Hammon was a developing situation at GV

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

While he developed into a very fine basketball player, it probably was hard to tell what kind of player Chris Hammon would become when he was younger.

When he was growing up, the family of Ray and Sally Hammon lived in Windsor. Chris was the second of their children, following brother Russell and preceding sister Kim and brother Lee.

ONE OF THE STANDOUTS for the Grand Valley basketball team during its special season of 1974-75 was Chris Hammon (44).

“My parents still live there,” Hammon said.

He did get into basketball quite quickly, playing on the fifth- and sixth-grade teams at Windsor Elementary School.

“We used to play all the other schools in the district, like Colebrook, Orwell and Rome,” Hammon said.

By the seventh grade, he was beginning to sprout toward his eventual 6-foot-5 frame. But that didn’t guarantee a thing when Hammon got to junior high basketball.

“I was cut from the seventh-grade team,” he said. “When I was in the eighth grade, they let me play on the seventh-grade team. That taught me to hang on and stick with it. If I hadn’t played that second year, I probably would have quit basketball.

“Bill Schaub was the coach for the seventh- and eighth-grade teams. He was an enjoyable coach.”

Hammon’s playing time didn’t pick up appreciably when he got to Grand Valley High School.

“I never really played at the freshman level,” he said. “You either started or you really didn’t play. But I continued to grow.”

That continuing growth pattern earned him a spot on the JV squad of Larry Osborne as a sophomore, while Dave Guerine was the varsity coach. He gained some valuable playing time at that level and earned the respect of Osborne.

“We got to scrimmage the varsity a lot,” Hammon said. “I was playing against guys like Randy Chronister, Mike McNish and Dave Stanek.

“I was up to 6-5 and about 150 pounds by the end of my sophomore year. I think my coordination was starting to catch up with me, too.”

Osborne was a very key element in Hammon’s development.

“(Osborne) was a really big defensive guy,” he said. “We did lots of line drills, too. He could yell some, but we got along well. He really emphasized boxing out on rebounds and everybody being able to dribble the ball.

“He even had me dabble in track a little bit, running the hurdles. But that didn’t last long. I fell one time and that was it.”

Apparently, Osborne was building Hammon up for big contributions in his junior year, especially when he became GV’s head coach for the 1973-74 season. It was a big developmental year for other players like D.J. Chutas, Ken Lawrence, Carl Renwick, who, as the son of boxing promoter Don King, became Carl King, Andy Holloman and Jim Gabriel, too.

“There were only three seniors on the team when I was a junior,” Hammon said. “We didn’t have any star players.

“Tim Chronister and Harry Humphries were two of our seniors. I played along with D.J. Chutas (the younger brother of future GV girls basketball coach Ron Chutas) and Carl Renwick. Andy Holloman, Ken Lawrence and Jim Gabriel were backups.”

The results for the Mustangs in Hammon’s junior year weren’t great, as they finished 6-13 for Osborne. But he molded Hammon into a player who was good enough to earn first-team All-GRC honors.

Osborne was gone by the next year, but he left a little bit of himself behind for new coach Terry Marsh.

“We ran a play that got me the ball down low,” Hammon said. “Coach Marsh kept it. In fact, we called it LO for Larry Osborne.”

There was a feeling in the Mustang camp that good things were in store for the 1974-75 season, but Hammon claims he and his classmates didn’t do anything particularly special in preparation for it.

“We thought we could be a pretty good team, but back then, you didn’t do anything in the summers like the players do now,” he said. “We played some in the summer, but that was about it.”

Center of attention

All it took was arrival of HOFer Jon Hall to unleash Edgewood’s Jeff Cicon

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

There is probably a time for every athletic program that can be pinpointed as the factor that laid the foundations for whatever successes it enjoyed thereafter.

When Jon Hall arrived at Edgewood High School to coach its boys basketball team for the 1979-80 basketball season, the Warriors hadn’t enjoyed any real success on the court since the 1964-65 season when Ashtabula County Basketball Hall of Famer Dan Foster led them to the district finals. In fact, in the prior two seasons, Edgewood had won just six games for the late Dave Cline.

But Hall changed all of that. In the course of that one season, the Warriors achieved what is still the greatest one-year turnaround in Ashtabula County boys basketball history, leading them to a 20-3 season for a 16-game improvement, a Northeastern Conference championship and a spot in the Class AAA district tournament at Euclid High School.

One of the key elements of that transformation was Hall’s realization that the Warriors possessed a difference maker in 6-foot-4 senior Jeff Cicon. Until that point, Cicon had been regarded as a good player, but Hall molded him into a great player, a force as a terrific inside scorer, rebounder and defender.

JEFF CICON of Edgewood powers to the rack during a game at Geneva during the Warriors' NEC championship season of 1979-80.

“Jeff was a leader before I got there, but he was looking for some direction,” Hall, an inaugural member of the ACBF Hall of Fame, said. “The thing about Jeff was that if you showed him something, he was willing to learn. He really paid attention. He really worked.

“Jeff was a sponge. He was hungry for knowledge. He was probably one of the smartest players I coached. He picked up the fundamentals so quickly.”

Cicon remembers taking in Hall’s direction. What he craved most was discipline, and Hall gave it to the Warriors.

“It was more or less his way or the highway,” the 48-year-old Cicon recalled. “I needed that discipline. I really needed it because I loved basketball.”

Through the iron of Hall’s will, Edgewood became what Cicon truly desired — a team.

“We played unselfish basketball,” he said. “I think I was a good player and a smart player, but it was all about all five of us on the court.”

Cicon appreciates the fact the 1979-80 Warriors have set the standard for turning basketball at any Ashtabula County school around.

“I thought finding out we’d had the biggest turnaround was special,” he said. “I never realized it was 16 games.”

He is truly proud when it is noted that his Warriors set the stage for the achievements of future fine Edgewood teams coached by Al Goodwin, Dick Heath, Tim Essig, Al Runyan and Kevin Andrejack. At the same time, no Edgewood team has reached the 20-victory plateau since, not even Heath’s 1991-92 Warriors who reached the regional tournament.

“I am proud that we laid the foundation for what happened later at Edgewood,” he said.

But, when the subject of Cicon’s induction into the ACBF Hall of Fame on April 10 is brought up, he reverts to the notion that it was not by his efforts alone that he has achieved that status.

“It’s a great honor, but I wouldn’t be inducted without my teammates,” he said.

Cicon is pleased to be reunited with Hall and Goodwin, who was his junior high coach, in the Hall of Fame. Joining other great players of his era and that he played with or against in later years also brings a smile to his face.

“It’s great to be honored with Coach Hall and with Coach Goodwin,” he said. “It means a lot that I’m going in with (Ashtabula’s) Deora Marsh (this year) and joining Tom Hill and David Benton from their great team. I know those were special players.

“I had the chance to play later with (Harbor’s) Andy Juhola and Joe Rich (another Class of 2011 member). It means a lot to be joining someone like (Ashtabula coach and athletic director) Adam Holman because he always encouraged me, even though he was at Ashtabula.

“It’s a great honor.”

