a surprise, since the Indians had reached the state semifinals the year before and had returned the nucleus of that squad. Plus, "Hoosiers" was just about sports. The Six Iron Lyncs was about principle. About integrity. The saddest part of the tale, though -- not addressed in this report -- is what happened after the tournament. While I applaud the Lynden Christian administration and coaches for the courage it took to bench the six for the semifinals and championship, the players were all but exiled in the weeks afterward. Beginning with the post-tournament victory parade before hundreds of cheering spectators in downtown Lynden, the six suspended players were never allowed to be part of the celebration. At the Chamber of Commerce luncheon ... at the Boys' and Girls' Club christening ... at the Rotary Club ... it was as if they didn't exist. That wasn't Bill DeHoog's idea. From all indications, the coach hated that de facto pillorying of his boys -- and made the point at every stop that his team had 12 players, not just six. But the damage was done. The post-tournament banishing, in retrospect, blackballed the other six. I'm certain that wasn't the administration's intent. It was just what happened. Those six suspended players were looked upon as criminals, not kids, by far too many people in the community. Even one would have been too many. But when I was in Whatcom County in October 2001, a friend related to me a conversation he'd had that week -- 25 years after the fact -- with a Lynden resident who talked about how he still remembers "those bad kids ... they sure got what they deserved." That's really sad. And it's why, when I began approaching people for this story, the "Iron" Lyncs wanted no part of it; they wanted no aspersions cast on the other six. Walls of mistrust had to be torn down. Because theirs was a team that had been torn apart by a single mistake 25 years ago. And the biggest cheerleaders for the Six Iron Lyncs -- the loudest, most boisterous, most supportive people in the gym that championship day in 1976 -- were the other six Lyncs.
And, even a quarter-century later, teammates stick up for
their teammates.
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