Family affair
Kelly Henson will join her dad and her sister in the ACBF Hall of Fame

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

One thing is certain about the Henson family. If you're part of the clan, you'd better be involved in basketball.

You probably should be in other sports, too, but there is little doubt that basketball has played a huge role in their family. It still does.

It's just in the fabric of their makeup. It starts with Tom Henson and includes his older brother, Jim, who played and coached basketball at their alma mater, Grand Valley. It continued through both of their families, with Jim's son and daughter, Jimmy and Jenny.

But it really has held true for the family of Tom and Carla Henson. Tom Henson has the distinction of having the longest tenure of any Ashtabula County basketball coach, male or female, heading the Mustang boys program for 28 years.

Kim Henson Triskett was a standout player for the Mustang girls of coach Ron Chutas. Eventually, she succeeded her old coach in that job and still maintains that role.

Krystal Henson, the youngest of Carla and Tom's three daughters, carved a wide swath through the record book at GV. She went on to a standout career at Edinboro University. Now, she serves as an assistant for her older sister.

Their middle daughter, Kelly, takes a back seat to few who have played for the Mustang girls. The 942 points she scored during a four-year varsity career that ended in 1992 still ranks third behind Krystal Henson and Tammy Busser Moodt, one of Kelly's former teammates who is in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame. She also grabbed 301 rebounds, stole the ball 222 times, dished out 214 assists and made 271 of 404 free throws for a career percentage of 67.1, all figures that rank in the top 10 of all Mustang girls.

Those accomplishments have earned Kelly Henson induction into the 2009 Hall of Fame class for the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation. She will be one of 14 persons enshrined at the organization's sixth annual banquet March 29 at the Conneaut Human Resources Center.

Her son, A.J., a 15-year-old freshman with this year's Grand Valley boys team, is off to a solid start toward a significant basketball career. He is among the scoring, assist, 3-point and free-throw shooting leaders in the county.

Kelly's induction makes the Hensons the first family to have three members in the ACBF Hall of Fame. Kim Triskett was inducted last year, while Tom Henson was installed in 2005.

It is a distinction that humbles and excites her.

"It was surprising and very humbling at the same time," the 35-year-old Henson said. "I just loved to play the game. It is exciting to be put in with my family."

Tom Henson is more excited about his daughter's induction than he was about his own selection.

"To have our own kids in there is a very proud moment for Carla and me," he said. "I was recognized because I was involved with basketball for a long time.

"It's sensational for our kids to be in the Hall of Fame because that was based on performance, for doing the things that the game is all about, like scoring, rebounding, defending and being part of a team. That's what being in the Hall of Fame is all about."

Kim Triskett is pleased her sister is joining her. She counts the two years they played together at GV as one of her most cherished memories.

"I'm really excited about this," she said. "She was a freshman when I was a junior. Playing with her was so much fun because you're playing with someone who mirrors your intensity. I think Kelly is really deserving of this honor."

Kelly is also happy to be keeping company with several other players of her era.

"I had the chance to play with Tammy Busser my freshman year, which was her senior year," she said. "I played against (Jefferson's) Anita Jurcenko and (Harbor's) Tonya Tallbacka and had the chance to play with them. It's a great honor to join them."

Gym rat

Everybody's heard of the gym rat, the player who is there every time their school gymnasium is open and is even there sometimes when it really isn't available. In their own way, that was the life of the Henson girls.

"I always had fun, either out there playing or watching other kids play," Kelly said. "Basically, we lived in the gym."

Her first recollection of playing organized basketball was while she was still in elementary school.

"During grade school, we had a league for fourth graders in Orwell on Saturday mornings," Kelly said. "My dad has always been involved in basketball in some way in the community. I started playing travel ball when I was in the fifth and sixth grade."

The first coach she remembers, other than her father, of course, was her seventh-grade coach, Tom Schamberg, a former girls head coach at Grand Valley.

"We had a lot of fun," Kelly said.

Immediate impact

Apparently, Henson made quite an impression in GV's junior-high program. When she reached the high school program, she split time between the JV team coached by Gary Himes and Chutas' varsity squad. The team that year featured Busser, who was headed to a successful career at Baldwin-Wallace, and Kim Henson.

"I was fortunate to play with Tammy and Kim," she said. "I was just worried about getting them the ball. It was a lot of fun."

Chutas was forced to have her split time between the JV and varsity squad her freshman year because of limited numbers in the Mustang program. Still, he knew what kind of player he was getting.

"We only had 13 girls on the team Kelly's freshman year," he said. "We had to play her a lot on both teams because of the lack of numbers. But we probably should have played her more at the varsity level because we needed someone who could get the ball to the right people, and she knew how to do that."

Henson was also prized for other gifts that she brought to the court.

"She was a very intense player," Chutas said. "She played the game with a lot of heart. I loved that she played the game with so much heart. You knew whenever she went out there, she had come to play.

"Kelly always handled the ball very well. She had a good handle for the game. She was a good rebounder, too, and made a lot of key free throws. She always did whatever I asked of her."

Henson took pride in doing all aspects of the game properly. Scoring was almost of secondary importance to making sure her teammates prospered.

"The game wasn't about just scoring to me," she said. "Playing the point guard, I tried to make sure I fed the ball to Tammy and Kim and, later on, Cheri Panek, down low. Scoring was fun, but I took more pride in dishing the ball off."

Playing for a coach with such a calm demeanor as Chutas was also a pleasure. Henson felt he let his players have the freedom to take the game as far as they could.

"Mr. Chutas always gave us the space to control our own destiny," she said. "We were able to speak freely when we were in huddles during the game and when we were in the locker room at halftime.

"He was a pretty laid-back guy. He made practices fun. I used to love the 11-man drills that we had at the end of practice, which basically had us playing little three-on-two games."

But, as much as Henson appreciated Chutas' approach, the main coaching influence in her life remained her father.

"I always could hear Dad up in the stands, and even Mom sometimes," she said. "The first thing we'd usually do after games was to sit and watch the tape. He'd critique the good and bad points. It was good to take that information back to the floor.

"I loved the intensity and the passion. Dad always said it was OK to make mistakes, as long as they were aggressive mistakes. I never took anything he said personally. I knew what he said was just to try and make it better. I think it brought out the best in me."

Henson doesn't remember many details about her career, but the games against neighborhood rival Pymatuning Valley have a way of coming back.

"The most exciting thing were the games with PV," she said. "There were always a lot of fans in the stands. It was great."

The game against PV in her sophomore season and Kim's senior year resonates.

"We were playing PV at our place and they were undefeated," Kelly said. "We beat them. To this day, Kim shows that film to her girls. I fouled out of that game, so I guess I did my part."

"PV was a great rivalry," Chutas said.

Moving along

After her sister graduated, Kelly Henson became more of the focal point of the GV team, although she felt she was blessed with capable teammates.

"I played with girls like Erin and Lauren Kampf and Becky Millikin," she said. "We had a lot of fun."

There is one other game from her career that she remembers, for a variety of reasons, although she has to be reminded that the game was against another old area rival, Perry.

"My senior year, we played in a tournament game and I had mono, but I wanted to play so badly, I played with a 103-degree temperature," Henson said. "I think I had a pretty good game."

"She led us to the sectional championship," Chutas said. "Kelly played a great game."

Another highlight was participating in the 1992 Star Beacon Senior All-Star Classic at what was then Ashtabula High School's Ball Gymnasium. GV's only representative in the game, Henson backed up game Most Valuable Player Jurcenko, who scored 19 points, with 10 points as their Blue team rallied from a 32-31 halftime deficit for a 67-59 victory.

"I really enjoyed playing in that game," she said.

Henson also played volleyball and softball at Grand Valley, but "basketball was always my favorite."

Career moves

She went off to Muskingum College with the idea of getting into teaching and coaching, but that lasted just a semester before she came home.

Even though it has taken a while to get there, Henson's desire to be a teacher and a coach has come to fruition. For the past two years, she has worked at Choice Child Care and Preschool in Orwell.

"I got my associate's degree through Ashworth University's online courses," she said. "I teach the 3-year-olds.

"I love it. Everything is exciting and new to them. They love to talk. It just took me a while to get there."

She has served for the past several seasons as Tracy Nelson's varsity volleyball assistant, a role she also enjoys immensely.

"I've learned how to take each athlete as an individual and how you have to approach them all differently," Henson said. "I've basically found out that as long as they know the expectations, they'll give you the best that they can. I try very hard to connect with the players."

But when basketball season rolls around, coaching goes on the shelf so she can follow her son's games and join in the party that follows her sisters' teams.

"I just coach volleyball so I can watch A.J. play when basketball season comes around," she said. "I love to watch him play."

It isn't always easy to take on the parent's role as a fan. Fortunately, she believes her son has a burning passion for basketball like the rest of his family.

"I'm like my dad as a fan," Henson said. "If A.J.'s not taking care of the ball, I talk to him about it. I think he probably listens to his Aunt Krystal the best of anybody.

"I just love to watch the kids play and do their thing. I love to watch them having faith in each other."

The lessons she learned on the court still carry Henson in her adult life.

"Basketball has helped me be passionate about the things I want to do," she said. "Just like there are four other people on the floor and people on the bench depending on you and trying to work together, it's the same working with people in real life.

"I even find that with the kids. They're learning to share and play together as a group, learning to sit and do a group activity together and to wait their turn. Basketball has helped me with all of that."

Family affair: Humphrey was much more than insurance as a Spartan

By KARL PEARSON Staff Writer

Scott Humphrey, now working for AFLAC providing supplemental health care insurance across Ashtabula, Lake, and Geauga counties, was a key basketball player at Conneaut High School from 1968-70 under coaches Andy Garcia and Harry Fails.

As a sophomore, he thrived on an inexperienced team, helping them to a 9-11 record. Under Fails in his junior and senior years, the Spartans improved to 17-5 and 19-4, reaching the Class AA regional tournament for the first time.

Fails praised Humphrey as "one of the best players I ever coached." Humphrey scored 1,049 career points without a three-point line, sharing the Star Beacon Ashtabula County Player of the Year honor in his senior year after averaging 20.3 points per game.

He set school records for single-game scoring (46 points) and rebounds (25 in a game, 236 in a season). He ranks fifth all-time among Conneaut boys and 28th in the county for career points.

Humphrey is being inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on March 29, joining 14 inductees including former coaches and rivals.

A Madison Township resident, Humphrey credits his late father, Stan—a prominent local coach and official—for his love of basketball, and expresses gratitude for the recognition.

Humphrey’s close bond with coach Fails started in junior high and continued through high school, where they earned back-to-back NEC championships and deep tournament runs despite being underdogs.

He played a versatile forward/center role in a shuffle offense that emphasized passing and cutting, known for smooth moves, rebounding, and teamwork. His senior year saw him named MVP of the district tournament.

After high school, Humphrey played briefly at Mount Union before transferring to Youngstown State, where he earned his business degree in 1975. He worked as a CFO before joining AFLAC as a district manager, where he works alongside former athlete Mark Wheeler.

Married over 30 years to his high school sweetheart, Tona Bartone, a literature teacher, they have a son Bryan who also excelled in basketball and graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College.

Though knee problems ended his adult basketball playing, Humphrey fondly recalls his years playing in local leagues and credits basketball for lifelong lessons about perseverance and effort despite uncertainty.

"I loved playing basketball," he said. "It was a great way to stay in shape. I see a lot of parallels between basketball and life. You can work like crazy and still lose. You just have to pick yourself up again. There are no guarantees."

Mother knew best
Betty Lattimer began her son, Larry, on the path to the ACBF Hall of Fame

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Fourth of a series...

When talking to a great athlete, especially a man, about the person who had the greatest impact on making him into the success he became, he'll often pinpoint his father or another significant male relationship for getting him headed in the right direction.

To be sure, Larry Lattimer's father, Carl, who died in 1988, had a huge influence on his development. But when Lattimer reflects back on it, he singles out his mother, Betty, for the credit in being the driving force behind any athletic success he and his siblings enjoyed.

"I was very fortunate to have a very sports-minded mother," Lattimer said of his 82-year-old mother, who lives nearby even today and still remains very active. "That started out right from the crib.

"Don't get me wrong. Dad played a lot of basketball and supported us, too, but he was so involved in farming."

Their mother was the enabling force in their hoop dreams.

"All three of my brothers and I were playing basketball all the time," Larry said. "We had a hoop up on our garage and one in the barn. We'd play outside in good weather, then we'd move into the barn in the winter.

"We played so much out in the barn that we'd take my mother's table lamps out there so we could see at night," Lattimer said. "She didn't mind as long as we didn't break them."

Even though athletics was pretty much a forbidden thing for girls of Betty Lattimer's era, her son believes she would have been a very fine player in her own right.

"Even though she's 82, I bet she could still make foul shots better than I could," Larry said with a chuckle.