ACBF HOF Series: Left was right for Cumpston

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Second of a Series...

In the middle 1960s, the Geneva boys basketball program was undergoing a lot of changes.

The Eagles were not all that far removed from the consolidation of its forces from the days of the old Spencer and Geneva high schools into one unit. Legendary coach Al Bailey was in the process of pulling those elements together.

It required some special players to help make those forces come together to become the great program it did. Bailey was fortunate to have such players pass his way.

One of the most important areas for a team to become truly special is to get great play from its guards. The Eagles were truly fortunate in that regard with the presence of Steve McHugh and the perfect compliment to a player of his stature, Larry Cumpston.

Cumpston provided the Eagles with the treasured element of being a left-handed ballhandler. That made them adept at maintaining floor balance and gave them the ability to attack opponents from almost any angle.

In a time when great play in general, and great guard play in particular, was on display, Cumpston and McHugh made a pretty dynamic duo, a righty-lefty combination that was the undoing of nearly all opponents. Put them together with players like Mark Debevc, who was better known for his exploits in football and track, and Gary Kreilach, a dominating figure on the inside, and they truly made Bailey’s teams a force with which to be reckoned.

During his two seasons of varsity basketball during the 1965-66 and 1966-67 seasons, Cumpston and his teammates produced records of 14-7 and 16-5, twice reached the district tournament at North High School and shared the Northeastern Conference champion with the Conneaut squad of Andy Garcia which featured super shooter Ron Richards and in an era when basketball was truly significant in the area.

His old running mate McHugh speaks forcefully for the credentials.

“Larry and I played on Geneva’s varsity for two years together,” he said. “We won two sectional championships and one NEC championship in those two years.

“I know that I never played with or against a more competitive and talented basketball player. That includes playing in two Division I NCAA tournaments at Duquesne University.”

McHugh said the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for the two of them to come along at the same time.

“Having one guy that was right-handed and one guy that was left-handed gave us automatic floor balance,” McHugh said. “It was like looking in a mirror.

“But Larry was such a great defensive player, too. And he hated losing so much, he’d do whatever it took to avoid it. It made the game a lot of fun.”

Kreilach was glad to be a part of such a team because he knew that Cumpston and McHugh would get him the ball where he needed it while still contributing their share to the Eagles’ offensive package and providing tough defense along with it.

“Larry and Steve were the best guard combination around,” he said. “They competed with each other, but they were also very complementary of each other. They both made me look good.

“Larry may have been left-handed, but he could go right and left equally well.”

As much as anything, though, Kreilach admired Cumpston’s competitive spirit.

“Larry was a very intense player,” he said. “His intensity was very infectious for the rest of us. You always felt you were cheating the team if you didn’t work as hard as Larry and Steve.”

Even their opponents had a keen respect for Cumpston and McHugh.

“Larry Cumpston and Steve McHugh were the best guard combination I’ve ever seen around here,” Edgewood High School football coach Dominic Iarocci, who played against them at St. John, said.

“I did play together on an all-star team with Steve,” Cumpston said.

“We played against the Mount Carmel team that had (future Ashtabula County Football Hall of Famer) Denny Allan (of St. John). We split two games with them.”

Cumpston started getting down to really serious business with basketball in the seventh grade.

“Garrett LeVan was our coach,” he said. “We learned a lot of fundamentals with him. It was always about defense. We didn’t work much on offense. He ran Mr. (Al) Bailey’s system. We learned about sliding our feet and boxing out. They taught us to use the other hand shooting the ball. It was the same in eighth grade.

“We had a pretty good team. I think we lost only two games. That’s the first time I met up with (Riverside’s) Dunlap twins (current Lake County Sheriff Dan and his brother, Darryl).”

Through junior high basketball, the matchups that would exist throughout high school were established.

“I remember they had NEC playoffs in ninth grade,” Cumpston said. “We played on the stage at Braden Junior High. We lost to St. John. We had lost to St. John and Ashtabula during the regular season.

St. John featured Allan, future ABCF Hall of Famer Denny Berrier and other players like Dominic Iarocci, the current Edgewood football coach, and Lou DiDonato, a prominent coach in basketball, cross country and track at Perry.

“We learned how to run an offense through in eighth grade, how to set picks and run the pick and roll,” Cumpston said. “I played guard and we had other guys like Mark Debevc, Chuck Spellman and Harry Hunter.”

His sophomore year was spent as a time of apprenticeship at Geneva High School. He often scrimmaged against Bailey’s varsity squad, but ended up playing the majority of the season with the JV team coached by ACBF Hall of Famer Bill Koval.

“I knew what was coming,” Cumpston said. “I knew I was going to play JV. I probably averaged 20 points a game. I did get to dress for the tournament games. We lost to Edgewood (featuring ACBF Hall of Famer Dan Foster).

“I enjoyed playing for Coach Koval. He was nice to me.”

He did learn some important lessons that season.

“Two guys taught me how to play defense, Dick Goff and Ron McCary,” Cumpston said. “They showed me how to keep my hand on a player to get them to go a direction I wanted, and how to swipe at the ball to get it. They were very good.

“It was subtle defense. That’s probably why I always got the toughest guy to guard.”

It was all good preparation for Cumpston’s time with Bailey and the varsity.

Cumpston was on guard

There were plenty of highlights, with a few lowlights, mixed in when Larry Cumpston arrived on the varsity for his junior year of 1965-66 for Al Bailey, even though Andy Garcia’s Conneaut team won the Northeastern Conference title outright.

“My junior year was actually pretty easy,” he said. “The only thing was that we lost a couple games because of foul shots.

“Mr. Bailey always emphasized defense and free-throw shooting. He’d have us shoot 50 free throws on our lunch break and 50 after practice. One time, Steve (McHugh) and I made 50 in a row. Steve went on to make 55 straight.”

It was a fairly young team in Cumpston’s junior year.

“Jim Boyner was our only senior,” he said. “Gary Kreilach started as a sophomore with Steve, me and Mark Debevc.”

There were some memorable games from that 14-7 season.

“We played St. Joseph’s here,” Cumpston said. “We came from eight points down to tie the game, but eventually lost. Steve and I both played well in that game.

“We played Harvey when they were undefeated. Mr. Bailey really had them scouted and he came back and told us how we could beat them. We shut them down and upset them. I had 27 points and Steve had 28 in that game.”

Cumpston became Bailey’s defensive stopper, at least out front.

“My first assignment was against John Smith from Ashtabula, who was the county’s leading scorer,” he said. “I held him to 11 points.

“I ended up guarding guys like Lou DiDonato from St. John, Mark Andrews from Harbor and Don Andersen from Riverside (eventually the Beavers’ head football coach).”

The Eagles got hot in the sectional tournament, reaching the district semifinal at North before dropping out.

“I had the flu for that game,” Cumpston said.

Cumpston, who averaged 12.8 points, and McHugh, who had 14.1, made first-team Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County and Coaches’ All-NEC honors.

