13th in a series...
Happy
birthday, Ken Smith.
Perhaps the biggest party that has ever been held in his honor will
take place Sunday at the Conneaut Human Resources Center. A crowd of
somewhere between 350-450 people should be on hand for the occasion.
Unfortunately, they're getting to the party a little late this year.
Ken Smith was born on March 13, 1919.
Actually, the real reason everybody is showing up this year is for
the seventh annual Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Awards
banquet. Smith will be sharing the spotlight with 13 other people
from around Ashtabula County who are being inducted into the ACBF
Hall of Fame at 3 p.m., not to mention many of today's top coaches,
players and officials.
But,
by all accounts, Ken Smith would have enjoyed such a party. He loved
to laugh and have a good time.
"Ken
loved a good joke and he loved to laugh," his wife Joan said. "He
loved to have a good time."
His
family also noted that Smith would have appreciated the irony of
being the 13th inductee to be spotlighted for their big day.
"Dad
was born on Friday the 13th," his daughter, Connie Mracek, said. "He
would have got a kick out of being the 13th."
Unfortunately, Smith will not be on hand to join in the celebration.
He died in January of 1993 at age 73. His daughter will accept his
award.
His
wife and daughter believe Smith would appreciate the recognition
from the ACBF and might even be a little bewildered by it.
"He'd
would probably be a little surprised by this because I think he
considered himself a better baseball player," Joan Smith said. "I
still think he'd really appreciate it."
"I
think he'd be very pleased with this honor," Connie Mracek said.
But
Smith's basketball credentials are also solid, to say the least. He
was a part of Class B county championships during his sophomore and
junior seasons of 1936-37 and 1937-38 at the now-defunct Rock Creek
High School for the team coached by Lewis J. Wiragas.
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There is one achievement, though, that stands above all his
other accomplishments with the Pirates in what was an otherwise
non-descript 5-7 senior season of 1938-39. For, on Feb. 11,
1939, Smith scored 59 points against Colebrook High School in an
89-14 victory for what was then a state and county single-game
record. It was an amazing feat in an era when scores were often
in the teens and jump balls were held after every basket.
A
couple of Smith's old basketball teammates have survived him.
They vouch for his credentials as a hall of fame member. Both
live just a couple of doors down from Joan Smith in Rock Creek
today.
"Ken was good," Lucius Brettell, one of his classmates with the
Pirates, said. "He was very good in everything. He was just an
all-around good player. He was a very good, popular person, too.
He deserves to be in the hall of fame."
"Ken was a very good scorer and a very good defensive player,"
Ed Kendzerski said. "We played schools like Jefferson, Orwell,
Rome, Dorset and New Lyme-Deming and he did well against all of
them. He should be in the hall of fame." |
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As
excited as all his family members are about Smith's selection, there
is one person who is particularly pleased — his great-grandson,
Nicholas Mracek, a fifth grader at Homer Nash Kimball Elementary
School in Madison.
"Nicholas plays basketball in the Madison Youth Basketball
Association and is on their traveling team," Connie Mracek said. "He
asked his mother one day, ‘Doesn't anyone in our family play
sports?' He was so excited when he found out about my dad going into
the hall of fame for playing basketball."
Nicholas will be at Sunday's induction ceremony with the rest of his
family.
Growing up
Ken
Smith was born in Cleveland, the son of Mary B. and John G. Smith.
He was the youngest of six children, following Florence, William,
Leonard, Gordon and Laverne.
The
Smiths moved to Rock Creek when Ken was in the seventh grade.
According to his wife, they lived on what is now Rome-Rock Creek
Road.
Ken
was always a sports fanatic, getting involved in baseball first and
then branching out into other sports. He didn't get involved in
basketball until he entered high school.
But
apparently, Wiragas quickly identified Smith's talents and utilized
them. Kendzerski and Brettell spoke to those gifts.
"I
was the center for our team at a little under 6-feet," Kendzerski,
who only teamed up with Smith through their junior year, when the
Pirates were 8-4, before he dropped out of high school, said. "Ken
was probably only 5-7 or 5-8.
"The
thing is, he was real fast. He could go up and down the court so
quickly. He stole the ball a lot to do a lot of his scoring, but he
was a good shooter, too."
"He
was real fast," Brettell agreed. "He could score and he was good on
defense."
Smith
and the rest of the Pirates responded well to the coaching of
Wiragas, who also coached them in baseball.
"Mr.
Wiragas was a very good man," Kendzerski said. "He coached the
girls, too.
"He
was very strict, but he didn't holler and yell a lot. He was always
very calm. When he talked, you listened. We were almost always very
successful."
Smith's big game in his senior year was the one that most attention
is focused upon, but Kendzerski said it wasn't the only big scoring
night his teammate enjoyed during his career.
"I
remember Ken scored about 40 points in a game when we were
sophomores," he said. "I think that was against Williamsfield."
Other
members of the team during the era when Smith roamed the court at
Rock Creek and helped produce the two county championships included
Jim Armstrong, Don Freeborn, Glenn Kellogg, Fred and John Lenart,
Rudolph Martin, Walter Ray, Ray Ronae and Charles Sakryd.
