Fouled Out

This is not for the birds (fowl). This is for you. This is about basketball, High School basketball. This happened in the 20th Century, in a farming community, in Bedford County, Pennsylvania.

Back in the 1950s five small school districts got together to make the Northern Bedford County School District. They even built a brand new high school building to bring us all together. Well, education was important, but making friends and socializing was a big part of going to school back then, perhaps even now. Then in seventh grade they added that you could play team sports. This is where basketball comes in and making friends for a lifetime. It takes a long time to make old friends.

Going to high school games was a big social event. Playing in a high school game meant you were the entertainment and you could be the star entertainer. In the 1960s, watching a basketball game on the TV was from a distance and in black and white. We were more colorful and more entertaining. Besides we liked being in the crowd and cheering or booing and lots of the time talking to friends and neighbors.

So we were encouraged to play sports. Now we were the boys. There weren’t many high school sports for girls then. They could be cheerleaders, in the band or chorus. But girls were not expected or allowed to get all sweaty and run around at that time in history. Even girls basketball was half court. They did have intramural basketball for girls at our school but that was about it. History has turned a page.

Meanwhile boys in grade school went to Robert P. Smith, the old high school, now an elementary school, on Saturday mornings for two hours and had what was called recreation time or learning to play basketball. Parents sat in the bleachers and watched as we learned how to shoot, pass, and dribble a basketball on the old wooden 3/4 basketball court with a stage on the other side. We also were entertaining as we stumbled, bumbled, and threw the basketball every where but seldom through the hoop. We were sort of a mass that engulfed the basketball.

We were taught there are only four things you could do with a basketball. The first thing to think of was could we shoot the ball and make a basket. If that was a no go, then the second thing was to think about where we could safely pass the basketball. When those two alternatives were null and void, then the third thing was we should consider dribbling the ball, but always remember that the last option of the four things to do with a basketball is lose it or turn it over to the other team and dribbling was very close to option four!

In this era of basketball, there was no three-point line or reason to take a long shot. The coaches emphasized to always make a high-percentage shot. That was the closer you were to the basket, the higher percentage your shot was. So there was a push to drive down the lane and do a layup rather than shoot from the top of the key. Shooting from a distance and missing would result in you sitting on the bench. My Coach Louie Ewart often said that “Liability on the court is an asset on the bench.”

So we learned early to crash the boards and go for the high-percentage shot.

My brother, Dan, was two grades ahead of me and he was a great basketball player. He played with great basketball players: Daryl Barton, Dick Miller, Glenn Hall, Jim Imler, Baron Muscleman, Jim Miller, Randy Miller, and Lonnie Smith, to name a few. They even won for the first time in NBC history the District Five Class B Championship Title in 1966.

I was not a great basketball player. They called the seventh grade basketball team the Rinky-dinks in those days. Mr. Ross Miller, the math teacher was the Rinky-dinks coach. At half-time during the junior high basketball game for 10 minutes you got to play in front of the crowd. Most of the time you played each other, but sometimes the opposing team brought their seventh graders along and you played against a different team. That was exciting.

Now these half time performances were more about running up and down the basketball court with arms and legs moving everywhere and rarely was a basket made but the wild running up and down the court chasing a basketball was amusing entertaining to say the least. Oh, sometimes there was a referee but he tried to stay out of their way and not laugh to much at the stampede going up and down the court. They didn’t keep score but the laughs were for sure.

When I was in eighth grade, I didn’t have the skills or the size to play on the Junior High Team, so much to my embarrassment I was sent back down to the Rinky-dinks to play basketball during the half-time. I wasn’t the only one sent down, but to me, it was a failing grade in the game of basketball.

I thought about quitting because my brother and others teased me about still being a Rinky-dink. My father and mother both heard my laments but told me that I wasn’t a quitter, to be strong, and hang in there, for I was still growing and I would be great someday. I didn’t fully believe them. But I wanted to believe them, for I sure didn’t believe in myself. Besides, I wasn’t allowed to quit anyways. What I did not understand at that time, was that by playing with the Rinky-dinks, I was getting experience in playing in front of a crowd and there is no substitute for experience.

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in Ritchey’s recollections. The Herald will publish the rest over the next few editions.