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March 5, 2003 :: Home
Scott
This story is part of "Tourney Titans," a special section profiling the top players and teams in the history of the Class 1A state basketball tournament. |
Picking the Best of the Best Isn't an Easy Job for Anyone It drives my wife crazy that I can remember a line from a decades-old movie -- which character played by what actor said what to whom, when, why and in what context -- but forget something she said to me yesterday. But that lovable idiosyncrasy -- lovable, right? -- goes beyond movies. It also includes basketball. Specifically Class A state hoops, or, as it is officially known these days, the Washington Boys' State 1A Basketball Championship. I'm such a junkie for this tournament that any overheard snippet of conversation about some Class A -- OK, Class 1A, fine, be that way -- tournament from 20 years ago will make me leave what I'm doing so I can listen in and put in my two cents. (Or, as the windbag my friends all know and tolerate, my buck-seventy-five.) The 1A boys tournament is great stuff. The girls tourney is, too, but it hasn't yet generated quite the quantity of footnote fodder, doesn't yet have quite the history. And that's what the 1A boys tournament is -- a colorful history, not to mention histrionics, hysterics, even occasional heroics. Entire communities drive hundreds of miles to support their teams. The banner that used to adorn the main drag out of Lynden on Wednesday morning of every state-tournament week -- "Last person out of town has to turn out the lights" -- was nearly literal. The place all but shut down for four days. That was the tradition. And it was the same at places like Colfax and Cowiche, Elma and Ephrata, Nooksack and Naches, Chelan and Chewelah. The tournament has changed with the 1998 realignment that at once created the 1A classification and funneled many traditionally "A" names into 2A, just as it changed in 1986 when the tournament moved from the UPS fieldhouse to the Tacoma Dome and again in 2001 when the WIAA moved it to the Yakima Valley SunDome. So the trappings have changed, as have the school names on the uniform fronts. But the history remains, and during a conversation with Herald-Republic sports columnist Roger Underwood -- about, yes, great moments in Class A tournament history -- it hit me: With both the 1A and 2A tournaments here in our own back yard (albeit a back yard that charges for parking), we should relive some of that Class A history to remind us that's what the 2003 tournaments are: Parts of a whole. Pieces of history. And how better to celebrate that history than to generate an argument or three? The easiest way to start an argument with a sports fan is to say one player is better than another, or that this team would beat that one, or that this championship was more impressive than the one the year before. So that's what we did: We put together a voting panel of 20 knowledgeable (present company excepted, of course) tournament observers, including hall-of-fame coaches, statisticians and longtime tournament observers, and had them put together their personal lists of all-time top 10 players and top 10 teams to have competed in the Class A/1A tournament in its first 45 years. Any team or player who participated in even one tournament could be a candidate. That was the only rule. We didn't tell the voting panelists, for example, how to deal with somebody like Luke Ridnour, the All-America guard at Oregon, who played only his freshman year at the 1A level before Blaine moved up to the 2A ranks. We didn't instruct panelists on whether they should or should not consider what the players might have accomplished in the college or pro ranks. We didn't tell each panelist to base his team picks on whether he believed his No. 1 team would beat the rest of the teams on the list. Just this: Pick your top 10 players and the top 10 teams (in order from best to 10th-best) in Class A/1A tournament history. Period. The rest was up to them. And they took it seriously. No panelist did it in a hurry, and few made their picks without chewing them over with other Class A connoisseurs. One panelist said he was considering me sending me the $600 phone bill he'd run up calling all over the state for input on his selections. I'm sure he exaggerating. I bet it wasn't a penny over $450. Theirs was no easy job. Consider this: 45 years equals 45 tournaments equals 45 tournament MVPs and 45 team champions. Even if a panelist went for 10 MVPs in picking his players, that would mean 35 MVPs wouldn't get so much as a mention. And you might not go for just MVPs, because what about those years when great players played in the same year? Dave Hovde played when Richard Hanson did. Same with Ron Deaton and Darren Morningstar, with Tim Taylor and Keith Collins, with Rod Derline and Pat Rogers. "I could give you five lists of 10 guys and we'd only be scratching the surface," said panelist Curt Self, publisher of The Self Guide weekly basketball publication, who proceeded to go off on a rant about the stellar players he couldn't squeeze into his top 10. "Charlie Carlson, Jon Kincaid, Hovde, (Derric) Croft, Phil Oman, Shelly Baker -- I mean, Shelly Baker should be in there, from Medical Lake. Paul Jarrett and Danny Rough, from Port Townsend. You've got John Van Dyke from King's. And what about Kenny Stone from Winlock? One of the first guys who could dunk at will, and arms that were like 12 feet long. Great guy. And what about Dougie Burge? Helluva ballplayer." Because the panelists themselves ranged in age from their 30s to their 70s, they were bound to have different perspectives on different teams and players. That was by design; we wanted a broad perspective, and we got it. Two panelists had entirely different top 10 team lists -- one's not including even a single team from the other's top 10 -- yet had five top players in common. Only one team (Cashmere, 1977) made it onto as many as 17 panelists' lists, but each of the top 10 teams made it onto at least half the lists and only 29 teams received as much as a single vote. The players' voting was more wide open, with 42 players making it onto at least one panelists' list with only one making every list -- Richard Hanson, the legendary "Handshake" himself. As expected, Ridnour was a wild card, listed among the top three players by four panelists but left completely off 15 ballots because of his abbreviated stint in 1A. Most interesting pick? Probably that by Bill Kelly -- who coached four title teams at Cashmere, including the top-vote-getting '77 bunch -- selecting Lynden Christian's 1976 "Six Iron Lyncs" team as No. 1. "I thought they really had to overcome that year, going down to six kids," Kelly said. "They weren't the best I've ever seen at the tournament, but they were the best achievers." Most panelists found the players' list the toughest to winnow down to just 10. (It ate at Glenn Johnson's gut to not be able to find a spot for Chelan's Jim Beeson. Ditto with panelist Dennis DeBoer and the exclusion of Nooksack Valley sharpshooter Rocky Heutink.) Me, I struggled with the teams, because I couldn't quite find a place for a team that wasn't as talented as those that made my list but that is, without question, my all-time favorite team in any sport: 1982 Lynden Christian. Mentored by Kent DeHoog (a true gentleman, still far and away my all-time favorite coach), led by tournament MVP Dwayne Scholten and heady guard Roger DeBoer, that team typified sportsmanship and class every minute of every game. Never whining to officials. Always offering a hand or a pat on the back to friend and foe alike. Always sharing the ball, never hogging it. Playing the game somewhere between a smile and a steady focus, never with a sneer. Maybe they weren't the best team I've ever seen -- apparently, not even in the top 10 -- but when it comes to class, they were in a class of their own. What's that you say? Maybe class should have been the criteria for this collection of Class 1A greatness? Don't get me started.
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