The license that Betty gave her sons paid off in a big way. Larry, the oldest of the four by three years, owes a particular debt of gratitude to his mother because the skills he has bore fruit in his selection into the 2009 Hall of Fame class for the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation. His enshrinement will take place March 29 at the Conneaut Human Resources Center.

"My mother was the one who really supported us athletically," he said.

It all works out to be a bit of an early celebration for Lattimer.

"I'll be 62 on April 7," he said. "It will be a nice early birthday present."

Lattimer was definitely an impact player in the two seasons he played at Pymatuning Valley High School after the family moved to Andover from the Urbana-Bellefontaine area in Champaign and Logan counties.

In Andover, young Lattimer encountered Joe Shantz, PV's Hall of Fame coach who was in his final two seasons with the Lakers before he graduated in 1965. He fit right in, starting 40 games for the Lakers. That was particularly true during his senior year, averaging 20.2 points over that period.

That was good enough to twice earn Class A All-Ohio recognition. Eventually, he helped PV reach the Class A district tournament in Canton. In his senior year, Lattimer and his teammates also won the Great Lakes Athletic Conference championship over teams like Grand Valley, Berkshire, Cardinal and Kirtland.

Despite his credentials, Lattimer finds it almost hard to believe in his worthiness for induction.

"I can honestly say this is a very large honor," he said. "My brother, Ronnie (who still lives in Ashtabula) mentioned that Sid McPaul (one of their old PV teammates) had mentioned it to him. I owe a big debt of gratitude to Sid.

"It's quite an honor and quite a surprise to be among so many awesome players."

He is particularly thrilled to be joining Shantz in the Hall of Fame and to be connected to the rich past of PV basketball with players like Hall of Famers Bob Hitchcock and Paul Freeman.

LARRY LATTIMER of Pymatuning Valley
shows off the form that helped him become
a two-time All-Ohioan during his days as a Laker.

"When I first went out for the team, Coach Shantz always emphasized the history and tradition of the program," Lattimer said. "The names of those guys came up a lot. That meant a lot to me.

"I had a lot of respect for Coach Shantz. I'd describe him as a very quiet volcano. He always seemed like he was ready to erupt, but he always seemed to have the right thing to say to the right player at the right time."

All the lessons the Lattimer brothers learned out in front of their garage or in the barn profited the younger members of the family, too. Lenny, three years Larry's junior, was another PV standout, while Ronnie, who was five years younger than Larry, and Randy, who graduated from PV in 1972, also played basketball for the Lakers.

Getting organized

The Lattimers grew up in what is now known as the Graham school system. If that sounds familiar, its high school is St. Paris Graham, which recently won its ninth consecutive Division II state wrestling team championship and set a scoring record in the process.

But, as Lattimer points out, the Falcons are more than just about wrestling this year.

"They're undefeated and the No. 1 (boys) basketball team in Division III in the state," he said. "They're still alive in the tournament."

Despite all the time in their yard, the first organized basketball Lattimer remembers playing was at Rosewood Elementary from the sixth through eighth grades.

In his freshman year, he entered Graham, gradually moving up the ladder from the freshmen team to the junior varsity as a sophomore.

"The best advice I ever got was from Don Hall, my freshman coach," Lattimer said. "He realized I was a pretty good outside shooter. He told me I needed to move around the arc, so he taught me the around-the-world drill. I think it made me an even better outside shooter."

Moving north

But before his junior year, the Lattimers ended up moving to Andover.

"Being a farmer, my dad got the opportunity to be a farm manager for a man from Cleveland who owned a 500-acre farm outside Andover," Larry said. "I didn't even know where Andover was. I looked it up on a map and couldn't find it. And back then, there was no real easy way to get there."

Naturally, there were concerns when he showed up at PV High School. Those fears were quickly put aside when he found out the students at PV came from very similar backgrounds.

"The most important thing was when we moved from Graham to Andover, we never felt like we were the new kids in school," Lattimer said. "I think they really embraced us there."

There was plenty of other talent on Shantz's squad.

"I played with Clint Schertzer, Bob Boggs, Moses and Al Cooper, Jerry Hitchcock, Tom Roach, Steve Kume and Bill Dick," Lattimer said. "They were great teammates."

That's because Shantz insisted on it.

"Coach Shantz kept pushing us in the right direction," he said. "He totally stressed teamwork. You had to be unselfish to play for him."

The Lakers didn't possess overwhelming size.

"Bob Boggs was the biggest at about 6-3," Lattimer said. "Clint Schertzer was probably 6-feet. I was only 5-10 1/2 and I still played forward. Mo and I kept running a lot of cuts and the give-and-go."

Looking back, it probably took his junior year for the Lakers to all get on the same page. Circumstances didn't help.

"We only finished 8-11," he said. "We moved up from Class A to AA. We were only three or four boys over.

"We did pretty well against the teams that were more or less our size. I remember we went down to McDonald my junior year when they were ranked in the top five in the state. Their best player was all-state, but Bob Boggs shut him down. I scored 32 and we beat them in their house."

PV dropped back to Class A in his senior season, according to Lattimer, but it still took the Lakers a while to get clicking.

"We were kind of on a rollercoaster ride early in the season," he said. "By Christmas, we were only 4-4 and had just lost to a real good Fairport team. We also scrimmaged Ashtabula right around then, which was tough."

But those experiences seemed to light a fire under the Lakers.

"We won 10 games in a row after that and finished up the regular season 14-4," Lattimer said.

The Lakers really picked it up over the last couple weeks of the season.

"We broke Kirtland's 24-game winning streak," Lattimer said. "Then Grand Valley beat them right after that."

That set up a battle for the GLAC championship between the Mustangs and Lakers at PV.

"We won that game by four or six points," Lattimer said. "Moses Cooper stole an inbounds pass, got fouled and hit two free throws in the closing seconds to clinch it.

"I only had 17 points. I did have six or seven assists. I made the Plain Dealer Dream Team. I was pretty proud of that."

That launched PV into tournament play. Just getting out of the sectional tournament was a battle in those days.

"We won three games in the tournament to get to the district," he said. "We were pretty proud of that."

But the end of the road came at the district tournament in Canton.

"We played Kent State High School," Lattimer said. "They had at least four players that were 6 feet or more, and we couldn't handle that size. You always remember the last one."

Lattimer points to all kinds of opponents with whom he did battle.

"I remember playing Tom Booth and George Duplay from Geneva," he said. "Mickey Zigmund was a great player at Jefferson and I remember trying to play (7-footer) Jim Gilbert at Ashtabula. He showed us how to play above the rim. Tom Naylor was a great player at Conneaut, too."

After PV

But college basketball was no more than an afterthought to Lattimer.

"I went to work with my dad on the farm," he said.

A couple years after graduation, he received his draft notice at the height of the Vietnam War. That prompted him to enlist in the Marines. It still got him to Southeast Asia, but on his own terms.

"I went to Vietnam, but at least I didn't have to be a ground pounder (in the infantry)," Lattimer said. "I ended up being an aviation ordinance worker, equipping the aircraft with bombs and rockets."

Lattimer stayed in the Marines through 1978, eventually getting back to stateside. But he grew weary of the politics in the military and went another direction.

By that time, his parents and most of the rest of his family, with the exception of Ronnie, moved back to their roots in Champaign and Logan counties.

"I came back home to Bellefontaine and went to work for Honda," he said. "I worked there for 25 years as a production control scheduler, which is working out things like model, type and color of the cars they're working on at that time. I retired in 2004."

His brothers are at various distances from Lattimer. Lenny resides in Virginia. Randy lives in Spring Hill, about 10 miles from Larry.

He has four children from a previous marriage. Melissa lives in Florida, Steve is in Tennessee, Terri still resides in Bellefontaine and Todd is a business in Kuwait.

For the past 15 years, he has been married to Joni. He has two stepdaughters from that marriage, Casey and Cheri.

What retirement?

Just because he's out of the business rat race, though, Lattimer isn't sitting idle.

JONI AND LARRY LATTIMER

"We raise horses," he said.

But he's never been too far removed from sports.

"I coached my daughters in softball and basketball when they were in high school," he said.

It wasn't strictly about football for Lattimer when he was at PV.

"I played football for Ernie Simpson on the first football team there," he said. "It wasn't too hard. I just handed the ball off to (Ashtabula County Football Hall of Famer) Tony Barnes."

The day after he retired from Honda, Lattimer received a huge flashback.

"I heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Ernie Simpson there," Lattimer said with a laugh. "He'd been living down around here for quite some time."

Together, they have formed a football alliance geared toward picking up the shattered pieces of small programs in their area and trying to restore them to health.

"We started out at Lima Perry and were there for two years," Lattimer said. "We went 1-9 the first year and 6-4 the second. Then we went to Bradford last year and went 1-9, but it didn't go very well there."

So they packed their bags and headed to Ridgemont High School in Mount Victory, a Division VI school, to begin the 2009 season. They are hoping to turn the Golden Gophers around. So far, Simpson and Lattimer believe they have a receptive audience.

"They have 66 boys in the high school," Lattimer said. "We had 41 kids at our first meeting. We're hoping to have at least 30 players so we can have a reserve team, too. That would be about half of the male student body, and that would be pretty good.

"I'm the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator. Counting Ernie and me, we have four guys on the staff."

While he's wrapped up in football these days, his thoughts never stray far from his basketball memories.

"I think basketball and sports in general have given me a good respect for the individual," Lattimer said. "I've learned you have to have help and support.

"I think back (to PV) and think that I had to trust the guy that was running down the floor with me to succeed. When I got to the Marines, I had to trust the guy who ended up in the foxhole next to me."

The issue of trust kept coming up after he got back to the U.S., too.

"At Honda, the whole concept was about teamwork. If someone is sick, someone else has to be willing to help out and pick up the slack.

"It works that way with my family, too. If I can't clean out the horse stalls, my wife or one of my stepdaughters has to. We all need help and support."

This Billy the Kid could really shoot

By KARL PEARSON Staff Writer

Now wearing a star as sheriff of Ashtabula County, Johnson was a star at St. John.

Fifth of a series...

There are many persons in positions of responsibility who subscribe to the theory that if they surround themselves with good people, they have a very good chance of being successful at whatever they try.

Probably one of the strong advocates of that philosophy is Ashtabula County Sheriff Bill Johnson. In his 16 years as the top man at the sheriff's department and 31 total years in the department, it has been reinforced to him on nearly a daily basis how true that credo is.

"I feel you're only as good as what surrounds you," he said. "I've got a great bunch of guys working with me."

Even before he got into law enforcement, though, Johnson realized how important it was to have people he could trust around. It was that way when he worked on the docks on the lake shore in Ashtabula. It was that way spent six years in the National Guard.

That philosophy first began to take root when he was a standout basketball at St. John High School. It came from Roland "Smokey" Cinciarelli for his sophomore year and, more importantly, Don Cannell for all of his four years with the Heralds, particularly his junior and senior seasons at the varsity level. By the time he graduated in 1968, Johnson was one of the finest players the Heralds ever produced on the court.

As if that philosophy needed any more enhancement, Johnson went on to a three-year career at Kent State University-Ashtabula Campus in the days when branch campus basketball was at its zenith. Playing one season for Don Gill and two more for Ed Armstrong, he was one of the key components of the Vikings' drive to a share of the Kent State Regional Campus League championship in 1973, clinched with a dramatic 69-68 victory at Kent State-Tuscarawas Campus.

At St. John, he was surrounded not only be highly regarded coaches, but great teammates like Denny Berrier, John Wheelock, Lou DiDonato and Dominic Iarocci. He also was confronted by top-drawer coaches like Conneaut's Andy Garcia, Geneva's Bill Koval, Ashtabula's Gene Gephart and Armstrong at Harbor and great players like Ashtabula's Bill Kaydo, Conneaut's Ron Richards and Scott Humphrey and Geneva's Gary Kreilach, Steve McHugh and Larry Cumpston.

When he got to KSU-Ashtabula, Johnson joined forces with Kaydo, Richards, Wheelock and Harbor product Al Goodwin, as well as Pymatuning Valley's Ned Roach and Geneva's Al Landphair.

"Going back to my playing days, I was blessed with nothing but great leaders who were not just interested in teaching the game of basketball, but teaching you how to become a great person," the 59-year-old Johnson said. "I wouldn't change anything about that time, no matter what.

"They were all probably a bigger part of me being where I'm at than anything I've done myself. I still believe you're only as good as what you surround yourself with and with who you surround yourself."

Putting it all another way, it is often said one is only as good as the company they keep. Johnson finds himself in good company again. He'll be joining many of the coaches and players already mentioned in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame as he is one of 14 who will be inducted March 29 at the Conneaut Human Resources Center.

"This is really an honor," he said. "To be among players I played with and against and coaches I played for and against is amazing. I think they made me a better player and a better person."

