The ol' ball coach recalls his Belfast team

In a Hillsboro business, last week, I ran into Tom Gall. Tom is an old friend from my days at Belfast, a long, long time ago.

Tom said he enjoyed reading my column.

“But why,” he asked, “Do you never talk about the guys who scored 5 or 6 points a game?”

“Why don’t you talk about the worst 7 or 8 players you ever coached?”

He was joking, of course.

I remember when Tom played for me like it was yesterday. He was the consummate team player. He usually didn’t score many points, because he didn’t take a lot of shots. He preferred to pass the ball. But he was a good player, who had an unbelievable heart. He wouldn’t back down from a challenge.

“Tom,” I would say, “That boy is going to score 30 points against you.” That was like striking a match on the gasoline can. You could feel his back stiffen. He was going to do anything he possibly could do to make sure that kid didn’t score much against him.

When I became the coach there, Tom was in the seventh grade. Our teams had not been overly successful the past few years. I spent a lot of time working with those kids. Tom, Carey Michael, Bob Hamilton, John Swingley, Larry Smart, Bing Williamson and others were the bulk of the team. They learned the fundamental skills of the game. They learned to play smart, and not try to do something that they couldn’t do.

Most of all, they learned to put the team first. They learned to sacrifice personal glory for the benefit of the team.

They learned well. We had some great years. One of the teams we played had kids who drove to the games. A couple of them had voted in the last two elections. We didn’t have a kid who was over-age for a seventh and eighth grade team. We didn’t beat them, but we made them go all out two or three times.

We entered an invitational track meet at Greenfield one year. We didn’t have a track team, or a track. We didn’t have starting blocks. We didn’t have running shoes.

Tom Gall was entered in the 880-yard run. Perhaps 18 or 19 boys started that event. One by one, they dropped out and fell in a heap. Not Tom. He kept running. On the final lap, he fell, about 30 yards from the finish line. He crawled 4 or 5 feet, then, managed to get back
on his feet and kept plodding to the finish line. He finished the course.

As I recall, only about seven boys finished the race. Tom was one of them. Every muscle in his body ached. All of the other finishers were from schools that had track teams.

Is there any coach who wouldn’t love a kid like that? We didn’t win any firsts, but we placed in about five events. Our kids went home very tired, but very proud.

We took the basketball team and cheerleaders to Cincinnati to see the Harlem Globetrotters perform one year. Our superintendent, Chet Miller, suggested that we try to find someone that we could play, in that area, before we went to Cincinnati Garden.

The only game we could arrange on short notice, was with Batavia. They were far bigger that we were. They had the Ogletree boys, who went on to play for the University of Cincinnati. We played them in their gym, with two of their teachers refereeing the game.

We beat them by 7 or 8 points. I don’t think they were ever ahead at any time. After
the game, several Batavia people came to me and asked “Where did you get those
kids?”

“I made them,” I said.

They were just ordinary kids who were in our classes, but I taught them to play smart basketball, accept the challenge and not back down from anybody. And, that is just what they did.

That was about 53 years ago. They are 65- or 66-year-old men, now. Practically all
of them are still friends of mine. There are two attorneys who were in that class, along
with several very successful businessmen, teachers and farmers.

Several of them are retired, now. But in their day-to-day working lives they played smart, accepted the challenges, and they didn’t back down from anybody.

No, Tom, you were not one of the 7 or 8 worst players I ever coached. There would have been a place for you on any team I ever coached. You were a true competitor.

Bob Patton is a Highland County sports historian and a columnist for The Highland County Press.