With a veteran club coming back for their senior year of 1966-67, big things were expected of Cumpston, McHugh and Kreilach. Debevc didn’t go out for basketball, deciding to concentrate on football, which earned him a scholarship to Ohio State and eventually to national championship honors with the Buckeyes. But the Eagles had able replacements in players like Doug Warren, Dave Birsa, Ron Cerjan, Marty Skidmore and Tim Lanigan.

“I thought we had one of the strongest teams,” Cumpston said. “I knew Conneaut was loaded, too.”

It turned out to be a wild season in an era when every game was a battle.

“St. John beat Conneaut, but Ashtabula beat us,” Cumpston recalled. “We lost to Conneaut over there, but beat them at home.

“We were down to them by six with two minutes to go at home, but I stole the ball twice and fed Steve. With four seconds left, I fed Steve and he hit about a 12-footer at the buzzer to beat them.”

There was another big game against St. Joseph during the regular season.

“We played up there,” Cumpston said. “Steve had 30 and I had 27, but he twisted his ankle. We lost by two.”

Geneva and Conneaut would meet again. The final time came in the sectional tournament at Ashtabula’s Ball Gymnasium. The atmosphere was electric and somewhat toxic as both Bailey and Garcia complained afterward about the conduct of fans, mainly adults.

Geneva built a lead as high at 28-13 at halftime and still held a 42-30 lead after three quarters before Conneaut came storming back to fall just short, 58-57. McHugh scored 29 points, Kreilach had 13 and Cumpston had 10 to offset 20 from Conneaut’s Andy Raevouri, 19 from Ron Richards and 11 from Dick Viall.

Geneva standout reveled in pure joy of the game

“I had the flu for that game, too,” Cumpston said. “We had a big lead and ended up beating them by a point.”

Cumpston’s high school career was ended by Shaw in the district semifinal at North, 65-46. He finished with eight points against the Cardinals, while Kreilach had 16 and McHugh had 13.

The Geneva and Conneaut players got together again on the Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County and Coaches’ All-NEC team. Cumpston, who averaged 15.3 points, and McHugh, who had 18.3 points, were joined by Richards, who scored 19.1, Raevouri, who had 17.6 and St. John’s Denny Berrier, who had 16.8.

With those numbers, it would have figured that the 6-foot-1 Cumpston would have been an intriguing college prospect. But some other numbers, chiefly his grades, held him back.

There is an amusing sidebar to that, though.

“During my junior year, I got called out of English class by a guidance counselor, who told me there had been a call from the Naval Academy about me,” Cumpston said. “But I knew I didn’t have the grades.

“Later in the day, I got to practice and Mr. Bailey had all the JV and varsity players saluting me.”

Cumpston also had a big impact on other Geneva teams.

“My senior year, (legendary tennis coach) Arnie Bradshaw didn’t have enough players for his team,” he said. “Mr. Bailey liked to play tennis, and he came along and told us, ‘You’re playing tennis.’ We did and I really liked it.”

Winning an NEC championship probably helped with that enjoyment.

Bailey tried to give Cumpston further guidance. He advised Cumpston if he got his grades up that he could probably walk on at some other four-year school. So he decided to try it.

“I got ready and went to Kent State-Ashtabula,” he said. “When I got there, they had an all-star team. They had Ron Richards, Dan and Darryl Dunlap, Sid McPaul (from Pymatuning Valley), Al Cooper, Bob Niemi and Al Goodwin (from Harbor).

“Richards and I became pretty good friends. He and I, the Dunlaps and Niemi started. We lost the first game because we had no chemistry, but after that, we won the rest of them while I played. I remember we won a game at Jamestown where we were way down at half, but Ron came out in the second half and hit 11 in a row. That was before there was the 3-pointer.”

But the academic life was not for Cumpston at that time. He has come to regret that a bit over the years.

“I flunked out,” he said. “I had a brand new car that I had to pay for.

“Looking back, I would have liked to have an education. I had a dream of playing college basketball.”

Most of the time, basketball can be a rather serious game. But, if one has the right attitude toward it, the game can have a serious side to it, too.

It’s pretty obvious Larry Cumpston played basketball with great passion when he was at Geneva High School. But, right from the time when he first picked up a basketball, he also found a sense of joy about it, sometimes even unintentionally.

For example, even the way young Cumpston first started learning his craft in basketball makes him chuckle when he reflects upon it more than half a century later.

“I lived about five blocks south of downtown when I was growing up,” he said. “When I started playing basketball, I would walk up to what’s now Geneva Elementary on Saturday mornings.

“I got to know Mr. Bartholomew, who was the janitor. I knew on Saturdays he’d be up at the school about 6 a.m. to open up and I knew he’d be around, so I convinced him to let me come and use the gym when he got there.”

Here’s where the fun, or funny part, comes in.

“We only had one alarm clock and my dad (Floyd) had it in his room so he could get up to go to work on time,” Cumpston said. “I started tying my foot to the bedpost to make sure I woke up on time to get up to the gym when Mr. Bartholomew opened up. I must have woke up 10 times a night, but I always was on time.”

Cumpston put the time to good use.

“It was our secret,” he said. “I had the gym to myself for about an hour and a half and I’d work on my dribbling and shooting. Then I’d go over to the Rec Center (on the corner of Route 20 and North Forest Street) for our City Rec league games. I only did it for about a year.”

It is a secret that has lasted until this day. When Cumpston’s future high school running mate, Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Famer Steve McHugh, was told the story, he marveled at it. This coming from a guy who had his own amazing story of developing his love for the game when he found a new ball at the Rec Center that nobody claimed.

“If I had known Mr. Bartholomew had set up that kind of deal with Larry, I’d have tried to do something like that myself,” he said.

Actually, Cumpston had first made his connection to basketball in a rather unorthodox manner, anyway.

“My cousin, Lloyd Cumpston, lived in Carmichael, Pa and I used to visit him quite a bit,” Larry said. “He’s the one who introduced me to the game.

“He had a 20-pound sauerkraut crock down in his basement and we’d go down there and shoot the ball at it. I was probably about 9 years old then.”

Throughout his playing days, Cumpston not only showed a great work ethic, but a remarkable gift for subterfuge. Perhaps the best example came before his senior year.

“Before we went on summer vacation before our senior year, Coach (Al) Bailey (who went on to recognition as an inaugural ACBF Hall of Famer) gave each of us a ball to use on the outdoor courts up at the high school,” Cumpston said. “When he gave us the ball, he told us when we came in for practice for the season, he wanted them back and he wanted to see them smooth, with all the pebbles worn off. That was his way of making sure we worked on our game over the summer.”

Being a somewhat typical teenager, Cumpston got wrapped up in other summer activities and knew he hadn’t spent the time honing the skills Bailey was seeking. Finally, as the day of reckoning approached, Cumpston realized he was in line to face the disapproval of his coach.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Cumpston’s first attempt seemed pretty inventive at the time.

“I went into my dad’s workshop and got some sandpaper,” he said. “I tried to sand all the pebbles off the ball.”

One of his teammates, junior Gary Kreilach, caught Cumpston in the act, sitting in the trunk of his car, with the ball and the sandpaper. It gave Kreilach, another future ACBF Hall of Famer, quite a laugh.