To hear his old coaches, there is no doubt Johnson deserves to be in their company.

"Without a doubt, Bill was one of the best players I ever coached," Cannell, who entered the Hall of Fame in 2008, said. "He could score, he could handle the ball and he was a very good defensive player.

"Billy was a competitor. He was a real team player, too. He would do whatever he could to help the team."

Cannell also admire what Johnson has achieved off the court.

"I'm proud of the adult Bill has become, too," he said. "He has done such a good job as the sheriff."

Armstrong, who also entered the Hall of Fame last year, seconded Cannell's emotions.

"Bill was the best long-range shooter I ever coached," he said. "He made shots from professional 3-point range, only we didn't have the 3-point line then.

"People always talk about Bill's shooting, but he was a heckuva defensive player, too. He hated to lose, too.

"Bill is an awfully good person," Armstrong said. "He's one of the best."

Cannell noted that he is aware of one of Armstrong's happiest moments.

"I know Ed felt good when he got Bill on his side at Kent," Cannell said with a chuckle.

Starting out

The youngest of the four children of the late Melvin and Rose (Tulino) Johnson, Johnson grew up on Vineland Avenue in Ashtabula Township. His brother, Richard, still lives in Ashtabula, as does the younger of his two sisters, Arlene, who has returned to town after 30 years in California. His older sister, Melvena Beebe, resides in Jefferson.

Johnson and the neighborhood kids took turns playing basketball at their various driveway courts or creating their own temporary playing fields.

"Everybody had a hoop," he said. "We mowed fields until we wore out the mowers. We used to play all day until we were called in for supper."

Actually, Johnson probably started playing baseball and football before he began playing basketball.

"I didn't know how to play basketball," he said. "My dad was the custodian at Mount Carmel School and I used to go over with him. One day, probably when I was in about the fourth grade, I went into the gym and found some basketballs. I asked Mr. Campbell, one of the teachers, I don't remember his first name and Joe Simko if I could play with one.

"They showed me a couple shots and how to practice those shots. I kept coming back and practicing them."

By the time he was in the sixth grade at Mount Carmel, Johnson joined the team that was coached by Simko, who remained his coach through the eighth grade.

"We won the parochial school championship in town when I was in the eighth grade," Johnson said. "I was the point guard. I had the license to shoot, too.

"Mr. Simko would show you what to do. If you were doing something wrong, he'd stop you and show you how to do it right. He'd always have you working on your weaknesses. Any part of the game that you needed to work on, he'd have you concentrate on that."

Johnson developed a real passion for observing the game, too.

"I've always been an unbelievable Boston Celtics fan," he said. "I loved watching John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried and Dave Cowens when I was growing up. Even today, I'm a Celtics fan."

Hot-handed Herald

His freshman year at St. John was Johnson's first encounter with Cannell.

"Coach Cannell started showing us different aspects of the game," he said. "He still made it a lot of fun, but we had more set plays, defenses, presses and screens. It was more detailed.

"Coach Cannell was really dedicated to the sport. He believed in hard work and working together. He was big on the defensive end. I don't think anybody enjoyed defense, but he got you to understand how important defense was. He always wanted you to make sure you won your matchup."

The Heralds were aware of Cannell's military background.

"He didn't hesitate to yell at you," Johnson said. "He'd bring you over, sit you down and get his point across.

"He didn't believe in anybody being selfish. He wanted you to listen and learn. He made sure his point was well taken and carried out."

Cannell knew he had a special talent in Johnson.

"When I saw Billy for the first time, I said, ‘We're gonna win some games with this kid,'" the coach said.

Johnson always appreciated that his coaches, who also included Paul Kopko and Gene Pushic, weren't afraid to get out and mix it up with their players."

"They'd get out there and play with us," Johnson said. "We'd play until they shut the lights off."

By the time his sophomore year arrived, Johnson had made enough of an impression that he split time between Cannell's JV squad and the varsity, then coached by Cinciarelli.

"I had the reward of splitting time," he said. "I'd probably play a quarter or two of JV ball, then come off the bench for two or three quarters in the varsity game.

"But I would rather have played four quarters of JV ball. Sophomores usually didn't get much time if you played varsity."

Johnson did get some amount of varsity time as a sophomore, linking up with players like Berrier and Mike Madonna.

The Heralds may have been aware of Cannell's military bearing, but that paled next to Cinciarelli, another old serviceman who headed back to the military after Johnson's sophomore year.

"He would scream at you," Johnson said. "He definitely had a military style. When you got called out of a game, you almost went over and saluted."

Cannell's cannon

The issue of playing time at the varsity level was no longer in play for Johnson by his junior year as Cannell took over as the head coach. The youngster was ready to go through his own battles, playing against teams and coaches he had heard about for years.

"When we went up against schools like Geneva, Conneaut, Ashtabula and Madison, it really meant something because they were kind of above us," Johnson said. "As a little kid, guys like Tom Booth at Geneva and Tom Ritari and Tom Naylor at Conneaut had been my idols. Those teams wanted to show us they could beat us and we wanted to show them we could beat them. You did that almost every Friday and Saturday night.

"I was amazed at the talent level and the coaching that those schools still had. It was something going up against coaches like Al Bailey and Bill Koval at Geneva, Andy Garcia at Conneaut and Gene Gephart at Ashtabula. Al Bailey used to drive me crazy with his slowdown game."

But St. John was blessed with some pretty good talent, too. As a junior, Johnson teamed up with fine players like Berrier, DiDonato and Iarocci. That talent was good enough to beat a Conneaut team coached by Garcia and featuring Richards, another long-range bomber.

"We were pretty proud that we beat some of those teams," Johnson said. "All the Harbor games meant a lot because a lot of the kids from both schools were from the same neighborhoods. We split with Harbor my junior year and never lost to them again. We were still friends off the court, but we had some battles on the court."

Cannell depended upon the skills of his long bombers.

"Billy and (Berrier) were cousins," he said. "They were great shooters. I remember that game against Conneaut. We were looking for ways to stop those guys, especially Richards. I wondered if we would ever cool him off."

As a senior, he was joined by classmate Jim Bodnar and juniors Wheelock, Joe Petronio and Pat Kilker in the starting lineup. They saved the best for last.

"My senior year was the best," Johnson said. "I felt like we were in control of our own destiny. I think we were mature enough to realize that if we played up to our capabilities, we could win.

"We were a very well-balanced team. We averaged between 50 and 60 points a game."

And there's a sense it could have been even better.

"The only thing I wish, with the kind of talent we always had, was if we'd had the 3-point line, we could have been even more competitive," Johnson said. "We had excellent shooters with Denny, Wheelock and Lou DiDonato (not to mention himself)."

But, like so many athletes, some of the losses and disappointments are the most lingering for Johnson.

"We got beat by Lutheran East, 55-54, in the second game of the sectional tournament," he said. "They went on and won the state championship. John Wheelock played with a broken finger. I was so upset because I realized my St. John career was over."

His final home game for the Heralds might have been considered a highlight because Johnson set a single-game scoring record with 43 points. But that game ended in a 78-74 double-overtime loss to Maplewood.

"I was unconscious that night," he said. "I even hit a 75-foot set shot at the buzzer that hit nothing but net, but it didn't count.

"(Setting the record) was the only reason I felt pretty good about the game. But if I could have, I would have given up all 43 of those points for a win.

"I hated to lose," Johnson said. "I took losses to heart. If we lost a game, I would just as soon come back a day later, or even an hour later, and play the game again."

There was a victory that meant a lot to Johnson and also resonated with Cannell, even though Johnson admits he didn't have his best game.

"There was only one game the last two years that I didn't score in double figures, and that was against Conneaut," he said. "But we won the game. After the game, Coach Cannell told me he was sorry that my streak had been broken. But he still praised me in the newspaper for my defensive skills and my ball handling and that I was still the key reason we won the game."

"Billy had that streak of double-figures games and I told him I was sorry that streak was broken," Cannell said. "But I was also proud of the way he'd played defensively and how he'd handled the ball."

Branching out

Coming out of St. John, Johnson had some college basketball offers from four-year schools like Ohio Wesleyan and Edinboro, plus another interesting junior-college offer.

"I had a tryout at Lakeland when (future Cleveland Cavaliers coach) Don Delaney was the coach," he said.

But several things directed Johnson to KSU-Ashtabula.

"The decision wasn't that difficult," he said. "There were financial reasons. I had been working as a dispatcher at the sheriff's department ever since I was in high school. I was working full-time down at the docks and making good money, too."

Then a family crisis struck.

"My dad died suddenly when I was 20 and left my mom alone," Johnson said. Besides, going to school and playing at KSU-Ashtabula tied him up with several old foes like Harbor graduate Al Goodwin, Richards and another fine Conneaut graduate, John Colson, PV's Roach and another area product, Jim Hughes.

"My first year there, I played for Don Gill," Johnson said. "We won a lot of games." But things really got going when Armstrong took over in Johnson's second year with the Vikings. "He was a special coach," Johnson said. "He not only taught us different Xs and Os, but he'd actually get out there and play with us. He not only taught us the schemes, but it was like he was out on the court with us.

"Ed was a very excitable guy. When he was mad, he let you know it. He'd get beet red." Johnson felt he and his teammates had a real stake in their own fates and a lot of freedom. "I think the players felt they were in control," he said. "We felt like we controlled our own destiny. We always felt like we could win, as long as we executed. At Kent, if we didn't win, we felt we didn't play well." By that time, Wheelock, Kaydo and Landphair had joined the Vikings. Armstrong molded them into a unit that lost only five games by the time Johnson's third year rolled around. Clearly, he was one of the ring leaders."Bill sure could shoot, but he made a lot of great defensive plays, too," Armstrong said. "I remember when we were playing KSU-Salem, we were down by four points with six seconds left. He got fouled and made both free throws. Then he stole their inbounds pass, scored a layup, got fouled on the play and made the free throw to win the game. He stole a lot of passes." Armstrong was proud of the Vikings' guard play. "Bill and Ned Roach made quite a pair," he said. "They were like the original Batman and Robin."

Indeed, Johnson and Roach are still fast friends. That dynamic duo, along with a crew of just eight other players, pulled off the ultimate magic act in the final game of the 1972-73 season at KSU-Tuscarawas. Because of odd class loads, Kaydo and Wheelock weren't available for that game. "I remember we went down to (Tuscarawas) right away, 18-2," Johnson said. "They were huge, had a long bench and we only had eight guys. I got in foul trouble. I told (Roach) it looked like we were in for a long night. But we got hot and came back to take a 39-30 lead at halftime. "But by halftime, I was exhausted, and we were always in great shape. When we were warming up for the second half, I went over to Ned and told him how tired I was and he said he didn't feel like he had anything left, either."

Eventually, the Tuscarawas Kubs grabbed the lead back late in the second half. But the Vikings fought back one last time, using a press to good advantage. Ray Sheets, a PV grad, came off the bench to force a turnover that gave them back the ball. That led to a possession which Colson converted with a corner jumper with just 13 seconds left. "Ed said, ‘Let's press,' and it worked," Johnson said. There was one last scare. "We were told to make sure we were on our man," Johnson said. "Al Landphair lost his guy. We all left our man and went running at him to block his view and he missed the shot." That secured a 69-68 victory. "Looking back, we probably had no business winning that game," Johnson, who finished it with a game-high 29 points, said. "Winning the last one is always a good thing, especially when it's for the championship."

Career moves

When he entered KSU-Ashtabula, Johnson's goal was to become a teacher and coach. He was close to that goal, preparing for student teaching, but he never quite finished his degree. "I wanted to teach and coach," he said. "I was a physical education major and psychology minor." Instead, "I went into the National Guard for two years at Fort Sam Houston in Texas as a medic," he said. "Then I came back to work on the docks from 1976-79 where I had since I was a kid, then switched over to the A&B Dock running the hulett there until 1982. Then I became a deputy sheriff in 1982."

Johnson also became a family man in 1973, marrying the former Connie Jewell, who is a surgical nurse at Ashtabula County Medical Center. They are the parents of two daughters, Nicole St. Angelo, 24, and Kelsey, 19, who has followed in her father's footsteps as a student at KSU-Ashtabula. "The three most humbling moments of my life are being married for 36 years and having two wonderful daughters, becoming the sheriff of the county and now this award," Johnson said with a big smile. "I wouldn't change my life for anything," Johnson said. "The only thing I wish is my dad was around to see what has happened over the years. My mom died 20 years after my dad. They were such a big part of all of it."

The lessons of basketball, and sports in general, still ring true. "Basketball has helped me play a lot of roles," Johnson said. "I think it gave me goals, it helped me develop a good attitude and the ability to work with other people. I know I'm not going to please everybody, but I think most people appreciate what's been done. "I still believe it's important as a goal to get good people to surround you and to put yourself in the right surroundings. That's something you should be able to take pride in." There is only one real objective remaining. "My goal is, when people see me after my career is over, and they see me on the street, they can say he was a pretty good guy who worked hard and did a good job," Johnson said.