His big night
But
it was left until that night in 1939 for Smith to turn in his
greatest performance. He racked up his 59-point night with 28
baskets and three foul shots.
A
flowery description of that game that appeared in the Star Beacon
follows:
"The
most glittering display of individual scoring wizardry ever
witnessed in Ashtabula County Class B basketball was unveiled here
Friday night," the article read. "Ken Smith, Rock Creek's stripling
will-o-the-wisp forward, projected 59 markers through the pay-drapes
in setting one of the highest one-man totals in Ohio scholastic
history.
"Incidentally, there was a basketball game played, in which Rock
Creek mauled Colebrook, 89-14. The high-scoring hysteria which has
marked Class B play this year drew a fine focal point Friday as
Smith, slender senior ace, tossed everything from everywhere into
the home hoops.
"Smith got hold of the branding iron early in the first period and
began leaving his mark. By the time the smoke had cleared away at
the end of the inaugural half, Rock Creek had nestled 47 tallies to
Colebrook's nine, and the fair-haired boy had forged himself 32.
"Colebrook's lethargy and Smith'a legerdemain continued throughout
the wind-up cantos. While scorching 16 baskets into the records,
Smith found an opportunity to grab three charity flips for his
59-point total."
Noted
area photographer Bob Barbian, who wrote for the Star Beacon at one
time, had a retrospective on the game and that season at Rock Creek
some years later.
"Although the Rock Creek Pirates suffered their worst basketball
season in their school history in 1939, they had their opportunity
to rewrite the record books," Barbian wrote. "This year, the Pirates
had desire, spirit and many of the other qualities that tend to
compose a championship ballclub.
"But
only one minor element was missing. Rock Creek scored fewer points
than any of its 16 regular-season opponents. Also they dropped one
tournament game and an exhibition tilt to grads of last year.
"But
on Feb. 11, 1939, a Rock Creek forward, namely Ken Smith, poured in
28 baskets and three foul shots for 59 points, a new state record.
The Rock Creek team was a high-flying outfit that year, and its
89-14 triumph over Colebrook on that night should be of some
consolation to the loyal Pirate fans.
"Smith's speed, plus ability to drive in and shoot completely
confused Colebrook. The rout was played under the old rules, using
the jump ball after each basket."
After the Pirate ship
There
might have been an opportunity for Smith to pursue sports after high
school. Wiragas organized a tryout for him with the Columbus
Redbirds minor-league baseball team, but apparently it didn't bear
fruit.
Other
forces intervened. Smith's father died in August of 1939, shortly
after he graduated from Rock Creek. He went to work for the Sanborn
Wire Co. in Rock Creek. His mother lived until she was 94, according
to Joan Smith.
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At the same time, war clouds were hovering over the world. He
was drafted into Army in the fall of 1941, just before the U.S.
entered World War II.
Smith was in the service throughout the remainder of the war,
starting out in the infantry. Eventually, he got to England,
where he was in charge of his barracks, then worked in harbor
craft on a tugboat. He continued on into Europe with Allied
forces, going on into France.
Joan also graduated from Rock Creek High School, but had never
met Ken while he was in school. When she entered high school,
the students were enlisted to correspond with servicemen, and
she was assigned to write to Smith.
When Ken returned from overseas in 1945, he and Joan finally had
the chance to meet. They were married in 1946 and enjoyed 47
years of married life. |
Ken Smith served his
country in World War II.
|
Connie Mracek is their only child. She presented them with two
grandsons — Kevin Mracek, who lives in Dorset with his wife, Mary
Ann, who works for the Air Force, and Kevin Mracek, who lives in
Madison with his wife, Cherie, a first-grade teacher at Homer Nash
Kimball. Kevin and Cherie are the parents of Emily and Nicholas.
Later life
Smith
worked at Great Lakes Tractor near his home from 1946-49. He also
owned his own business, Smitty's Store to Door, selling groceries
and meat.
In
1950, he began working at Rockwell Brake in Saybrook Township. He
remained there in the plating department for 30 years, retiring in
1980.
Smith
continued to live in Rock Creek after returning from the service. He
was deeply involved in the community, serving as a volunteer fireman
and as a member of the Rock Creek Conservation Club.
"Dad
was instrumental in organizing the first Rock Creek Volunteer Fire
Department pancake breakfast in 1966," Connie said.
Smith
enjoyed his leisure and his retirement.
"He
loved hunting and fishing," Joan said. "He used to love going to
Canada every year to fish.
"He
loved to play golf. He enjoyed horse racing, he loved to dance and
he liked to garden."
Nicholas Mracek's assertion that he is the only athlete remaining in
his family is not entirely accurate. Emily, an eighth grader at
Madison Middle School, also has played basketball.
"She
played in seventh grade," Connie Mracek said. "She was asked to play
this year, but she was the only girl they asked, so she decided to
become a cheerleader."
Somehow or another, the legacy of Ken Smith, the Rock Creek
sharpshooter, lives on.
59...
a moment in time