“Gary just looked at me and said, ‘What are you going to do?’” Cumpston said.

But that planted the seed of another plot in Cumpston’s brain. He knew Kreilach had followed Bailey’s instructions, worked diligently on his game and had worn his ball smooth over the summer.

So Cumpston got the team manager in on his new scheme.

“I knew that Gary had already turned in his ball, and I knew he’d worn it smooth,” he said. “So I asked the manager to give me Gary’s ball so I could turn it in when Coach Bailey asked for it.”

“I didn’t know that,” Kreilach said.

Cumpston had an extra bit of luck when the first day of practice rolled around.

“Mr. Bailey had a dental appointment that day and he ended up getting to practice late, so we were able to pull it off,” he said.

Somehow, one has the notion the wily old coach probably was aware of the chicanery, but chose to ignore it. According to a couple of his old teammates, if anyone could have pulled off the trick without Bailey realizing, it was Cumpston, mainly because of his athletic gifts.

“Larry was just such an instinctual player,” Steve McHugh, his running mate at guard for the Eagles and a member of the ACBF Hall of Fame, said. “He was just a natural athlete and such a great player. Where I had to practice something for two or three hours, Larry could probably get it done in half that time.”

“Larry was just so smooth,” Kreilach said. “I played rec ball with him years later and he was still a great player. He was a great teammate, too.”

Life Lessons

When Larry Cumpston reflects on where life has taken him, he said the truths Al Bailey taught him on the basketball court got him there and gives him that much greater a sense of gratitude for his old coach.

Having dropped out of school, he had to find a way to pay for his fancy new car. Marriage to his high school sweetheart, Ellen Alexander, was just down the road.

“We got together when we were sophomores in high school,” Cumpston said. “We got married in 1968.”

The Cumpstons are the parents of two daughters, Cari Van Hoy and Amy Peet, who are both Geneva High School graduates and who both still reside in Geneva near their parents.

His father, Floyd, provided him with the answer.

“My dad got me into the (roofing) business,” Cumpston said. “I started working with him right off the bat.”

At first, Cumpston worked for other roofing firms.

“I worked for Tremko Maintenance out of Cleveland for three years,” he said. “Then I worked for ITI Roofing, which is out of Cleveland, for three more years.”

Cumpston had an offer to go with his father to work with a firm in Nashville, but he decided to stay in the area, even though his father went.

Having been in the business for a while, Cumpston decided to strike out on his own. He started Building Technicians, employing just three workers at the time, eventually coaxing his father to come back home in 1976.

It has turned out to be an excellent decision.

“Today, I have 52 people working for me and we do about $7 million every year,” Cumpston said. “We work basically throughout Ohio and down to Pittsburgh.”

You might recognize some of the work of Cumpston’s firm.

“We did the Browns Stadium roof over the concession stands,” he said. “That lasted about a year. We did the roof at the Save-A-Lot warehouse (in Austinburg Township). That took about nine weeks.

“We did a lot of work at Lucasville Prison. We’ve also done a lot of work at schools around the area.”

Cumpston is pretty much out of the hands-on end of the business. That’s because he has dependable people like his sons-in-law, Matt Peet and Ed Van Hoy, overseeing the projects.

“I go around and look at the jobs and I get the work,” he said. “I probably go and visit the close jobs around three times a week. When we were doing the prison, I was probably there twice in three months.”

Keeping his family close has been one of the primary benefits of his business endeavors. He and Ellen are able to follow the activities of granddaughters Allie Van Hoy, a junior golfer, and Hailey Van Hoy, a freshman cross country runner, for the Eagles, as well as granddaughter Sydney Van Hoy and grandsons Blake, Brady and Bryce Peet.

There are two elements Cumpston has found he seems to have in common with his employees.

“The people I have don’t seem to like to work indoors,” he said. “And I have a couple people who have college degrees work for me. One’s an engineer and another was a criminal justice major.”

But there may be an even more important guiding principle.

“The people that I have working for me tend to have sports backgrounds,” Cumpston said. “They show up for work every day, they’re never late, they’re dependable and they listen to everything you tell them. You don’t have to worry about them.”

They are the principles that have guided his work and his family life.

“It carries over into everything,” Cumpston said.

He attributes it all to what Bailey taught him more than 40 years ago.

“Everybody got something from Mr. Bailey,” Cumpston said. “He did something for all of us.

“I think we’ve all been successful because of what he taught us.”

One Super Spartan

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

One of the most special teams to ever grace the basketball courts of Ashtabula County was the 1969-70 Conneaut High School squad coached by Harry Fails.

Those Spartans had it all. They had scoring ability, could run the floor, had size and knew how to defend. They also had chemistry and even a bit of the element every fine team needs — luck.

That team had a special coach in Fails, who in just two seasons as the varsity coach took a program with tremendous tradition and elevated it to an even higher plain. It also had special players like Scott Humphrey, Jeff Puffer, Al Razem and John Colson.

Being the foxy coach he was, Fails found a kind of secret weapon that probably pushed the Spartans over the top to a berth in the Class AAA regional tournament at Canton Fieldhouse. It came in the form of a sophomore named Tim Richards, who provided an extra element of court savvy, solid fundamentals and a particular affinity for getting his nose dirty defensively.

TIM RICHARDS of Conneaut swoops to the hoop during a game against Jefferson at the old Falcon Gym. Richards will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on April 10.

To play much of a role on any varsity squad as a sophomore in that era was a significant achievement. To start for virtually any team was certainly the exception, rather than the rule, but Fails was already familiar with Richards’ skills and, just as importantly, his level of maturity. It was not a gamble at all, in his eyes, to plug the youngster into the lineup.

If Fails had been affected by any doubts about Richards’ ability to handle the demands of varsity basketball, he need only have consulted Tom Ritari, who had served as Conneaut’s freshman coach when the youngster arrived on the scene.

Richards lived up to the faith Fails and the Conneaut coaching staff had in him. The 1969-70 Spartans went 19-6 and won the Northeastern Conference championship in an era when great teams roamed area courts, then helped them fight their way through several tense games on the tournament trail to the regional semifinals before falling just short of defeating Akron Central, 62-60, despite a furious late-game rally.

As Richards points out, without a hint of bravado, that Conneaut team has a unique distinction in Ashtabula County basketball history.

“Only two teams from Ashtabula County in the last 50 years have won district championships in the big-school division,” the 56-year-old said. “I think we won with our team chemistry.”

Richards moved into even more prominent roles with the Spartans as his career progressed, but they were never quite able to reach the heights they had in that special season. They went 12-7 in both the 1970-71 season, Fails’ last at Conneaut, and in Richards’ senior year of 1971-72 for Paul Freeman, who had moved up from a role as Fails’ JV coach.

In his junior year, they finished behind Ashtabula in Gene Gephart’s final season as the Panthers’ head coach. In Richards’ senior season, they were behind Bill Koval’s Geneva squad that reached the Class AAA regional semifinals as the Spartans had two years earlier.