Brainard earned his stripes

Longtime official had big impact on many coaches, referees

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Sixth of a series...

For as long as basketball has been played, the men and women who have officiated it have been looked to for a unique code of conduct and an unwavering sense of integrity.

But the impression of the officiating community took a tremendous hit in July of 2007 when it was revealed NBA referee Tim Donaghy had been betting on games and fixing them for at least two years.

To someone like Jefferson's Bill Brainard, that incident must have been like a body blow, because in more than 25 years of basketball officiating, Brainard was the embodiment of integrity.

Brainard never worked games above the high school level, but he was always looked to as someone who put the game and its participants in the spotlight and did everything he could to keep it off himself or his partner, all the while maintaining a supreme sense of control.

"Bill enjoyed the game, but he had command of the game," retired Pymatuning Valley boys coach Bob Hitchcock said. "He never tried to make the officiating the highlight of the game."

"Bill was the kind of guy who officiated because he loved the game and he loved kids," retired Grand Valley boys coach Tom Henson said. "He was there to assist in making sure the game went well. He was not there to be the show.

"Bill was happiest when the game was over that you didn't even realize he'd been there."

Brainard also felt it was important to have the next generation of officials maintain the same standards.

"Bill helped my career a lot," official Phil Garcia said. "I consider him one of my officiating mentors. I always looked up to Bill as an official and a friend."

Brainard's son, Scott, said his father wanted to make sure the games he worked were done in as seamless a manner as possible. After he left officiating, he always looked for officials who followed the same code.

"He always made sure he got to games early, he always wanted to look professional, show that he knew the mechanics and he always made sure he acted professionally."

His approach and his role as commissioner of the Grand River Conference made his 2009 induction into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame an easy decision.

Brainard is one of only six individuals in both the County Football and Basketball Halls of Fame. He joined the Football Hall of Fame in 2007 alongside Dale Arkenburg, Gene Gephart, Chuck Naso, Jim Cordell, and Pat Sheldon.

Sadly, Brainard passed away from cancer on Jan. 18 at age 82, just months before the ACBF banquet. His son, Scott, accepted his award.

"He'd be very pleased," Scott said. "He always enjoyed officiating and would be humbled to be in the company of so many greats."

Playing days

Brainard played basketball at Jefferson High School, graduating in 1944. He continued playing with the Clinton Drugs team for many years, competing with players from across the region.

"Dad loved to play," Scott said. "He played into his 40s and helped coach Clinton Drugs."

Officiating days

Brainard began officiating in the late 1950s, often working with Henry Garvey and Lou Pavolino. He quickly earned a reputation for professionalism and control.

"He had a knack for defusing tense situations," Hitchcock recalled. "He’d calm players down without drawing attention to himself."

He joked about working at PV’s old gym, where fans packed every space. "He used to laugh and say he got a lot of help officiating down at PV."

Dealing with coaches

Brainard understood coaches. "There were times when Bill could have laid coaches out, me included," Henson admitted. "He helped me appreciate the job officials do."

After one game, Brainard invited Henson to talk. "I don’t remember the score, just that our conversation meant more."

"He was one of my mentors," Garcia said. "So were Bud Ruland and Bill Sopchak."

He admired coaches like Bill Koval, Tom Henson, and Bob Hitchcock, and referees like Ruland, Sopchak, Garcia, and Jerry Raffenaud.

To avoid conflicts of interest, Brainard refused to work games involving his sons and, later, any games within the Grand River Conference once he became commissioner.

"He didn't want anyone to think there was any favoritism," Scott said.

He also disapproved of three-man crews due to the financial burden on schools.

The commish

Brainard did his best to keep the Grand River Conference together.

"He had us over to his house for meetings and voting. He and Betty were amazing hosts," Henson said.

"He tried to assign officials that matched each coach's style," Hitchcock added.

After the GRC

Scott eventually became a coach and often turned to his dad for guidance.

"He came to my practices and talked to the kids," Scott said. "He let you learn from mistakes. It was always constructive."

Despite the common tension between coaches and officials, Hitchcock and Henson became close friends with Brainard.

"If Bill worked one of my games and I lost, I never held it against him," Hitchcock said. "It was always about relationships."

"Bill did so much behind the scenes," Henson said. "He just loved to be a part of kids’ lives."

Bill Brainard, shown with wife, Betty, and sons, Scott (left) and Rich, will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on March 29.

Ahead of her time... Even in the Roaring '20s, Jefferson's Marthella Spinneweber was a woman for the ages

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Seventh of a series...

Most people think that girls basketball in Ohio only started officially in 1975 and that great girls players only existed after that point. They would be very wrong on both accounts.

Interscholastic girls basketball was actually played during the Roaring '20s and continued to be played right up the latter years of the Great Depression before the powers that be put it on the shelf. It took until 1975 before the Ohio High School Athletic Association sanctioned the girls game again.

Great girls players were on the scene even back in those early years. Perhaps the greatest was Marthella Spinneweber, who played at Jefferson High School from the 1923-24 through 1926-27 seasons.

She was a four-year starter for the Falcons. At 5-foot-11, she would qualify as her team's big girl, even by today's standards. She played center for the Falcons from her sophomore through senior seasons.

In an era when players were confined strictly to an offensive or defensive end of the court and jump balls were held after each made basket, Spinneweber often scored in double figures. Many times, she scored more than half of Jefferson's points. She was the county girls scoring champion in her junior and senior seasons. As a senior, she scored 83 points, averaging 16 points per game.

She helped lead Jefferson to three straight county girls championships in her final three seasons with the Falcons. She was a second-team Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County selection as a sophomore, earned Player of the Year honors as a junior and was a first-team selection her junior and senior years.

Spinneweber played during a period when there was tremendous girls basketball talent. Early in her career, she played against Florence Carey, a standout at Harbor High School who was among the inaugural inductees into the Ashtabula County Basketball Hall of Fame.

Searching back through the records, other names very familiar to area sports fans are listed among Spinneweber's teammates and opponents. Names like Zalimeni, Lundi, Bollman, Niemi, Vettel and Shupp leap off the pages of the scrapbooks she kept with articles from the Star Beacon and other area publications.

Her basketball prowess received more attention than just on a county level. After graduation from high school and from her collegiate studies at Ohio University and Kent State University, she moved to Cleveland and became the top player for the Majestic Radio team that claimed the city championship. She was chosen Cleveland's outstanding girls player in 1933 and was featured with a story and picture in the Plain Dealer for that distinction. She also played for Pennzoil.

Spinneweber didn't just invest her energies in playing basketball. She also shared her knowledge with girls that followed her, serving as coach at Rome High School when she returned to the county for her first teaching job. At the same time, she was a standout player for Ashtabula's Sovinto Club.

Spinneweber continued to coach when she moved to the Springfield Township Schools. In fact, she was still coaching when the OHSAA ceased sanctioning of girls sports after the 1937-38 school year.

Basketball obviously contributed to her long life. She continued in education until 1970, when she retired from Lakewood City Schools. Throughout her teaching career, she remained single, but in 1970, she rekindled an old high school relationship and came back to Ashtabula to marry Heimo Lehtinen and reside in the city's Harbor district.

She continued to live in Ashtabula even after her husband died in 1993 and maintained her own home, remaining active in all kinds of community activities and church work. She stayed there until 2007 when she went into assisted living.

Her love for basketball never waned. She maintained a keen interest in the sport, particularly focus on college basketball and the NBA.

For her efforts as one of the pioneers of Ashtabula County girls basketball, Spinneweber has been chosen as one of 14 persons to enter the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame. Her enshrinement will take place March 29 at the Conneaut Human Resources Center.

Unfortunately, she will not be there to receive her award. She died on Feb. 20, less than a month shy of her 99th birthday, in Mentor. Her stepdaughter, Ruth Lehtinen Erb, will accept her award.

Asked what her step-mother would think of her recognition, Ruth Erb said she would expressed a mixture of appreciation and wonder at all the fuss.

"I think Marthella would say this was a very neat thing, but why are they choosing me?" she said. "She'd have been very interested in it, and I'm sure she'd like to have some of the details."

Asked to assess her basketball career, Spinneweber would have had a succinct replay, Erb speculates.

"She was a very feisty woman. Marthella would have said, ‘I liked doing it, I think I was good at it and I did it,'" she said.

Erb said her stepmother would probably have preferred that the focus be on today's players and coaches.

"Marthella said girls players should get whatever recognition they could because she knew how hard they trained," she said. "She remarked about how exciting it must be to be able to earn a scholarship for athletic ability.

"She always paid attention to the coaches, too. She knew about their backgrounds. She was always interested in other people's lives."

This time of year would have been an occasion Spinneweber relished.

"She loved March Madness," Erb said. "She was particularly interested in North Carolina and Georgetown."

She loved the Cavaliers, too, but watched them with a critical eye.

"Marthella would say, ‘That LeBron is a pretty good player,'" Erb said. "But she'd also say, ‘He's not the whole team.'"

The early days

Even her family is unsure where Marthella Spinneweber was born or where she, her father, John, mother Harriet, brother J. Edward and sister Harriet resided. She was born March 17, 1910.

"I think she was born somewhere in Pennsylvania," Ruth Erb said. "They also lived out around Sandusky."

But soon, the family's path led them to Jefferson. Marthella showed athletic aptitude even in elementary school, according to information supplied by her family. She probably would have been considered a tomboy.

"She won the 50-yard dash at the Ashtabula County Fair when she was 11," a timeline of her life developed by the family read.

MARTHELLA (SPINNEWEBER) LEHTINEN, shown third from left in the front row, and her 1925-26 Ashtabula County championship teammates from Jefferson. Marthella was captain of the team as a junior and led the county in scoring.

On the court

But basketball seemed to strike a real chord with Spinneweber. She made an immediate impact on the Jefferson varsity when she entered high school as a freshman. She led the Falcons in scoring even that season.

"Her speedy floor work and uncanny ability to find the basket earned for her in one year a county-wide renown," a clipping from one of her scrapbooks said. "Among her numerous exhibitions of basketball prowess last year was the Harbor game, and also the game with Geneva in which she ran up an individual varsity, who will figure in this year's scoring for 26 points."

By her sophomore year, Spinneweber's influence on the Jefferson varsity became profound. She eventually earned second-team all-county honors in a close vote with Ashtabula's Virginia Huffman and Harbor's Lempi Jokela.

"Lempi Jokela, Harbor's center, gave Huffman and Spinneweber a strong race for the center post, but was nosed out by each," an article read. "The fact is all three of these girls are pretty much even as far as basketball playing is concerned.

"In view of the fact Jokela and Spinneweber were both potent figures on their respective squads, Jokela was shifted to forward and Spinneweber was given the center job on the second team. It was a hard decision because both girls were star centers. However, either could easily play a forward, as both are nearly equal to any girls in the county when it comes to floor work or shooting."

Apparently, Spinneweber had the respect of her coaches and teammates, too, because she served as Jefferson's captain in her junior and senior seasons.

There is every indication she had a huge fan following. That included her family.

"In high school, Marthella was very, very active in sports and we have a great many writeups about her in basketball as the Jefferson High School basketball team was county champs, I believe, the three years she was in high school," her late sister Harriet wrote in 1963.

She seemed to have a unique sense of timing, too. In her final high school game, she led Jefferson to a 50-5 victory over Geneva and scored 26 points.

Spinneweber would also have fit the profile of a great scholar-athlete. She was the valedictorian of the Jefferson Class of 1927. Her commencement speech was entitled, "The Price of Progress."

"Miss Spinneweber, next-to-the-youngest student of her class, will graduate with 18 credits," an newspaper article read.

While she was in high school, she also became acquainted with young Heimo Lehtinen.

"I think he was the trainer for the Harbor basketball team," Ruth Erb said of her late father.

Their paths diverted after high school, but apparently they kept track of each other from a distance when Marthella went of to college and into her teaching career and Heimo started his own family.

After Jefferson

Marthella went on to study business education. She not only earned her degree from Kent State, but eventually earned her master's degree from Western Reserve University.

She began her teaching career at Rome and also helped with the girls basketball team. When she shifted to Springfield Township, she continued in that capacity, as well as assisting in other student activities. All the while, she kept her hand in the playing side of the game as well.

"She was pictured among the faculty in the years 1935-36, 1936-37 and 1937-38," V.H. Lynch, former executive head of Springfield Township Schools wrote. "Her three years were spent here in teaching commercial subjects, coaching girls basketball and serving as advisor to our own Freshman Friendship Club.

"As to her basketball coaching, the records show that girls basketball had been discontinued as an interscholastic activity. However, she organized the team just to play preliminary games to the varsity contests, winning four out of seven in 1936 and six out of eight in 1937-38."

