Kingsville Hawk soared

By CHRIS LARICK
Staff Writer

At one point, before Ashtabula County high schools consolidated into first nine, then eight units (with the merger of Harbor and Ashtabula into Lakeside), there were as many as 22 smaller high schools as recently as the 1960-1961 school year.

All of them offered boys basketball programs, some of them extremely competitive. In the mid-1950s, the best of the smaller (Class B) basketball teams were found in New Lyme (Deming) and Kingsville.

The Kingsville team enjoyed its best season in the 1953-54 season. With Ed Batanian as its coach and Ron Hanson, the "Kingsville Hawk," the best player, the Kings roared to a 22-5 season.

Exactly how many points Hanson scored that season is in question. One newspaper report had him averaging 16.9 points. Hanson says he has boxscores for 23 of the games. The total points he scored in those games add up to 511, 22.2 per contest.

Regardless, there is no question that Hanson was one of the leading players of his era. He was selected to the United Press Class B All-Ohio team as an honorable-mention choice after the season.

Hanson was recently named as one of the inductees of the Ashtabula County Basketball Hall of Fame's fourth class, the Class of 2006.

"I was called the Kingville Hawk because I had the ability to fake guys out and take the ball," Hanson said via telephone from his home in Lyman, South Carolina.

Of the Kings starters, only Ray Reed at 6-foot-6 was more than 6-feet. Hanson himself, who played guard and forward, was 5-8, though he was listed at 5-10 in the newspaper. Brothers Keith Carlson, a senior, and Bill Carlson, a junior, were about 5-10 and guard Joe Brown stood about 5-6. Despite Kingsville's lack of size, the Kings were capable of scoring in bunches.

"We had five games we were over 100 points," Hanson said. "I scored 41 against Austinburg."

In one of their games that 1953-54 season, Kingsville beat Rock Creek,
119-44. Hanson had 32 points in that contest and Reed added 30. In a game
his junior year, the Kings outscored New Lyme Deming, a team that was led by
Hall of Famers Frank

Zeman and Richie Scribben, 107-95. Kingsville ultimately won the Big Seven
championship that year.
In addition to basketball, Hanson played second base on the Kingsville
baseball team and competed in the shot and discus in track. During his
senior year, he finished second in the Orange High School district in the
shot with a throw of 44-111Z2.
"I weighed only about 150 pounds in high school," Deming said. "I weigh a
lot more than that now."
The Kings anticipated great things in the tournament, but were stopped by a
Harbor team they had beaten earlier in the season, 71-57.
Hanson's coach, Ed Batanian, also a member of the ACBF Hall of Fame and
still secretary on the Ohio High School Athletic Association Northeast
District board, recalls that Hanson started at point guard for three years
for the Kings.
"He was just a cat, quicker than lightning," Batanian said of Hanson. "I
don't think I ever saw a kid back in those days as quick as Ronnie.
"We played a lot of pressure defense. The gyms were so small we scored a lot
of points. We played teams like Spencer and Austinburg in the Big Seven. Ron
was a shooter. My theory was that if he was hitting, we'd give him the ball
and I'd just watch him shoot the ball."
Hanson was such a prolific scorer that, when a baker in Conneaut offered a
cake to the team's high scorer in every game, Batanian insisted that the
team decide who was going to get the cake. Otherwise, Hanson would have won
it almost every week.
The manager of the team, Burton Bartram, kept track of who had and hadn't
won the prize. But it got to a point that, despite the baker's idea to let
them eat cake, the Kings no longer hungered for it.
"One time, the kids said, OWe haven't eaten the cake from last week yet,'"
Batanian said. "It would have created jealousy if Ron got the cake every
week. He got the first one and then I spread it around."
One thing that was unique about some of the county basketball courts, which
doubled as auditoriums, was that the teams sat on the stage at one end of
the court during games, Batanian said.
"When you had a timeout, you had to jump off the stage to talk to the kids.
There was no place to move."
When the Kings got to the tournament, Reed, the big 6-6 center, had
pneumonia when Kingsville lost to a Harbor team paced by center Bob Peura
and coached by Elmer Gray.
"Ron (Hanson) was not very big, but he was very quick," Batanian summed up.
"He wasn't the smallest on the team; Joe Brown was. (Hanson) was a very good
shooter."
When Hanson graduated from high school in 1954, he joined the United States
Air Force, becoming an aircraft repairman and playing basketball for the
Wright-Patterson Kittyhawks in Dayton. He came home in 1955 and played for
the Kingsville alumni team that beat the Kingsville varsity team.
"Ed (Batanian) said we were the best team that they played that year,"
Hanson recalls."
Hanson served four years in the Air Force from 1954 and 1958 and was
reinducted during the Berlin callup in 1960-61, serving an additional 10
months.
Afterward, he began a civil-service career, beginning in Erie, serving 34
years, many of them as a quality assurance specialist, inspecting
electronics.
He married a woman from Kelloggsville, Alma. They would have been married 51
years in May, but Alma died on March 6. The couple had four daughters and a
son. The family has now extended to eight grandchildren.
Hanson retired in 1990. One year, the Hansons visited one of their daughters
in South Carolina and liked the state so well they decided to move down
there.
"My wife didn't like the cold weather," Hanson, 71 years old, said. "Today
(March 6), it was 75 degrees. My wife's sister lives down here and my son,
Ronnie, is an electrician in a school system down here. Ronnie's 44; he was
born on my birthday."

File
RONNIE HANSON (right) of Kingsville covers up with the basketball as he
looks for a way past Edgewood center Dick Schwartz, who is closely guarding
him. Also shown are Kingsville center Ray Reed (6), along with fellow Kings
Keith Carlson (26) and Joe Brown (21) during a key game in the 1953-54
season.

File
RONNIE HANSON (12, holding trophy) and his Kingsville Kings teammates of
1953-54 pose for this photo in celebration of winning the Big 7
championship. At right is coach Ed Batanian, an ACBF Hall of Famer. Hanson
will be inducted into the ACBF Hall of Fame on Sunday night.

Submitted photo
RON AND ALMA HANSON poses for this photo in celebration of their 50th
wedding anniversary on May 28, 2005. Alma passed away on March 6.