KANE – Members of Kane’s 1948-49 Class B state champion
basketball team gathered in what used to the Kane High School
gymansium Thursday night.
Today, the building is the Chestnut Street Elementary School.
And that gymansium has been downsized into a partitioned, beige
cafeteria and smaller basketball court used for daily physical
education classes.
Walking through the door in the wall that separates the two
adjacent rooms, the basketball court outlined by red and blue mats
hanging on the walls is now just big enough for a kid game of
dodgeball. It’s hard to imagine the 1940s facility in its entirety,
where fans once sprawled from bleacher to floor to watch then-coach
Stu Edwards’ varsity basketball squad.
Edwards emerged as a hometown inspiration from 1944 to 1951.
During those years, a chance to see his high school basketball team
perform was considered fortuitous. As reported in the Warren Mirror
in 1950, “(the Kane Wolves) were so popular, the whole capacity (at
the high school gymansium) has been sold out to season ticket
holders.” In fact, only 50 seats were allotted for opposing
coaches, players, cheerleaders and fans during Kane home games.
The hoopla is well-deserved.
Edwards led the Wolves to seven consecutive Allegheny Mountain
League championships and the state championship in 1949. He retired
in 1951, but not after coaching his past teams to 46 consecutive
conference victories.
Jim Thompson, a senior co-captain on the 1949 team, walks onto
the small court surrounded by the blue and red mats with a
nostalgic stare. As he begins pointing, he tells those around him
how big the court once was and where the stairway was that led to
the locker room.
Clearly, his memory hasn’t let him forget a year of basketball
that redefined a school and shaped a legacy at Kane.
Ed Rose, a Kane sports historian, has helped to honor that
legacy.
With Thompson, Don Frase, Bud Daly, Jim Bovard (the latter three
were also members of the 1949 Kane team) and other players from
Kane’s storied basketball era on-looking, Rose prepares to show a
self-made, 45-minute documentary titled “Riders in the Sky: Coach
Stu and his Golden Boys” on a projector at the front of the
Chestnut Elementary’s cafeteria.
A Kane native, Rose voluntarily helped bring the players
together at their old stomping grounds to commemorate the 60th
anniversary of the Kane Wolves’ historic championship victory and
to remember a coach who will surely not be forgotten.
Notably, Rose, who is a current resident of Texas, reveals his
passion for Kane’s basketball history in four words.
“It’s been two years,” he said when speaking of the last time he
visited Kane before the reunion Thursday.
As Rose’s seven-part work ensues, laughs emerge and private
conversations turn into a wave of whispers that envelops the air.
Then…silence.
The underlying reason many have reunited to Chestnut Elementary
(Bovard traveled from Florida, Daly from Maryland) is being
narrated on the screen, and no one wants to miss Rose’s rendition
of how Kane beat a 28-0 Ashley High School team April 6, 1949, at
Farrell High School.
In front of 2,600 that day, the game ended with Ashley in front
of Kane, 44-43. Ashley had won, seemingly.
But that’s not the ending.
According to pahoops.org, the
time keeper allowed the game clock to get ahead of his stopwatch at
the scorer’s table, so the buzzer sounded without him confronting
the officiating crew with the problem. When he did, both parties
determined there was more game to be played.
When referees ended the game on the time keeper’s error,
Thompson was fouled in the backcourt after he stole the ball from
an Ashley player. Therefore, with approximately three seconds put
back on the clock, Thompson had a one-and-one attempt at the foul
line. His first shot rolled off the rim, but an alert Frase jumped
past confused Ashley defenders and tipped the ball back in the hoop
as time expired.
Somehow, someway, Kane won 45-44.
Both teams were stunned. Kane couldn’t believe Frase’s shot
counted and Ashley’s players were left wondering how a win moments
earlier translated into a loss.
Daly, brother of 1948 Kane graduate and NBA Hall of Fame coach
Chuck Daly, admitted he was even sulking in the locker room when
the events unfolded on the court.
“I was surprised he (Frase) made it of course, but I was very
happy we won. The fans were so great,” he said seated behind a
cafeteria table.
Sitting next to Daly, Frase responded, “Amen to that,” and both
80-year-old teammates shared a chuckle.
The tip-in remains as Frase’s only two points of the game. He
was a 15-year-old sophomore at the time.
Despite the numbers that appeared on the scoreboard, Kane’s team
was not announced the official State B Champion until May 28 by the
PIAA Board of Control because of deliberations over how much time
was really left in the game and if the basket really counted.
Though talks lasted nearly six weeks, Thompson said he and his
teammates hadn’t really considered the thought of not being
champions.
“We never really talked about it; as a unit we just knew we did
it,” added Thompson.
Still, thoughts at the table where Thompson, Daly, Frase and
Bovard sat trailed back to the tip-in.
As the four men faded into their own dialogue, Daly commented,
“You know, we did practice tip-ins off foul shots at the end of
practice.”
Bovard, the team’s all-state member and co-captain, chimed in
with, “Yeah, we did. But I don’t really remember anyone bothering
you or coming at you when you got that rebound.”
Frase simply responded, “Easy, right?”
Sure was.