Spinneweber always remained loyal to Ashtabula County, though.

"Even when she was in school, you used to take the bus home on weekends to see her mother," Erb said. "She even did that when she got into teaching. She didn't learn to drive for many years."

Eventually, Spinneweber ended up at Lakewood and remained there through 1970.

"When she started, Marthella taught fifth- and sixth-grade in one room," Erb, herself a learning disabilities teacher in the Mentor school system, said. "Then she taught business at Lakewood.

"The superintendent at Lakewood asked her in the middle of her time there if she would be willing to come up to the board office and be his secretary. She said she didn't want to lose her ability to go back to teaching and he assured her she wouldn't. She worked at the board office for 10 years, then she went back to the high school and finished up as a guidance counselor."

She was eventually elected to the Lakewood High School Faculty Hall of Fame.

MARTHELLA (SPINNEWEBER) LEHTINEN (seated, far right) enjoys a family outing with many of her stepchildren and step-grandchildren. They are (bottom row, from left) step-granddaughter Kati Lehtinen, husband Heimo Lehtinen, Tommy Erb, Marthella and step-granddaughter Evelyn Erb Bognar and (standing, from left) step-grandson David Lehtinen, stepson David Lehtinen, step-grandson Jeffrey Lehtinen and step-daughter Ruth Lehtinen Erb.

Back in the county

Shortly after she retired from teaching, she and Heimo Lehtinen reconnected.

"When my mother passed away, she sent my father a sympathy card and they communicated after that," Erb said. "They got married about a year after my mother died. I was 22.

"They had a great marriage, especially for the first 15 years. They were married 23 years. They used to travel and do all kinds of things together."

Ruth, a 1965 Harbor graduate who is married to Tom Erb, and her brother, the late David Lehtinen, a 1961 Harbor alumnus who is in the Ashtabula Area City Schools Hall of Fame, eventually presented Heimo and Marthella with five grandchildren. The Erbs are the parents of Evelyn Bognar and Tom Erb, while David and Patricia Lehtinen are the parents of David, Jeffrey and Kathyn Lehtinen. There are also two great-grandchildren, David and Lily.

Spending time with Marthella and Heimo was a great treat for David and Ruth's children.

"My children spent a lot of weekends with Grandma and Grandpa in Ashtabula," Ruth said. "They loved to go to Lake Shore Park or just sit under a tree and read."

Marthella was incredibly active. She was a member of Harbor Topky Library and was a lifelong member of Jefferson United Methodist Church.

She also remained athletically active. She belonged for many years to the Ashtabula Monday Night Bowlers League.

"She broke her first hip bowling when she was 88," Ruth said. "Bowling was a big thing for Marthella."

She fought her deteriorating mental faculties to the end, too.

"Marthella even wrote part of her obituary," Ruth said. "After she died, I was looking around and found out she had set aside her burial dress."

As she fought dementia, she also liked to try and battle the disease with the sports pages.

"I used to come to her room and see the sports pages open," Ruth said. "She was trying to keep her mind active even then.

"She was a fighter."

Fires still burning in Ritari
Former Conneaut player, coach still going strong at 60

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Eighth of a series...

Talk of coaching trees has been a subject of sports conversations for years, but seems to have become one of the truly hot topics among members of the media in recent years.

It used to be the conversation was about Miami of Ohio as the "Cradle of Coaches" for producing great college football coaches like Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, Bill Mallory, Paul Dietzel and Sid Gillman. Many of those coaches had all kinds of links into the coaching ranks springing off of them.

In more recent times, there is talk of the Bill Parcells coaching tree or the Bill Belichick coaching line. In basketball, it's the Greg Popovich line, the Bob Knight tree or the Dean Smith tree.

Operating on those standards, there was a basketball coaching tree at Conneaut High that sprang from the teachings of the late Andy Garcia. Several of the young men who worked with the man for whom the Spartans gymnasium was named went on to coaching notoriety in their own right. Jon Hall, Harry Fails and Paul Freeman are three expressions of that.

There is another branch that springs from the foundations laid by Garcia, Hall and Fails. As much as anyone else, Tom Ritari owes a direct lineage to those three coaching giants as his coaches and coaching colleagues. He freely acknowledges his debt to them.

"Harry was my coach my freshman year. That was a great experience," he said. "Playing for Andy was a great experience, too."

"Jon and I have been connected since 1961. It has been a phenomenal, fantastic relationship. I know how much all my coaches affected me."

Although he downplays his contributions, Ritari was a standout player for Garcia's Spartans for three years until his graduation from Conneaut in 1963. After finishing a fine playing career at Edinboro University in 1968, he immediately hooked up with Hall as an assistant coach at several high schools throughout the state, along with a brief head coaching stint.

Eventually, Ritari truly set out on his own path as a head coach, returning to his high school alma mater to do so. It turned out to be quite a career, first as the Spartans boy coach, then to great success with the Conneaut girls program.

Even though he has been away from coaching at Conneaut for four years and out of northeastern Ohio for two, Ritari hasn't left the coaching merry-go-round, continuing to coach girls basketball at his home in Bamberg, S.C. At 60, the coaching fires still burn brightly.

"I played the game with intensity, and I still have great passion for basketball," he said. "I've been blessed to love something and have the ability to do it.

"I love what I'm doing. I'm really a blessed guy. I still play the game, and I'm not done coaching."

For all those blessings, Ritari is about to receive another back in his hometown. He will return March 29 for his induction into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame.

"It's very humbling," he said. "I've been very blessed in the things I've done to be surrounded by great people.

"I don't think my playing career was all that great. All I ever tried to do was make other players better. I never had a great scoring average, but apparently I was good enough to play college ball.

"As far as coaching, when I think of all the people I've worked with and coached against, I don't think I deserve to be in the company of those people. I'm very humbled by that."

Hall said Ritari's humility is misplaced on both levels.

"Tom was a very energetic, team-oriented player," he said. "He was one of the best point guards I ever coached, along with Bob Naylor. And he's a real good person.

"As a coach, he was always right there with me," Hall said. "If I wanted to talk basketball at 2 a.m., he'd be there and if I wanted to watch film, he was right there. When I first worked with him, we were co-coaches. The only thing was, I made the final decisions."

The roles were reversed at Conneaut with the Spartan girls.

"He did the same thing with me when he was the head coach of the girls," Hall said. "He gave me responsibility for the defense and we made decisions together.

"Tom is very deserving of being in the Hall of Fame."

The early years

Ritari was into sports from the time he was a small boy near the home he and his parents, Russell and Helen and older brother Bob, occupied on Sandusky Street, just a few blocks from Conneaut High School.

"I've always been involved in athletics," he said. "I grew up play with a bunch of older kids like my brother, Rob DiPofi's dad Bob, Jim DiPofi's dad Denny and David DiPofi.

"I'd watch basketball and try to imitate the players with great ability I saw. I really admired (Boston Celtics guard) Bob Cousy for his ballhandling and passing ability. I used to go down in our basement and dribble for hours, behind my back, between my legs. Our TV was right above it, so I think I interrupted some of my dad's viewing."

He didn't get into school basketball until the eighth grade.

"We didn't have seventh-grade basketball, so I played in a church league," Ritari said. "When I was in eighth grade, I played for, ‘Iron Mike' Stefanik, but they moved me right up to the freshman team and I played there for two years.

"The only thing I ever remember him telling me was to shoot more. I probably fought that."

On the varsity

In his sophomore year, Ritari started out with the JV team, but got the call from Garcia to move up to the varsity in midseason.

"We were undefeated in JV basketball and we went up to a game at Wickliffe," he said. "Denny Naylor and I were on the bench and Andy sent Jon down to tell us we were starting the second half of the varsity game. The first time I ever started a full game was against Edgewood, and we played on the stage at Braden."

Frank Farello was the JV coach then and gave Ritari a truth he carried into the rest of his playing career.

"One thing he taught us stuck with me," Ritari said. "He told us to develop one shot every year that we became so confident in we felt we couldn't miss it. I tried to develop a new shot every year."

Garcia made quite an impression on his young point guard.

"Andy had a way of getting your attention right away," Ritari said. "He taught me defense is such an important part of the game. He never asked you how many points you'd scored, but how many the guy you guarded scored.

"(Garcia's vocal style) bothered me a little when I was a sophomore, but by my junior year, I learned to listen to what he said, not how he said it. I got to know him over the years as a very loving and caring guy for all the students in the school."

The coaches' antics were almost amusing at times.

"Sometimes, he'd get so mad he'd start yelling and he jump up and down and do two 360s," Ritari said. "In those days, one of the officials had to stand near the scorekeeper during timeouts. Andy would have a way of going and yelling at the scorekeeper and get his point across to the officials what was bothering him that way."

Ritari shared guard duties with Dick Goodale as a sophomore.

"My sophomore year we were above just above .500 (11-8), but we beat Ashtabula twice," he said.

After that, Ritari was responsible for initiating the offense, dumping the ball inside to 6-foot-5 Ed Maenpaa and 6-3 Jerry Lane, along with getting John Mowrey, Helsey and Rudy Meyers involved as a junior.

"In my junior year, we were about .500, too (9-9)," Ritari said.

His senior year was a highlight.

"My senior year, Tom Naylor, who was one of my best friends, was on the varsity," Ritari said. "He was great at shooting from the corner. I believe he's the best shooter I ever saw at Conneaut. George Smart was his running mate at forward.

"We were 14-7 and won the NEC my senior year. We lost to Ashtabula in the sectional final."

Balance was the key for those Spartans.

"My role was to get the ball to the scorers," he said. "I averaged 12 that year, but Maenpaa had 11, Lane 10, Naylor nine and Smart eight. Ed and I worked well together."

Hall helped with that.

"Jon designed a play call The Wall, which I suppose was like the Picket Fence in Hoosiers," Ritari said. "I'd hide behind it and come out and shoot.

"He designed a delay that had three guys in the corner. There was no five-second call, so I could hold the ball for two minutes sometimes. George and I were 80-percent foul shooters, so they'd foul us and we'd hit them and win the game."

Ritari remembers his foes well, too.

"Jim Osborne was a great guard for Geneva," he said. "Al Bailey was coaching at Geneva. Bob Ball was still coaching at Ashtabula. I remember playing against Wash Lyons and Dave Sheldon at Ashtabula and Paul Freeman at PV.

"We had good battles with Geneva. Our battles with St. John were good ones when Smokey Cinciarelli was coaching and Bill Smothers played for them."

He remembers a game with St. John well.

"St. John used to play at West Junior High, but it was a big game, so we played at Ball Gymnasium," Ritari said. "The day of the game, some of our fans went over there and put five crosses on the St. John lawn with the players' names on them.

"They found out who did it and made them go take them down. But when the game started, those kids marched into the gym holding the crosses. They weren't happy."

Off to college

Ritari had an offer to play college basketball at St. Joseph's in Indiana, but when Edinboro coach Jim McDonald, a legend in his own right, made an offer, the youngster quickly accepted at school much closer to home.

"Jim McDonald had been a great player in West Virginia when Jerry West was playing," he said. "A lot of what he taught me was about the fine points of the game.

"He used to say, ‘Coach the details and the big things will take care of themselves.' He was a stickler for the little things."

Ritari doesn't blow his horn much about his college career, either.

"I had a great freshman year," he said. "They had some great guards ahead of me my sophomore and junior years, and I learned a lot watching from the bench. I started about half the games as a senior. I learned a lot in practice."

When he went to Edinboro, he wasn't sure what his career path would be, but a trip home sealed the deal.

"I probably had coaching and teaching in the back of my mind," Ritari said. "I came back one Christmas and helped my brother, who was coaching the junior high team at Conneaut. I loved it."

He earned a bachelor's degree in education with a major in geography and minor in history and came back to teach in Conneaut.

Coaching

He taught for one year at Conneaut and coached the freshmen boys.

"They made coaching easy," he said. "I had Tim Richards, who went to Kent State main, Robbie Ferl, who went to Hiram, Joe DeNunzio and Tim Church. We won the freshmen tournament."

But Hall made a call and coaxed Ritari to Kenston, who served for two years as the former's JV coach, then succeeded Hall as the head coach for two years.

"Jon and I had kept in contact and he told me about a job teaching and coaching at their middle school," Ritari said. "I was a volunteer coach for a year, then JV coach.

"We won two (Chagrin Valley Conference) championships and a district title while Jon was the head coach."

He found Hall a tough act to follow.

"It was tough trying to win people over after Jon left," Ritari said.

TOM RITARI during his days coaching the Conneaut girls. At right is current Spartans girls coach Tony Pasanen.

So he was happy to hook his star to Hall's when he called from New Philadelphia. But that didn't last long.

"I got to New Philly and Jon left for Solon," Ritari said of his one year down south.

Then Hall, ever the coaching nomad, summoned Ritari to Kent Roosevelt for a two-year stint.

