BAINBRIDGE, PART II: Defending a regional title in 1967

Thursday, December 28, 2017
Larry Steele continued his basketball career after graduating from Bainbridge High School with the Kentucky Wildcats in college and with the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA.
AP photo

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the final installment of an article that was published last month in the Indiana Basketball History Magazine. Part I was printed in Wednesday’s Banner Graphic, and can be found at bannergraphic.com.

The 1966-67 Bainbridge season began with a largely new roster, one that included Larry Steele’s younger brother, Norm. “We always started the game with a set play from the first jump ball,” Norm remembers. “Ron Rossok, who was our center at 6’2”, would 9 times out of 10 control the opening tip. The tip would go to one side of the circle while on the other side a pick was set for a cutting player. The ball would go to the cutting player for a layup. It didn’t matter how tall the opposing center was, Ron found a way to get the tip to start the game.” The Pointers recorded lopsided wins over Rosedale, Fillmore, and Turkey Run, followed by a one-point loss to Cloverdale. They then ripped off 10 consecutive W’s—including a holiday tourney championship at Zionsville—before losing again to unbeaten Cloverdale in the Putnam County Tourney.

They closed with big wins over Reelsville, North Salem, and Ladoga and a close win (75-72) against an outstanding Darlington team.

The Pointers easily repeated as sectional champions at Greencastle, recording two games of over 100 points and a third with 94, making them tops in the state for both scoring average and winning margin. Cloverdale was not so lucky, its undefeated season spoiled by tourney host Brazil, 58-63, in the semifinal round of the sectional there.

Assigned this time to the regional field at Frankfort’s new Case Arena, Bainbridge promptly thumped New Market, 79-42.

Morris Pollard’s Speedway Sparkplugs were next, and they posed a special problem — they employed a defense called the ‘”half-court match-up zone.”

The Pointers had never faced anything like it, and Coach Rady had to admit that he didn’t know how to respond. In stepped Joe B. Hall, then a recruiter for the University of Kentucky. On the back of some lineup cards Hall diagrammed a strategy for breaking the zone, and Rady demonstrated it to his team using chairs at the Lincoln Motel. The Pointers caught on at once and left the Sparkplugs behind in the nightcap, 79-71. One sportswriter wrote that Bainbridge “displayed fine scoring balance and sizzling outside shooting in Rossok, Larry Steele and Gary Martin.” He added, “Martin scored nine points—most of his fielders coming from deep in the corners to wreck the Speedway zone.” Another outstanding performance came from Steele’s brother Norm, “only a junior. Norm used his fine moves and explosive speed to score crucial fielders on his way to a 12-point performance.” Once more the Pointers had a date at the Purdue Fieldhouse.

The following weekend, while holed up at the Cedar Crest Motel in Lafayette, the Pointers got the following telegram from the Russellville Bees: “CONGRATULATIONS. SEE YOU IN THE [Butler] FIELDHOUSE NEXT WEEK. YOU BETTER BE THERE.”

And they very nearly were.

Reporting from Purdue that Saturday, Max Stultz called Larry Steele “probably the best player on the floor all day.” The Pointers outran Logansport—the only team to beat top-ranked Michigan City, and the school that in ‘59 ended Bainbridge’s unbeaten streak—71-67, a contest not quite so close until the end. (A friend wrote to Rady that a Logansport radio announcer told his listeners, “Logan has a tiger by the tail!” Of Bainbridge he remarked, “The team is a fast one!”) They then faced Marion Crawley’s 2nd-ranked Lafayette Jeff Bronchos in the nightcap. For three quarters the game seemed a mismatch, especially in the third, with Jacobson of Jeff connecting on nearly every shot he took from the field. Norm Steele remembers it this way: “Coach Rady had already called a couple of time-outs when he finally pulled the players who started the game and put in all new players. Coach proceeded to point out how we were playing scared and were stinking the place up. I don’t remember his exact words, but the message was clear. The guys who went in did a great job of holding their own against Jeff. The starters watched for awhile and returned to the floor and played much better for the rest of the game....” Indeed.