Despite his status as one of the team leaders in those final two seasons, Richards approached the game in the same way he had two years earlier. He continued to play a solid all-around game, especially at the defensive end.

Freeman certainly was aware of Richards’ gifts when he took over as Conneaut’s head coach.

“Tim did everything exceedingly well, down to a minute detail,” Freeman, who was an outstanding player in his own right at Pymatuning Valley, said.

Even though he wasn’t a huge scorer and he wasn’t particularly big, barely reaching 6-feet, if that, Richards’ skills gained enough attention that he was attractive to a number of college programs. He finally settled on Kent State University, where he played briefly for future Cleveland Cavaliers coach Stan Albeck and managed to stay on through the early years of the Rex Hughes era with the Golden Flashes.

Even after graduating from Kent State, Richards remained active in basketball. Despite moving around to various places around the country, he became involved with a number of fine age-group programs. Even now, he can still be found on the court, plying the same skills he always has.

Over the years, Richards has watched many players he revered as he was growing up, or went to battle with or against when his time came, earn selection into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame. Finally, his time has come as he has been chosen as a member of the Class of 2011, which will be inducted on April 10.

He is grateful that his time has arrived.

“I knew I was a pretty fair player,” Richards said. “When I got the call from (cousin) Ron (Richards, a member of the ACBF Hall of Fame Class of 2008), I had all kinds of flashbacks to what it took to get there.

“It’s a pretty unique honor to be joining so many great players, ones that I saw and ones that I played against. And I was fortunate enough to play for three coaches (Fails, Freeman and Ritari) who are all in the Hall of Fame. To be inducted with them is pretty special.”

Hungry Herald

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Even when he was still of relatively tender years growing up in Ashtabula Township, Bill Brosky was a young man with a plan.

He displayed a level of knowledge and maturity uncommon for one of his meager years. Just ask his high school basketball coach at St. John, Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Famer Denny Berrier.

“The thing that always stood out to me about Bill was that he was always ahead of the curve in terms of his basketball knowledge and maturity,” Berrier said from his home in Columbus. “On the court, you didn’t have to tell him a whole lot. There wasn’t a whole lot of coaching necessary.

“I was almost as young as those kids at St. John were when I got the head coaching job. I was only 23 or 24 years old myself. I almost had to apologize to them because of my lack of knowledge.”

But Berrier was as impressed, if not more so, with Brosky’s acumen off the court.

“What was even more impressive about Bill to me, though, was that he was already thinking about going to dental school,” he said of Brosky, who eventually did so at John Carroll University and Ohio State University and has made dentistry his life’s work.

BILL BROSKY (22) of St. John was a member of the Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County first team for basketball in his junior and senior years was St. John's. In his junior year, he was joined by Geneva's Ernie Pasqualone (23) and Conneaut's Tim Humphrey (31), Pymatuning Valley's Carl McIlwain (41) and Ashtabula's Marvin Jones (32). Brosky will join Pasqualone as a member of the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on April 10.

If he was and is nothing else, Brosky has always been a realist. He may have been thinking ahead to his career even before he got to high school, but he was also smart enough when he got the final dose of reality not to brood about it, but move on to the next step.

“I played freshman basketball at John Carroll and I kind of realized I wasn’t going to make a living playing basketball,” the 1974 St. John graduate said.

So he really buckled down to his studies at JCU, got his undergraduate degree in 1978, then went on to Ohio State and got the remainder of his studies completed there.

Brosky had set basketball so much on the back burner that his career, especially at St. John, had almost faded from his memory. But those who saw him run the court at what is now known as Mahoney Gymnasium didn’t forget. So he was certainly surprised when he was informed of his induction into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on April 10.

“I hadn’t really thought about it much,” the 54-year-old Brosky said on a recent visit to Ashtabula. “I knew my friend, Jerry Lamm, had been working on something like this, but it was really exciting to find out I was being inducted.

“It’s a very nice honor. That was all a long time ago. It’s very humbling when you consider joining guys that you played with and against back then. It’s also a reality check on how old I’m getting.”

Brosky certainly has the credentials. While playing for Berrier in his junior and senior years, he earned first-team Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County honors. He was also part of the first St. John team to earn a Class A sectional championship in his senior year of 1973-74 with a team that also included Herald athletic standouts like Steve Abraham and Jack Manyo, as well as teammates like Dave Clint, Lou Valentic, who has gone on to prominence in the business side of sports, and Lamm. He also played a significant role as a sophomore for Paul Kopko, who is more known for his exploits as a football coach.

“Bill was unstoppable,” Berrier said. “We actually put in a few things for him offensively to make sure he got the ball as much as possible. When he got on a roll, he was lights out.

“Unquestionably, Bill is worthy of the Hall of Fame. And Bill was as good a person off the court as he was on it. He was a great young man. I always like to talk about great people, and Bill was.

“I knew Bill even before he got to St. John, and I couldn’t have asked for any more of him,” Berrier said. “He was such a sharp thinker, even before he went off to college.”

Berrier can’t emphasize enough his general esteem for Brosky.

“I knew Bill was going to be a productive adult,” he said. “He always seemed to be a step ahead.”

Rich wasn’t your average Joe

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

It’s amazing what creates a passion in a person.

When he was growing up in Ashtabula, Joe Rich came to basketball last. But once he started playing the game in seventh grade, it became almost all-consuming.

Once he was introduced to basketball at Columbus Junior High by Frank Knudson, there was no stopping the son of Joseph Rich and the late Lois Ward. He learned all the skills it took to function in the guard’s body he occupied in those early years, then carried them forward to function as the key component of Andrew Isco’s Harbor teams of the mid-1980s when he sprouted into a 6-foot-5 forward’s body.

“I can remember going up to Brooker Field and practicing for hours,” the 42-year-old Rich said. “In the winter, I used to even shovel off the court so I could work on my game. I can remember my mother coming to get me when it got dark because I had been out there so long.”

Because he possessed all the attributes and the work ethic that allowed him to play nearly every spot on the court, Rich became one of the great players in Harbor and Ashtabula County history, standing to this day as the 15th-highest scorer in county history with 1,178 points.

With the closure of Harbor, Rich will forever be known as the holder of the scoring record for the high single game by a Mariner after his 46-point night against crosstown rival Ashtabula during the 1986-87 season, breaking the old school record set by John Coleman, a member of the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame. He also grabbed 23 rebounds in that game.

He reached his peak as a senior, helping the Mariners compiled a 20-4 record, win an undisputed Northeastern Conference championship and reach the Division II district championship game at Lakeland Community College before their ouster by Chagrin Falls.

In the process, he shared Star Beacon Ashtabula County Player of the Year honors with Grand Valley’s Jimmy Henson and Coaches’ All-NEC Player of the Year recognition with Conneaut’s Matt Zappitelli, who is still Ashtabula County’s boys career scoring leader and is a member of the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame.

JOE RICH of Harbor shoots against standout Jefferson center Jeff Fink as Falcon Rich Hudson (10) crashes to the floor during a game in the old Falcon Gym.