"I coached little Jon there," he said. "But I (fell victim to Reduction in Force)."

Ritari calls he and Hall kindred souls.

"Jon is the biggest influence on me as a coach, and that's saying a lot because Harry Fails is my cousin," he said. "Andy and Jim McDonald were big influences, too, but Jon is the biggest.

"I learned three things from Jon — get organized, have a passion for the game and be a constant student of the game. I still get DVDs and books to learn. Jon and I used to go to two or three clinics a year. You can never stop learning."

Back home again

But doors opened back at Conneaut. He returned to take over as girls varsity head coach and earned Star Beacon Ashtabula County Coach of the Year honors for the first of four times for the 1979-80 season.

"They had won one game the year before, and we won like 12 (actually 11-8)," he said. "We had Cindi Brunot, Mo Maire (his future wife), Denise Nine, Janie Roberts, Marsha Williams and Ruth Campbell coming off the bench. We did that against girls like Diane Davis at Ashtabula and Anita Tersigni and Nadine Cox at Geneva."

In 1980, Ritari succeeded Harold Rose as the boys head coach and stayed in that role for three seasons, compiling a 27-36 record.

"When I was the boys coach, I had Mark Wheeler and Greg Gamble," he said. "One of our best games was against Ashtabula when Bob Walters had one of his really fine teams. We couldn't stay with them, so we went to a four corners. The score was 10-8 at halftime. We lost by 15 or 16, but I felt good about the game."

But he wasn't happy with the direction he was taking the Conneaut boys.

"I felt we weren't making the progress we needed, so I decided to step down," Ritari said. "I'm my own worst critic."

So he sat out a year, doing color commentary for Conneaut's cable TV station.

"But I was going stir crazy," Ritari said.

Then he went back to the boys ranks, coaching the freshmen team for Dave Simpson for one year and the JV team for Greg Mason for three more.

Return to the girls

Then CHS athletic director Bill Fails approached Ritari with the offer to take over again as girls varsity coach for the 1990 season. He accepted.

"I think it worked out well," Ritari said.

Indeed. Over the next 15 seasons, the Spartans won two Northeastern Conference championships, four Division II sectional titles and, in the 2000-01 season, the district championship. Those Spartans are the last Ashtabula County girls team to reach the regional tournament. He finished with a 161-139 record with the girls.

It was a gradual building process with the girls, but they were productive years as he was chosen Star Beacon Ashtabula County Coach of the Year in 1992-93 (11-10), 1999-2000 (20-3) and 2000-01 (21-3).

"The first thing I did was make KayAnn Fails our point guard, because I knew she could handle the ball," Ritari said. "I asked her, ‘Do you want to win or do you want to score?'

"That really made it happen with KayAnn, Martha Kananen and Gretchen Showalter. They were good as juniors and even better as seniors, but we couldn't get past Madison and Kevin Snyder or Riverside and Eric Seufer."

There was a bit of a lull after that.

"We struggled a little after that," Ritari said. "The kids played hard every minute. We struggled a little on offense but got after it on defense."

But there was a resurgence.

"Then we got Melissa Anderson and Erica Wallace in 1995-96," Ritari said. "Eventually, Jen Johnston came along in 1999 and we started to turn the corner. And we'd have Annie Soller out there shooting threes."

And the good times began to roll.

"Then we had that good group of freshmen come in," Ritari said. "We had a bunch of little, fast kids and one tall girl. And Jen told me she could see those freshmen could play."

And Hall signed on to the ship.

"When Jon came back as my assistant, I took us about five minutes of that first practice in 1998 to starting clicking again," Ritari said.

Building momentum

Jessica Olmstead and Char Kudlock got the ball rolling for the young Spartans. Eventually, girls like Stephanie Anderson, Stefanie Brown, Adrian Tuttle, Nikki Sanford and Ashley Chicatelli would become more prominent in the picture.

One telling point was defeating a highly regarded Madison team twice in a two-week period when most of those girls were freshmen.

"We had no seniors on that time," Ritari said. "I knew we were ready then."

The momentum kept building.

"Jessica hit her stride as a sophomore, but that legend, (Rod) Holmes down at Jefferson, beat us that year," Ritari said.

It all came together the next year.

"The girls took off and ran with it," Ritari said. "We lost one to Jefferson, but we got the second when Jessica had 37 points and we won by three or four."

It got even better in 2000-01. There were even some negative moments that made it happen.

"We lost to Regina, 91-27, in the Madison Tournament that year," Ritari said. "I think that helped us because we came back and beat a good Howland team by four or five in the consolation game."

It paid off at the Division II district at Edgewood.

"We beat Jefferson in the semifinal, then Perry in the final," Ritari said. "Tuttle blocked a shot by (Perry standout Amanda) Tsipis with about a minute to go. Then we won the game at the foul line. It was a great feeling."

It didn't all go away over the final four years of his career with the girls, either.

"The year after, we were 15-7 with Aimee Soller, Ashley Chicatelli, Natalie Brown, Darcy Wallace and Shannon Ritari (the oldest of he and Mo's three children)," Ritari said. "We weren't expected to do anything that year. That was very satisfying."

Since then, the Spartans have never won more than 10 games. He retired from teaching in 2003 and finished up in 2005. But he didn't quit coaching, going to a small school in Girard, Pa. for one year.

But that didn't last long, either.

"On Valentine's Day of 2006, we had two feet of snow at home and I was still teaching at Girard," Ritari said. "They didn't call school over there and it took me two hours to get out of our driveway.

"We had a time share down in South Carolina, but I went home and got on a Web site looking for teaching openings. Bamberg-Ehrhardt had an opening for a social-studies teacher and positions for a head girls basketball and tennis coach. I'd coached tennis for 15 years. I set up an interview, flew down and was offered the job on the spot."

So Ritari has been able to stick with his teaching and coaching passion.

"I can walk to school," he said.

He and Mo, who have been married for 26 years, live with their three children in Bamberg, about 60 miles each way from Columbia, the state capital, and Charleston.

MO AND TOM RITARI and their son, Russell, in sunny Bamberg, S.C.

Shannon is now a senior at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla., Kelsey is a freshman at Coastal Carolina and Russell is an eighth grader at Bamberg-Ehrhardt Middle School.

Some of Ritari's relatives remain in Ashtabula County. Tom, his son from a previous marriage, and daughter-in-law Christine, who reside in Ashtabula, have given him three grandchildren — Alexander, Arianna and Aiden. His brother, who was an assistant principal for Hall at Edgewood and is now retired, also lives in the county.

Obviously, basketball has always been one of the focal points of Ritari's life and will no doubt remain so.

"Basketball has opened up so many opportunities and given me so many chances to meet great people, coaches and athletes," he said. "I know how they have affected my life. I still love the game, or I wouldn't be doing it.

"I've been so blessed by my family and all the people who have surrounded me."

He still has goals in the game, too.

"My lifelong dream is to win the state championship," Ritari said. "I can see the last shot being made to win the game by one point and it all ends for me there."

We should have done more

Jim Bradley was a great player at Harbor, but he says his teams could have been even better

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Ninth of a series...

Sometimes, despite one's best efforts, there is a sense that not everything that could have been achieved actually was.

Jim Bradley accomplished a great deal when he played basketball at Harbor High School before his graduation in 1975. His team at Seminole Junior College in Oklahoma was also quite successful. When he finished up his collegiate career with the University of Hawaii-Hilo, the Vulcans also did well.

Still, when talking to the 52-year-old Bradley, who has maintained his residence in Hawaii, his thoughts eventually shift back to the notion that his teams didn't perform to the ability of which they were capable.

Even though his Harbor team of his junior year reached the Class AA regional tournament, Bradley felt it could have been better. He also felt the Mariners of his senior season of 1974-75, a year in which he shared Star Beacon Ashtabula County Player of the Year honors, should have gone farther.

"I totally think we underachieved my junior year," Bradley said. "I think we should have made it to the state tournament.

"We only lost John Coleman going into my senior year, so I didn't think we had lost very much that year. I think we should have gone to state that year, too."

Although Bradley had impressive high school credentials, having averaged 22.5 points per game as a senior, he had only mild interest from four-year colleges, so he opted for junior college ball. That got him to Seminole Junior College.

"I almost signed at Ohio University because (Ashtabula standout) Al Benton was there," he said. "But I mostly only had junior-college offers.

"I had the attitude that maybe I was better than that and should have had better offers. I decided to try junior college ball to build up my resume. I went to Seminole because it was the first school to show interest in me."

The 6-foot-31⁄2 Bradley gradually worked him way into a starting position at Seminole and earned all-conference honors as a freshman. The Trojans went 19-11 his first year and 23-9 his sophomore year.

But Bradley's hopes of landing with a Division I program were not realized. He ended up connecting with Hawaii-Hilo, a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics school. The Vulcans made the NAIA nationals in his junior season there and fell short of the national tournament in his final season.

He had a brief tryout with a semipro team in Hawaii, but that didn't work out, either, and his basketball career ended in 1979.

Bradley may not have reached the goals he had in basketball, but that didn't detract from the perception of those he played with, for or against as a great player. His accomplishments at Harbor have led to his selection into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on March 29.

Ed Armstrong, Bradley's coach at Harbor for his junior and senior seasons, said he had all the attributes one would seek in a player of Hall of Fame caliber.

"Jim was a very consistent player," he said. "He's the closest player I ever had to averaging a double-double. He scored in double figures in all but one game he played his last two years. Jim was also a tremendous rebounder.

"I remember in his junior year having 26 points and 14 rebounds in the district final against (Warren) JFK. He played so well with (ACBF Hall of Famer) John Coleman in getting us to regional. And then he was the county MVP his senior year. And he used his skills to move on in the game to Hawaii."

Armstrong said he enjoyed working with Bradley as a person, too.

"Jim was a fine person," he said. "He was a very coachable kid."

Bradley is proud of his recognition.

"I think this is great," he said. "I definitely feel it's an honor.

"I really appreciate the people who took the time to nominate me. I've never had this kind of honor before."

He's proud of being in the company again of his old teammate, Coleman, and to share a similar distinction with his cousin, former Harbor football standout Kaiser Holman, who entered the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame last December.

"I found out there might be something like this when Kaiser went into the football hall of fame," Bradley said. "Having played with John Coleman, I'm really honored to be back together with him."

Starting out

Jim Bradley grew up in the neighborhood around West 5th and 6th Streets in the Harbor district. He is the ninth of 10 children and the sixth of seven sons of Iola Bradley, who still lives in Ashtabula, and the late Jesse James Bradley.

His sisters are Geraldine, the oldest child, Addie and Willie Ruth. His brothers are Jesse Jr., Ellis, Amos, William, who will accept his Hall of Fame award, Larry, who is deceased, and John, who teamed with Jim as a standout player at Harbor.

Bradley first started playing basketball in the fifth grade at Washington Elementary School.

"My coach was Richard Bryant," he said. "My older brother, Larry, played for him, too."

When he moved to Columbus Junior High, he played for Frank Knudsen, who would later become one of the right-hand men for Hall of Famer Frank Roskovics with the Harbor girls, in seventh grade. Robert Potts was his coach with the Raiders in the eighth grade.

"Our junior high team beat the freshmen," Bradley said.

While he was still in junior high, Bradley shot up from 5-6 to 6-2.

"I was 6-2 when I played on the freshmen team for Ron Chutas (the future Grand Valley girls coach)," he said. "I had aspirations of playing with the varsity when I was a freshman, but they wouldn't move us up."

To the Mariners

The "they" Bradley referred to was (retired Jefferson High School principal) Larry Bragga, who was still the Harbor varsity coach in Bradley's sophomore year. Bradley started out at the JV level for Bob Short.

"They actually moved Ray Henton and Al Ziegler up to the varsity before me," Bradley said. "I replaced (Ohio State football's offensive coordinator) Jim Bollman."

Bradley held Bragga in high regard.

"Bragga was probably the best coach I had had," he said. "He had great knowledge of the game and he demanded respect."

The Mariners, who included Coleman, Bradley, Henton and Jim Goodwin, finished 14-7, won the Northeastern Conference championship and earned a Class AA sectional title in an era when only 18 regular-season games were played.

So he had high hopes when his junior year rolled around. But Bragga left for Jefferson and Armstrong returned for his second coaching stint with the Mariners.

"It was nothing against Armstrong, but we wanted Bragga," he said. "We knew we had a good team.

"I had a hard time adjusting to the different coaching style. I don't think we had quite the relationship with Armstrong that we had with Bragga."

Yet the Mariners performed at a high level. They finished with a 19-4 record, claiming the NEC championship and winning Class AA sectional and district championships.

Bradley had a great deal to do with those achievements, averaging 16.6 points per game. He scored 19 points in the Mariners' district-semifinal win over LaBrae, then followed it up with his won game against JFK in the district-title game.