The transformation was immediate and dramatic. In the words of Stultz, the Bronchos uncharacteristically “forgot everything they knew” in a blizzard of 13 press-induced fourth-quarter turnovers. Bob Hamontre of the Putnam County Graphic wrote, “Larry Steele became a human dynamo, racing all over the court, stealing the ball and dropping in buckets from every possible position on the floor. Rossok caught the fever and dropped in a few himself while clearing the boards in his spare time. . . . Every fan in the house yelled himself hoarse.” (Crawley remarked later, “We ran our regular patterns, but we just started throwing the ball away. It was the first time all season we hadn’t been able to break a press.”) Fifty years later, longtime Pointers fan Leon Tippin remarked that Steele’s salvo of shots arched and spun through the hoop with a “ker-chunk!” Larry racked up 21 of his game-high 32 in the quarter, and the Pointers erased a 21-point deficit with seven minutes remaining to pull to within one point, 73-72, with :09 to go. On the ensuing play, Jeff’s John Van Kurin met Norm Steele at center court, and Steele executed a slick theft—but not slick enough for the official standing closest to the play. It proved to be a costly whistle . . . and an erroneous one. “With three seconds to go in the game, they called a foul on me,” Norm recalls. “This happened right in front of the referee who had a clear view. All I did was reach out and poke the ball away. Nothing but ball.” Van Kurin nailed the resulting free throws and Jeff took the contest and the State Finals berth, 75-72. Dick Ham of the Lafayette Journal & Courier called the rally “almost unbelievable.” Bainbridge outrebounded Jeff for the game, 46-41, and shot .361 from the field. But to sportswriter Gary Linn the Pointers were more than just remarkable. They were “a team with class.”

The following week Coach Rady and three of the Bainbridge players drove up to Jefferson High School, presenting the victors with a bucking bronco floral tribute and best wishes for success in the finals. Marion Crawley and school officers responded by giving the coach and players a guided tour of the facility and grounds. That Saturday Jeff eluded Willie Long and the Ft. Wayne South Archers, 79-70, then lost the championship nightcap to an Evansville North squad led by Bob Ford, 60-58.

Among the Pointers, 1967 was the swan song for seniors Dean Rossok, Ron Rossok (an All-State third team selection), Marvin Price, Gary Martin, Earl Coffman and Larry Steele. But for Steele, who made the ’67 Indiana All-Stars, it was hardly the end of his playing days.

After four years playing for Adolph Rupp at the University of Kentucky, Steele was drafted by the Portland Trailblazers—an NBA expansion team at the time — and six years later played on their 1977 World Championship team. For over 30 years he has directed the Larry Steele Basketball Camp in Oregon.

After the ’67 Semistate a friend wrote to Pat Rady, “No doubt you will go places in the coaching field, and no doubt you will have plenty of offers….” Rady did get offers and he did go places, his teams amassing 761 wins in a career that spanned six decades and included one trip to the previously elusive Final Four (1991), while coaching at Terre Haute South.He and his wife, Margaret, still live in the city. Both Rady and Steele have been inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

A goodly number of former Pointers’ players and their families still live within an hour or so of Bainbridge. Many are retired; still more have grandchildren. All remember this golden time of basketball and community with a fondness that has never faded.

And 50 years later, only two of the players on the ’66 and ’67 rosters, Rich Branham and Joe Dozier, are deceased.

Teens who live in or near Bainbridge now attend North Putnam High School, along with their friends from Roachdale, Russellville and the northern townships. Where the old high school stood is a vacant lot, and the Bon-Ton Diner — though still an eating establishment — carries a different name. McCall’s Barber Shop is no more; neither are Monon freight and passenger trains. But the tracks remain hard by the massive grain elevator and the town (pop. 767) is a bustling place of small businesses, still surrounded by farms with livestock and acres of corn and soybeans. The glory years of Pointer athletics are attractively housed in a community center along U.S. 36, still the main drag through town.

On a recent day last fall a large number of Bainbridge alumni, former players, and fans gathered at the center to reminisce and reflect, adding the contemporary touch to an old story worth hearing and re-telling. They are the Pointer Nation, an elite group who remember what the game meant to them and to the community (see separate list).

And what a time it was. Thank you, Bainbridge.

(Rob Hunter wishes to extend special thanks to Pat S. Rady, Melanie Hunter and Jerry Sutherlin Photography for their efforts in making this article possible.)

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