Now, those achievements are being recognized by Rich’s own induction into the ACBF Hall of Fame on April 10 at the Conneaut Human Resources Center. He will be joining a lot of the Harbor standouts he idolized and even others he played with Fred Scruggs. That’s not to mention the notable players he played against and Isco, his high school coach.

“It’s a great honor and a great accomplishment,” he said at the home he resides in in the Harbor district. “It’s an elite group of men, some of them guys whose records I broke, some I had the chance to watch when I was growing up and guys I even used to play with and against in the summer time.

“It was amazing watching guys like John Coleman and Andy Juhola play. I still got the chance to play against Andy when we got together for some of the alumni games up at Lakeside. I played with Fred Scruggs. And I’m fascinated to see the guys from way back when that I’m joining. It means a lot to be joining Coach Isco, too.”

The only negative part of his induction at this juncture of his life is that the person that probably had as much to do with getting him there as anyone won’t actually be there to see it. Lois Ward passed away on March 13.

“My mom is the one who pushed me in sports,” Rich said.

In fact, Rich would have enjoyed having his mother around to see more of his accomplishments on the court. But she spent most of that time caring for his mentally challenged brother, Scott, who still resides in Ashtabula. She left the duties of providing his rooting section to his brothers James Meade, who still lives in Geneva, Brad Mather, who lives in Ashtabula, Greg Mather, who now resides in Damascus, Va., and his sister, Sue Smith, who also lives in Ashtabula.

The one occasion she did get to see him play, Rich’s final game at Harbor’s Fawcett Gymnasium, he put on a show, leading the Mariners past a St. John team that included Herald stalwarts Jim Chiacchiero, Dave Golen and Steve Hanek. Rich scored 32 points and grabbed 21 rebounds in that game.

“It was the only game Mom ever saw me play,” he said. “It meant a lot to me. It made me happy to have her there, and I think it made her happy, too.” “I’m sorry she’s not going to be there, but I think she’s actually going to have the best seat for it all.”

“I was the end of the family tree, but I ended up being the tallest,” Rich said with a smile.

Anything but the Norm

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

In basketball, the point guard is generally considered an extension of the head coach, charged with executing what he wants carried out on the court. Some even refer to the point guard as a coach on the floor.

Norm Urcheck was just such a player for the Geneva teams of Bill Koval from 1969-71. Scoring was not Koval’s primary concern for Urcheck. It was all about distributing to the team’s proven scorers like Randy Knowles, Ernie Pasqualone and Mike Blauman and playing lockdown defense against opponents’ leading scorers, at least on the perimeter.

Urcheck was particularly vital to the Eagles in his senior season of 1970-71. He showed his true value to the team in Class AAA tournament play, using his defensive capabilities to help pull off a 44-41 upset over a highly touted Cleveland Heights team coached by famed coach Jim Cappelletti and featuring high-scoring Everett Heard and a youngster named Dennis Greenwald, who would prove to be a thorn in the Eagles’ side two years later.

Norm Urcheck (32) ran the show for Hall of Fame coach Bill Koval's Geneva Eagles. Urcheck will join Koval in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on April 10.

Urcheck didn’t score, but he limited Heard to eight points in producing the victory and sending Geneva into its first district-tournament appearance since 1968. Even though he didn’t have great offensive numbers, Urcheck was chosen the outstanding player of the 10-member sectional tournament team.

The tournament trail was ended at that point by a Harvey team coached by another legendary coach figure, John D’Angelo, 55-46, even though Urcheck scored 11 points.

For a time after his high school basketball career, Urcheck set the game aside, concentrating on baseball when he went off to Bluffton College, from which he graduated in 1975. But, through the help of his older brother, Gary, and Maplewood High School basketball coach Tom Titus, he eventually wound up at the school in Cortland.

He started out as the head baseball coach, a physical education teacher and Titus’ assistant basketball coach. By 1979, Urcheck was the Rockets’ head basketball coach, starting out on an eight-year run that saw his teams produce a 141-40 overall record (.779 winning percentage), a school record for victories by a basketball coach, six outright Trumbull Interscholastic Conference titles and two shared championships with a 77-5 league record (.939 winning percentage), two district championships and four other sectional championships.

Koval, an inaugural member of the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame, holds Urcheck in high esteem.

“Norm was a special guy,” he said. “He was a coach on the floor and he was a great defensive guy. He was a heck of an assist man.”

Koval realized long ago that Urcheck had what it took to become a highly successful basketball coach.

“I wasn’t surprised at all when Norm became a coach,” he said. “I believe he was a student of the game.”

Now, Urcheck is joining Koval and his old teammates, Pasqualone and Knowles, in the ACBF Hall of Fame. He will be inducted on April 10.

Nobody was more surprised than Urcheck that he had been selected for such recognition.

“I was shocked,” the 57-year-old Urcheck said. “In the game as I played it, scoring really wasn’t a big thing. At that time, point guards were so important.

“I think point guards tend to get overlooked. It was a pleasant surprise to me that people think enough of me years later to put me in the Hall of Fame.”

It is especially pleasing to Urcheck that he is joining Koval in the Hall of Fame.

“He’s the reason I got into coaching,” Urcheck said. “Once I got out of high school, I got the itch to become a coach. Then Coach Titus really got me hooked on it.

“It’s a real honor to be joining people like Bill, (Knowles) and (Pasqualone). It’s great to be joining players in the same fraternity like Larry Cumpston (who will join him in the Class of 2011), Steve McHugh and Gary Kreilach that I grew up watching.

“It’s great that I’m getting to join guys I played against like (Ashtabula’s) Jim Hood or the Conneaut guys like Scott Humphrey and Tim Richards (also part of this year’s class),” Urcheck said.

No Hitch in her swing

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

What’s in a name? In Ashtabula County, nearly every community has a family name that seems to be synonymous with athletics.

Andover is no exception. In a community that seems to breathe, eat and sleep basketball, there is the Hitchcock family. Bob Hitchcock is still revered for his impact on the boys basketball program at Pymatuning Valley High School as a player and coach. For his efforts, he was one of the inaugural members of the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame.

Several of Hitchcock’s siblings and his children have left significant imprints on Laker programs as his contemporaries or since. Now, his youngest child, Kim, will be inducted into the ACBF Hall of Fame on April 10, making the Hitchcocks the second family from the county to have at least two members in that body.

Kim Hitchcock has her own impressive legacy. As a significant part of the PV girls teams of ACBF Hall of Famer Beth Helfer from the 1988-89 through 1990-91 seasons, her Lakers are the teams upon whose shoulders the PV girls teams of more recent times have stood. Over those three seasons at the varsity level, the Lakers of her era compiled a 51-15 record.

Included in that was a 21-2 record in her senior year that saw the Lakers ranked briefly at No. 1 among Division III teams in Ohio and finished at No. 3. They are still the only PV girls team to advance as far as the Division III district championship game.

What’s more, they performed in an era when they had to share the stage during a period of tremendous prosperity at Jefferson and when other fine teams were fielded at Harbor and Conneaut. Still other respectable squads were on the scene. They also won two straight championships in an East Suburban Conference that featured fine programs at Berkshire, Cardinal, Ledgemont and Newbury.