"One game that I really recall was from my junior year against Geneva," Bradley said. "We were down by seven points with less than a minute to go and came back to win."

Following that season, the Mariners still seemed to have the elements of a fine team despite Coleman's graduation. One of the replacements for Coleman was John Bradley.

"I felt John should have been a starter," he said. "It was the politics of the times."

But the Mariners struggled to a 10-9 record and lost in the sectional tournament. That didn't keep Jim Bradley from having a great season, as he averaged 22.5 points per game, sharing the county Player of the Year honor with Conneaut's Denny Sabo.

Despite being a prolific scorer, Bradley took pride in his defense, too.

"I had that attitude that I could score on anybody and I could hold anybody down," he said. "I took a lot of pride in playing well at both ends of the court."

What he classified as underachievement left Bradley with a deep sense of disappointment.

"I had a lot of anger at the end of my senior year," he said. "We had great records, but I still think we underachieved."

Much of that feeling was born of a feeling that racism ran throughout much of the decision-making in Ashtabula.

"There was a real sense of racism in the community," Bradley said. "I don't necessarily think that applied to Armstrong. But we as kids didn't understand what was going on in the community.

"I have always been against racism in any way. Racism still bothers me even today. That's one of the reasons I got away from Ashtabula as quickly as possible when I graduated from high school. When I had the opportunity to get away from it, I did."

Bradley acknowledges he did not handle the circumstances well at the time.

"I think I overcame a bad attitude with talent," he said.

Armstrong is surprised by Bradley's comments.

"If there was any racism, I was not aware of it," he said.

To Seminole country

Getting to Oklahoma really wasn't as big a change for Bradley as one might assume.

"Seminole is about 45 minutes from Norman (home of the University of Oklahoma) and an hour from Oklahoma City (the capital)," he said. "I really don't consider Ashtabula a city, so going to Seminole wasn't a big deal. Most all of my teammates were people from big cities."

But Bradley felt his time there was one of personal growth. He had also grown in stature to 6-31⁄2.

"I developed so much confidence at Seminole," he said. "I was really shy off the court. I think I really blossomed out there. I became a totally different person.

"I really opened up. It was good for me to get away."

But it took him a while to make his mark on the team.

"I sat behind a couple other guys at first, but I worked my way into the lineup eventually," he said. "I made all-conference my first year."

But the Vulcans never made the junior college national tournament, despite very respectable records.

"I thought we underachieved there, too," Bradley said.

He felt racism played a part in all the decisions made by the Seminole coaching staff.

"Everybody on the team was black," Bradley said. "Things didn't go well at Seminole. I came out of there not getting any Division I offers. The closest thing to it was Southwest Missouri State."

Aloha, Hawaii

Through some connections he made while at Seminole, Bradley got his opportunity to go to Hawaii. The only thing was, he had hoped to hook on at Division I Hawaii-Manoa. Instead, he got the call from Hawaii-Hilo.

"I had a tryout back at the University of Akron, but in the late summer, I decided to go to Hilo instead," Bradley said.

As it turns out, he found a home with the Trojans and, ultimately, a permanent home in the 50th state.

"Being out there, I lost any shot at really going farther in basketball, but school was good at Hilo," Bradley said. "My junior year, we made it to the NAIA nationals in Kansas. We lost to Grand Canyon University, which was the eventual champion, in the second round.

"The end of my career was pretty disappointing. We lost in the regional championship game to go to nationals my senior year."

Bradley had a tryout the next year with the Hawaii Volcanos, who had come to the island of Oahu, the next year.

"I got to try out, but they had a bunch of Division I players they brought in, too, and I really didn't have much of a chance," he said. "My basketball days ended in 1979."

But he stayed the course and finished his education at Hilo.

Jim Bradley, a former star at Harbor High School, hammers home a dunk for Hawaii-Hilo at the collegiate level. Bradley will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on March 29 at the Conneaut Human Resource Center.

After basketball

"I finished my degree in 1982 with a major in sociology and psychology," Bradley said.

While he was still finishing his education and for a while after he got his degree, Bradley worked in two other industries.

"I worked at a sugar cane factory, which was the biggest employer on the island at the time, for three years," he said. "Then I worked for Mid-Pacific Airlines, a small independent airline, for about 2½ years."

But he wanted to put his education to good use. He found the answer at the Hawaii Department of Public Safety's Kulani Correctional Facility.

"I was trying to use my degree for social work," Bradley said. "They offered me the job as their recreation specialist. It's kind of like being an athletic director. I've been doing it for 22 years now."

Living in the tranquil environment of Hawaii for so long and the passage of time has put matters in a somewhat different perspective for Bradley.

"I had to mellow a bit," he said. "I hold no grudges against (Armstrong), even though at the time, I felt things were wrong.

"I was looking at things from a kid's standpoint. And I wasn't stopped from getting anywhere in life."

The principles of basketball still resonate for Bradley.

"Basketball has meant a lot to me," he said. "I think every kid should be involved in a team sport. It teaches you how to get along with people and how to work together.

"You have to get some direction in life."

Knowles was a shooting star

Randy Knowles played only one season for Geneva, but it paved the way to Texas A&M and being drafted by the Chicago Bulls

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

11th in a series...

When most people think about the term "one-hit wonder," they're referring to someone or something that came onto the scene for one brief, shining moment and never accomplished anything again.

In certain ways, Randy Knowles might be considered a one-hit wonder because he only played one year of basketball at Geneva High School. What a year that senior year of 1969-70 with the Eagles was, as he averaged 22.2 points per game for coach Bill Koval and shared Star Beacon Ashtabula County Player of the Year honors.

But to think that was all Knowles accomplished in basketball would be completely inaccurate. Instead, he went on to even greater heights as a collegiate basketball player at Texas A&M University, becoming one of the finest players from the Aggies' program in the days when the school competed against powers like Arkansas and Texas.

In fact, Knowles was so good at A&M that he was drafted by the Chicago Bulls when he graduated in 1974. After playing for a year in the professional leagues in Spain, he had a brief opportunity with the Bulls of coach Dick Motta on a squad that included the late Norm Van Lier, current Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, future Cleveland Cavaliers center Nate Thurmond, Chet Walker and Bob Love.

Failing to stick with the Bulls, Knowles began a globetrotting journey of playing and coaching. That included stints as a player and coach in the professional league in Chile and a long-term relationship back in Spain that has carried down to today.

As many and varied as his experiences have been, though, Knowles still cherishes the memories of that single season in Geneva and the relationships he built there. He has maintained those connections for nearly four decades.

"I remember those days with a lot of affection," the 56-year-old Knowles said. "We came in from Shelby, but they made me feel welcome right away.

"I was proud to be a part of that team. (Koval) and all the guys were great to me. I was able to build lifelong friendships with those guys."

That applied to Koval, too. The coach, who was a member of the inaugural ACBF Hall of Fame class in 2003, realized he had inherited a special player when Knowles arrived in the community.

"My goodness gracious, what a player!," Koval said from his winter home in Florida. "Randy was 6-6, so he filled a lot of needs for us. He was a coach's dream.

"Randy was a great all-around player. It's unfortunate they didn't have the 3-pointer back then, because he was a great shot. He could hit a shot from anywhere inside half court."

Knowles provided a lot of intangibles for Koval's Eagles, too.

"What a leader Randy was!" Koval said. "He was very influential on our team. He was a very special guy. He definitely belongs in the Hall of Fame."

Koval is also proud that Knowles has maintained his relationships in Geneva. The coach considers the former player and his family fast friends.

"Randy is a special man and the rest of his family are special people. We've remained good friends for many years."

Knowles is pleased to be in the county hall of fame even after his short time at Geneva.

"When you consider I was only there for one year, it's a real honor to be part of the Hall of Fame," he said. "I know there were a lot of good players in the county at that time and it was a hotbed for basketball."

He is also pleased to not only be joining Koval, but to enter the Hall of Fame with one of his rivals, Conneaut's Scott Humphrey.

"Scott Humphrey was a great player, and he had some great teammates like Al Razem and Jeff Puffer," Knowles said. "It's a great honor to be going in with him."

Learning the game

Knowles' life has always seemed to be connected to areas of fervent basketball interest. He and his parents, Steve and Mary Lou Knowles, older sisters Larraine and Sue and younger brother Steve couldn't help but develop a passion for the game as the family spent his early years in Indiana. His brother still lives in Ashtabula. His parents live in Tennessee.

"My dad had been a great athlete, too," Randy said. "He put up a basketball hoop at our home in Wabash, Ind.

"I remember Rick Mount (a standout player at Purdue and in the American Basketball Association) lived not too far away in Carmel, Ind. I used to listen to his games all the time. I started playing myself when I was in elementary school."

Steve Knowles was involved in the plastics and rubber industry, which meant the family moved several times during Randy's youth. Eventually, that led them to Shelby, a community in north central Ohio not far from Mansfield.

A player with Knowles' size and shooting ability caught on quickly in any program of which he was a part. He was on the varsity roster for the Whippets (a type of greyhound) for his sophomore and junior years there, although his career at Shelby came to an abrupt end when he broke his ankle in his junior year.

By the end of that year, the Knowles family was on the road again.

"We came to Geneva so my dad could work at Grand River Rubber," Randy said.

The Eagles' nest

Koval was entering his third season as Geneva's head coach when Knowles arrived. He was already blessed with a very fine group of talent, which included pretty fair size for a team of that era. It included 6-foot-5 Al Hogan, 6-4 1/2 Al Landphair, seasoned point guard Mike Barker, versatile and athletic Ned Tennant, shooting guard John Hayduke and a deep bench featuring guards like Mike Blauman and Norm Urcheck.

"It seemed like we were about 10 deep," Koval said.

So there was uncertainty on Knowles' part as to where he would fit in. He was also adapting to a new coach he wasn't quite sure he really understood.

"Bill was a young guy at that time," Knowles said. "He was a big, burly guy that tended to scowl a little and had kind of a gruff voice. It was difficult to adapt, but I just tried to work hard.

"I was excited moving into that situation, though. I knew they had a great program at Geneva. I was fired up."

Eventually, Knowles realized there was more to Koval than met the eye.

"Bill was stern, but he wasn't like Bobby Knight," he said. "He actually was very encouraging."

That Geneva team was far from run-and-gun, but the Eagles were a well-oiled machine at both ends of the court.

"We didn't run a lot, but we still averaged in the 60s," Knowles said. "I think we played real good defense, too. We won a lot of our games by large margins, usually like 65-50."

The typical Geneva starting lineup featured Barker on the point, Hayduke at the other guard, Landphair at one forward, Knowles at the other and Hogan in the middle.

The NEC of that time was a nightly battle, with fine teams at Ashtabula in the last year of Hall of Famer Gene Gephart's career as head coach and tough battles from teams like St. John and Harbor.

"Ashtabula had a real nice team with Jim Hood and Dan Craft," Knowles said. "The Mudd brothers played at St. John. We played Harvey (coached by John D'Angelo) in non-conference and they were very good.

"But we did pretty well against those teams. I remember we handled Ashtabula pretty good."

The fly in the ointment was Conneaut, coached by ACBF Hall of Famer Harry Fails, and his band of the aforementioned Spartans, which also included John Colson and Tim Richards. The Spartans would end up bumping Geneva out of the NEC title, a prelude to its run to the Class AAA regional tournament that year.

"I don't know what it was about playing Conneaut," Knowles said. "I think we had better talent, but I don't know. I guess we got nervous when we played them. I do think we respected each other."

Geneva finished with a fine 16-4 record that season. The Eagles split their Class AAA tournament games.

If anything, the move brought out the best in Knowles. He ended up leading the county in scoring and sharing Player of the Year honors with Humphrey.

"I was pretty pleased about that," Knowles said.

On to A&M

Apparently, Knowles' performance and his attributes, coupled with what he had done earlier in his career, caught the attention of Division I college scouts. He actually had several options, including interest from Ohio State, then coached by Fred Taylor, and several Mid-American Conference schools.

Knowles and Koval remember their visit to Ohio State well.

"We went down to Columbus to see their NCAA regional tournament games," Knowles said. "(Future Cleveland Cavaliers) Jim Cleamons was at point guard and Luke Witte was at center.

"They were playing Jacksonville with Artis Gilmore and Pembrook Burrows. Western Kentucky was at that tournament, too, with Clem Haskins. I was there with about five other guys they were trying to recruit. I think Alan Hornyak was one of the other guys."

Koval makes it clear he had little to do with that trip.

"Randy was the one who took us there," he said. "I just drove."

But, at that point anyway, Knowles found himself doubting himself.

"The only thing I had for people to base their evaluation of me on was that year at Geneva, because I had sat out with that broken ankle at Shelby," he said. "I wasn't sure I was capable of playing at Ohio State. Looking back, I think I could have played there."