KIM HITCHCOCK shows off the shooting form that made her one of the best players in Pymatuning Valley history. The former Laker great will join her father, Bob, when she is inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on April 10.

As a point, three of Hitchcock’s fellow members of the Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County first team in 1990-91 season — Jefferson’s Anita Jurcenko, who was chosen Player of the Year, and her Falcon teammate, Trixie Wolf, as well as Harbor’s Tonya Tallbacka — are already in the ACBF Hall of Fame. Grand Valley’s Kelly Henson, a junior named to the second team that year, is also in the Hall of Fame.

Hitchcock was so well regarded that she was chosen ESC Player of the Year that season from a team that had such a balanced scoring attack that she averaged just 12 points per game. She later earned first-team Associated Press All-Northeast Lakes District recognition and was joined by Laker teammate as a special-mention Division III All-Ohioan. Kelly Henson was honorable mention that year.

Still, Hitchcock was truly surprised when informed of her induction.

“I was pretty surprised when I got the call,” the 37-year-old Hitchcock said in her office at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna. “I feel it’s a great honor to go in. I feel honored that people remember me still.

“I still love watching the game and following my various nieces and nephews, and I still play it, too. I’m sure if I had kids, they’d be out there playing, too.”

It carries great meaning for Hitchcock that she is being reunited with Helfer, another of the inaugural members of the ACBF Hall of Fame.

“It’s great to be hooked up with her again,” she said. “I think of it as a real honor.”

But the true significance of the occasion is joining her father in that fraternity.

“My dad has been a great coach and a great mentor,” Hitchcock said. “We used to go to the gym and play on the side when I was barely able to walk.”

It is an occasion of great meaning to Bob Hitchcock and his wife, Marcia.

“It’s definitely an honor and a privilege to have kids who have done as well as ours have,” he said. “All the time we spent together apparently paid off.

“Kimberly did a great job in all three sports she played. She really understood what it meant to compete. Not many parents have the luxury of having kids who do well and to have been able to be with them side by side on a daily basis.”

Mighty Mucci!

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Talk about a person who attended the College of Hard Knocks and you probably get a picture of the life of the late Leo Mucci.

One thing about such people can often legitimately be said about those who attended that school, though. Generally speaking, they are the ones who neither ask for pity nor expect any.

Typical of the people whose path in life have taken them down that road of trial, Leo Mucci didn’t see it that way. He just tried to the best of his ability to make sure other people experienced joyful lives and avoided the path he trod before he died on New Year’s Day, 2003.

One of the things that became a central part of Mucci’s existence was his love of sports, particularly basketball. At various points in his life, it gave him opportunities. At almost all points, basketball became a kind of sanctuary for him.

“Basketball was an outlet for my dad,” Mucci’s son, Mike, who still resides in Conneaut, said. “It was sort of a medication for him. It gave him the platform to express himself.”

Mucci’s life was never easy. Born as the youngest child of 11 of Michael and Ermina Mucci as a first-generation Italian-American on Aug. 29, 1928, he had to grow up quickly because his father died when he was only 9.

Perhaps because of that loss, Mucci gravitated to other men who became keen influences on his life such as his friend Pete Iarocci’s father, Nick, who lived across the street.

Because of his love for basketball, Mucci also gravitated to the magnetic personality of his coach at Conneaut High School, Andy Garcia, who was in the early part of his career with the team known during Mucci’s playing days as the Trojans. In Garcia’s second season at Conneaut and Mucci’s senior season of 1947-48, it produced a 20-6 record and reached the district semifinals with him serving as a team captain.

Mike Mucci said his father always revered Garcia.

“Mr. Garcia was a father figure for my dad,” the oldest of the Muccis’ six children said.

Garcia’s son, Phil, a renowned area official, said the admiration was mutual.

“My dad said Leo Mucci was the best player he ever coached,” Phil Garcia said.

Mucci had a shot at sports at the college when he graduated from Conneaut. Bowling Green and its legendary coach, Harold Anderson, a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, saw enough in him that he was offered a basketball scholarship.

But, once again, other forces intervened to derail Mucci’s college career.

“There were money problems at home, so he had to come back,” Mike Mucci said.

It was a time of great strife in the world. Mucci did his part for his country, serving in the U.S. Army from 1950-52. During that period, he also was married to the former Mary DiFilippo on Dec. 21, 1950.

Once he returned from his time in the service, he and Mary settled down to develop their family. He settled into the life of his community as well, playing in the Conneaut city basketball league and coaching grade school basketball at St. Mary’s Elementary, a development that led to a longtime pattern of working with the city’s young players.

But circumstances on the home front intervened to prevent him from truly taking basketball to the lengths that he might have otherwise. Mucci also became deeply involved in basketball officiating and quickly developed a reputation for being one of the best in the business. He often worked with some of the most renowned area high school officials of the day like ACBF Hall of Famer Henry Garvey and Bill Brainard and Lake County legend Bud Ruland.

But his beloved wife became ill in the late 1960s.

“My mother had a home accident in 1968 or 1969,” Mike Mucci said. “It was a cerebral injury that became progressively worse and my father took on the duties of caring for her.”

His wife’s illness came along just at the time when Leo Mucci was about to get his big break in basketball officiating.

“My dad worked a lot with Paul Mihalik and they went to a tryout to become NBA officials,” Mike Mucci said. “I think he could have made it, but he had too many responsibilities at home.”

But the opportunities to officiate games in the area and work with young players in the community was one of the things that kept Leo Mucci going. He also found the time to serve as a founding member of the Downtown Coaches Club and Athletic Boosters Club in Conneaut.

Now, Mucci has earned a singular honor, albeit more than eight years after his passing. He will join Garcia, an inaugural member of the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame, on Sunday.

“Dad would have said he was thankful for this recognition,” Mike Mucci said. “But he’d also have said his teammates and coaches were the ones deserving of recognition.

“Andy Garcia’s legacy was substantial. Dad would have been extremely happy to join Andy in the Hall of Fame because he would have considered himself part of Andy’s legacy as a coach and a mentor. He was proud to come from the Garcia tree.”

Marsh man

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Some people might say Deora Marsh put all of his eggs in one basket in making an impact on basketball in Ashtabula County.

But it can also be said that Marsh showed an uncanny sense of timing in flourishing as a basketball player for the 1977-78 Ashtabula team of coach Bob Walters. Because of his willingness to work tirelessly to improve his skills, that one extraordinary season paid off in a truly bountiful way.

His emergence as a high-flying force for the Panthers of that special season, a team selected as the greatest county boys team of all time in the Star Beacon’s “Hoop Dreams” tournament, provided opportunities the son of Veora and Pearlie Marsh probably couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams.

Because of his performance in that one season, capped by a near upset of the mighty St. Joseph Vikings featuring future Ohio State and NBA standout Clark Kellogg, doors opened for Marsh into Division I college basketball and an ongoing professional basketball career in Europe, including twice being selected Most Valuable Player of his league. Even at age 50 and moving into a coaching mode, the willowy 6-foot-6 player still has an impact on the Loftus Recycle team in Ballina County Mayo, Ireland.

“I’m still involved with the team, doing different things at the moment, trying to keep the younger guys involved in playing,” Marsh said by email from the home he has made with his wife, Gabrielle, son Lamar and daughters Sebai and Tyra. “I just stopped playing this year, but I might go back next year for one last go, if the body holds up, which is feeling pretty good at the moment.”

DEORA MARSH attacks the rack during the memorable 1977-78 season for the Ashtabula Panthers. Marsh will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on Sunday.

The 1977-78 team was blessed with great players and received great coaching. Tom Hill, the point guard, also went on to play Division I college basketball at Austin Peay, while David Benton, who generally played center, went on to junior college basketball. Both are now in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame, along with Walters for his playing and coaching exploits.

But Marsh, who didn’t play varsity basketball until his junior year and then only made a limited impact with 34 points in the 1976-77 season, added an electrifying element to the group of Panthers who came together for that special senior year. Having sprouted from 5-11 to 6-4 over the course of that summer, he provided the element of flight to that team with his serious vertical skills that supplied soaring dunks on his way to a 16.4 scoring average and extra rebounding.

“Deora just exploded on the scene for us,” Walters said. “He didn’t even play as a sophomore and played only a little as a junior. But his senior year was amazing. He probably was one of the most explosive players I ever coached.

“Before their senior year, that whole group (which included Harrison ‘Scooby’ Brown, Roger and Stanley Ball, Hank Barchanowicz, Jewel Hanna, Lou Murphy, Tony Powell, Perry Stofan and Robin Thomas) got together on their own in the summer before their senior year and played constantly. When we got together for our first official practice in the fall, the transformation was amazing. Deora probably surprised me the most of the whole bunch with his development.”

“Deora was one heckuva player,” Benton said. “He was one of the strengths of that team. He was our special weapon. That whole team got along together well. Deora made us that much stronger.”

Now, Marsh is joining Benton and Hill, as well as Walters, as a member of the ACBF Hall of Fame. He will be inducted Sunday at the ACBF’s annual awards banquet at the Conneaut Human Resource Center.

“It’s a great privilege and honor to be inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Marsh said. “I was delighted when my sister (Queenie Marsh) informed me to be with all the many greats who went before me.

“To join my teammates David and Tom, along with Mr. Walters and (retired Ashtabula High School athletic director Adam) Holman, is a great honor because they all played a part in the great team we were. Mr. Walters was a great coach who taught us to play together and never give up. Mr. Holman was like a father to us, who looked after us and kept us all on the right track.”

Marsh is also pleased to be joining some of his opponents in the ACBF Hall of Fame like Geneva’s Jay McHugh and Edgewood’s Jeff Cicon, who is part of the Class of 2011 with him.

“To be inducted with Jeff and Jay is special because they were special players for their teams and were great for the league,” he said. “They were players you had to take note of and respect all the time.”

Jim Landis: A real good sport

By KARL E. PEARSON
Staff Writer

With the media, there is often a sense of suspicion between the interviewer and interviewee. One might even call it an adversarial relationship.

There are exceptions to that rule. Jim Landis was one of those who felt respect was a two-way street and the framework for how sports writers and the coaches and athletes they covered should treat each other.

Landis was the eighth sports editor of the Star Beacon, taking over in 1960. By the time Landis left the area himself in 1967 to take over as the sports information director at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, he had taken the paper’s coverage to a new level and had opened doors for sports teams throughout Ashtabula County. He was succeeded by Bob Pasqualone in 1968.

His path in the years prior to his death on Sept. 25, 1995 took him many places, from his post in Wisconsin for a five-year hitch, to Littleton, Colo. for another 10 years and finally to the Austin, Texas area for slightly more than another decade before he was claimed by a battle with diabetes, heart disease and, ultimately, cancer. But his heart never truly left Ashtabula County, according to his lifelong friend and fellow 1952 Harbor High School graduate, Dave Clark, who still lives in the Harbor district.

JIM LANDIS poses for the camera May 27, 1985.

“Those were the happiest times of Jim’s life,” he said. “He enjoyed kids’ sports.

“Jim didn’t have children of his own. The closest was his nephew, Doug Behn. But those kids (area athletes) were his kids.”

That’s because Landis carried an honesty about him that few persons did.

“There was no phoniness about Jim,” Clark said. “I never knew anyone who didn’t like Jim.”

Landis became a close friend of the coaches whose games he covered. He especially developed a following among the schools in southern Ashtabula County, largely because he gave their players and coaches the respect they craved and perhaps hadn’t received before he took the reins at the Star Beacon.

“Jim took a lot of interest in smalltown kids,” retired Pymatuning Valley boys basketball coach Bob Hitchcock, who flashed his playing skills in the early years of Landis’ tenure, then cut his teeth in coaching in the latter years of Landis’ stay, said. “He gave us some respect. For some reason, Jim took a liking to us. And you know, it means even more to us now than it did back then.

“He’d always come in and talk to the players. He even used to call us after games to find out how we did. I think he enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed him.”

But Landis also had a great relationship with the coaches and athletes of the Northeastern Conference and old Western Reserve League. Retired Harbor boys basketball coach and athletic director Ed Armstrong speaks to that.

“Jim was a good writer,” he said. “He always covered the games fairly. What I liked about him was after a game, a lot of times when you lose, a coach hates to answer questions, but Jim always had a way of putting his questions in a way that didn’t upset you at all.

“Every school that Jim covered, he was your friend. And that was in a time when Ashtabula County had some of its best basketball players and coaches ever. He really was respectful of everybody. When he left, it made it a lot sadder for all of us.”

In fact, as his health deteriorated and perhaps realizing that his time was short, Landis returned to Ashtabula County for a visit to some of the areas he loved the most. He made a pilgrimage in the fall of 1994 to Andover and had a get-together with Hitchcock, his brother Gordon and their old Laker teammate and coaching colleague Paul Freeman.

When Landis passed away, it was decided that his body would be returned to Ashtabula County. Initially, it was thought that his remains would be cremated, with the ashes to be scattered on the 50-yard-line at Harbor’s Wenner Field.

But then the decision was made to hold a conventional burial. Dave Clark’s wife, Lois, provided the answer by supplying the plot in her Anderson family plot in Edgewood Cemetery.

Dave Clark put out a call for help to Bob Hitchcock with that ceremony. Clark, the Hitchcock brothers, Freeman and Frank Zeman were among those serving as pallbearers.

But Landis’ legacy lives on. On Sunday, he will follow Alfred (who served as the first Star Beacon sports editor from 1921 through 1946) as the next media inductee into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame. That would make him proud in itself, but to join Bob Hitchcock, Freeman, Armstrong and so many other coaches and players whose endeavors he chronicled would truly resonate with Landis.

“I can see his face lighting up even now,” Clark, who will accept Landis’ award, said. “He used to tell me he was just doing his job, but it was the best time of his life.

“He’d be tickled pink. He’d be beaming.”