So when Texas A&M came calling, he felt the pull. The Aggies showed a lot of interest in Knowles for a kid from more than 1,500 miles away. But coach Shelby Metcalf put his scouts on Knowles' trail.

"They flew a coach up to see me play," Knowles said. "I liked that. I knew A&M was in the (Southwest Conference), which I knew was still a Division I school, but I didn't think played the kind of competition they did in the Big Ten. Texas and Arkansas were the powers back then. And I liked that it was warm there."

Those were strong enough reasons for Knowles to cast his lot with the Aggies. It turned out to be a great decision for him.

"Once I got down there, I really think I blossomed," Knowles said.

That's an understatement because he was a key component for Metcalf in his three varsity seasons in an era when freshmen weren't allowed to play varsity basketball. In his junior year of 1972-73, Knowles scored 42 points in a home game against, of all teams, Arkansas.

"I believe that's still the single game scoring record for home games at A&M," he said.

He made the All-SWC team his junior and senior seasons, second-team the first year and first-team as a senior. He was also A&M's team MVP those years.

"I think I ended up finishing as second on the combined scoring and rebounding career list when I graduated," Knowles said. "I think I was fourth in scoring."

The Aggies never won the SWC or made the NCAA Tournament or the National Invitational Tournament during his career, but that doesn't mean Knowles didn't have other memorable college experiences.

"When I was a sophomore, we played UCLA out at Pauley Pavilion," he said. "They had Bill Walton, Jamaal Wilkes and Sidney Wicks and John Wooden was still coaching. We lost something like 104-52, but it was a great experience."

And just because the SWC wasn't the premier basketball conference in the country didn't mean the NBA couldn't find Knowles. The Bulls drafted him with their fifth-round pick in the 1974 draft, making him the 88th pick overall.

Getting his shot

But listening to the advice of an agent he hired at the time, and knowing what a loaded roster the Bulls had at that time, Knowles opted for basketball in Spain. It was a decision about which he has mixed emotions even today.

"I wish I had gone with the Bulls, but I listened to my agent," he said. "I really believe I could have played, but they had drafted two guys in the first round (Maurice Lucas of Marquette with the 14th pick overall and Cliff Pondexter of Long Beach State with the 16th). But both those guys ended up going to the ABA. I should have gone right out of college."

But the decision to go to Spain has paid off handsomely in the years since.

"Because of my experience in Spain, I'm still over here," Knowles said. "I married a girl from Spain (Belen, to whom he has been married for 12 years) and I made a lot of connections I use even today."

There was one more negative that came out of that first year in Spain.

"I tore my hamstring while I was playing there," Knowles said. "I still decided to come back and try it with the Bulls in 1975, but I still wasn't healthy.

"I went into camp with guys like John Laskowski and Steve Green from Indiana (the Bulls' first two picks in 1975) and Bill Andreas from Ohio State. I made it into some of their preseason games before I was cut."

A bit downhearted, Knowles returned to Geneva for a year.

"I did my student teaching in 1975-76," he said. "I used to stay in shape by playing on the outdoor courts at Geneva against guys like Dan Craft and (St. John graduate) John Wheelock."

Moving on

But the wanderlust was tugging at Knowles. It didn't take long to answer the call.

"I got restless," he said. "Then I got a call from the Chilean Basketball Association telling me they wanted somebody who could still play to come down and coach their national team."

That's precisely what he did in 1977.

"I coached their national team in the South American Championships that year," Knowles said.

But the desire to play again was stronger.

"My leg had been healed for about two years by then," Knowles said. "I stayed two more years playing in Chile. I scored 106 points in one game."

Then his old collegiate coach, Metcalf, called with an offer back in College Station, Texas.

"He called me back in 1980 to be his graduate assistant," Knowles said. "I was there from 1980-85 and got my master's degree."

During that span, he also played the major role in recruiting another Geneva alumnus and Koval product, Jay McHugh, who was inducted into the ACBF Hall of Fame in 2006.

"We'd heard about Jay scoring 52 points in a game up there, so we checked him out and recruited him to A&M," Knowles said.

By 1986, he was looking for new frontiers. He found them in a familiar place back in Spain.

"I got asked to come back over here and work as an assistant coach," Knowles said. "I ended up with a team up north of Barcelona in Badalona."

Knowles wound up staying in Spain for the next 12 years until he fielded a call to come back to the U.S.

"In 1998, I got a call from Second Baptist School, a small private high school in Houston, to teach Spanish and coach the basketball team," he said. "I was there until 2000, went back to Badalona from 2000-02, then went back to Second Baptist from 2002-08."

But the lure of Spain and having the opportunity to get his wife back close to her family led him to accept a job with Real Madrid, one of the finest teams in all of European basketball. He is an assistant to Joan Plaza, one of his former players.

"I'm sort of the player development coach," he said.

European basketball is actually a two-pronged attack. Real Madrid is actually focused on two objectives. It is in the Elite Eight of the European Championships, with a trip to Greece on the horizon to play Olympiakos, which includes former NBA standout Josh Childress.

At the same time, Knowles' team is trying to build momentum for the Spanish League championships.

"The Final Four for the European Championships is in mid-April," Knowles said. "To win the European Championship would be a big, big deal.

"The Spanish League playoffs are in mid-May. The Spanish League is the second-best in the world, next to the NBA."

That is not a statement out of place, as evidenced by the Spaniards' silver medal to the LeBron James-led U.S. team in the 2008 Olympics. Pau and Marc Gasol are just two Spanish products in the NBA, with more coming.

Knowles has actually had the chance to work with one Spanish player, Rudy Fernandez of the Portland Trail Blazers. He is also hoping to work with Ricky Rubio, Spain's exciting 18-year-old point guard who gave the U.S. fits in Beijing. Knowles also works with U.S. products Louis Bullock, a Michigan graduate, and Kennedy Winston, in his current position.

Some people might call Knowles the Spanish shot doctor.

"I love player development," he said. "A lot of the players here are very skilled. Shooting is one of their big drawbacks."

Obviously, basketball is a huge factor in Knowles' life, almost 40 years after his final high school season at Geneva.

"All my friends, all my connections and even my wife have come to me because of basketball," he said. "My life has been wonderful.

"I never knew when I started where it was going to take me. It's been great."

Hometown hero

Bruno Mallone came home and took Geneva to state tourney in 1949-50

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

12th in a series...

The history of Ashtabula County basketball is a rich one, but there are just two examples in all those years of teams enjoying the utter satisfaction of reaching the state tournament.

It has been 59 years since the last team to reach that level — the 1949-50 Geneva Eagles — trod the county basketball landscape. Yet, because such instances have been so rare, it is an achievement that still carries deep meaning to those for whom the sport is a rallying point. Even those who were not yet born when it occurred know about that team.

Over the years, several members of that team have been recognized for their exploits on the court. Two of the key players from that squad — the late Dale Arkenburg and Don Marsh, one of the few surviving players from that team — have already been recognized for their contributions to that squad and their general excellence.

Until now, however, the coach of that team, the late Bruno Mallone, has not been recognized for his direction of that team. A fine player in his own right for the Geneva teams of the mid-1930s, Mallone was a standout in three sports for the Eagles before his graduation in 1935. He continued to show outstanding ability at Ohio Northern University to the point that he eventually joined his older brother, Joe, in the school's athletic hall of fame.

Mallone came back to coach basketball, football and track and teach industrial arts at his alma mater in 1947. He had already had a successful coaching career in basketball, coaching Attica High School to 24 straight victories and within one point of the state tournament in 1945. He coached in 1946 at Oak Harbor before returning to Geneva, going 7-11.

Starting in 1947, he harnessed the talents of players like Jim Merrell, Dick Eller, Don Patrick, Marsh and Arkenburg into a powerful unit that claimed the Lake Shore League title by his third year at the school, in addition to that trip to Columbus. Before he left the community after the 1954 season, Geneva also earned a share of the 1953 championship of the two-year-old Northeastern Conference with Riverside.

For his career at Geneva, Mallone's Eagles compiled a 92-51 record (.643 winning percentage). He also enjoyed success when he returned to the sidelines at the now-defunct Hiram High School, where he coached from 1960-64. He took Hiram to the regional finals in 1964. Hiram High School was eventually consolidated into what is now Mantua Crestwood High School.

What Mallone did with his Geneva teams has rung down through the years. Finally, it has led to his own selection to the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame. He will be one of 14 inducted at the ACBF Awards Banquet on Sunday at the Conneaut Human Resources Center.

Unfortunately, Mallone died in January of 1999 at age 82 in Hiram, where he is buried. Only Joe Mallone, who will celebrate his 94th birthday on April 3, and his half-brother Tony Sanzotta, 82, are all that remain of six brothers. Several of Mallone's family members will be in attendance for the awards banquet, however.

Pam Mallone, who still resides in the home in Hiram Bruno and his wife, Dorothy, who died in June of 2008, and her brother John, believes her father would be extremely pleased with his place in the ACBF Hall of Fame, although she noted her father's modesty.

"I think Dad would be extremely pleased to be recognized like this," she said. "He was a very calm, quiet man who didn't understand when other coaches got so excited on the sidelines. He was very proud of his time at Geneva and the boys who played for him. He'd be very pleased to know he was going into the hall of fame with Dale Arkenburg and Don Marsh."

His son, John Mallone, who resides in the Chicago suburb of Cary, believes his father would appreciate the distinction, too.

"Dad would consider it a huge privilege," he said. "He was not one to have a lot of trophies, awards or signs of recognition around. He just enjoyed the competition."

Joe Mallone agrees that his brother would be very pleased with his recognition.

"Bruno would have thought it was a great honor," he said. "He would be pleased to be joining Dale and Don. I think Dale worshiped him, and they had a great mutual respect for each other."

His players would attest to that.

"Bruno was a very good coach," Arkenburg, who died in 2007, said in an earlier article in the Star Beacon reflecting on the 1949-50 team. "We respected him. He had been a very good athlete in high school and college. He could communicate and was building and forming the team."

Dick Eller, a guard on that team, agreed.

"I count myself and the rest of us very lucky to have had Bruno as a coach," he said in that article. "I think we all believed in ourselves because he believed in us. That was a large part of the success we had."

Growing up

Bruno Mallone was born in 1917, the second of the sons of Frances and Bruno Mallone. Joe Mallone had been born in 1915.

Bruno Mallone barely knew his birth father. According to Joe Mallone, the elder Bruno Mallone, an Italian immigrant, was accidentally shot to death on April 6, 1917, the day the United States entered World War I...

Though only two Ashtabula County teams have ever reached the state tournament, the 1949-50 Geneva Eagles remain a legendary squad. Their coach, Bruno Mallone, has now rightfully earned a place alongside his celebrated players in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame.

Bruno Mallone, a Geneva native and three-sport star who graduated in 1935, returned to coach basketball, football, and track in 1947. After strong seasons at Attica and Oak Harbor, he transformed Geneva’s basketball team into a powerhouse, culminating in a 23-3 season and state tournament berth in 1949-50. Geneva also won a share of the 1953 Northeastern Conference title under his leadership. He finished with a 92-51 career record at Geneva (.643).

Mallone’s calm, methodical coaching style inspired confidence. Players like Dale Arkenburg, Don Marsh, and Dick Eller remembered him as steady, patient, and always respectful. “He believed in us, and that belief gave us confidence,” Eller once said.

After Geneva, Mallone coached at Hiram High School from 1960–64, taking the team to regional finals in 1964 and earning Portage County Coach of the Year. He retired from teaching in 1982.

Born in 1917, Bruno faced early hardship. His father died shortly after his birth, and his stepfather was murdered in 1926, leaving his mother to raise six boys alone. Despite poverty, the Mallone and Sanzotta brothers supported the family while excelling in sports. Bruno and his older brother Joe both earned athletic scholarships to Ohio Northern University and are members of its Athletic Hall of Fame.

Bruno married Dorothy in 1942 and raised two children, Pam and John. They remained in Hiram, living in a home once occupied by President James A. Garfield’s family. Though modest, Mallone’s legacy as a coach and person deeply impacted his players, colleagues, and community. He passed away in 1999 at age 82.

"He was calm, respectful, and inspiring," said son John. "He didn’t need trophies. He just loved the competition and the people."

Mallone’s induction reunites him with former players Arkenburg and Marsh — a fitting tribute to a coach whose influence still resonates more than seven decades later.

59... A Moment in Time

Ken Smith's 59-point explosion for Rock Creek 70 years ago was only a small part of his life story

By KARL PEARSON
Staff Writer

Ken Smith’s 59-point game for Rock Creek in 1939 remains one of Ashtabula County’s most astonishing basketball feats. Yet, his story stretches far beyond that historic night. Born March 13, 1919, Smith is now honored posthumously as an inductee into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame.

Though Smith passed away in 1993 at age 73, his family, including daughter Connie Mracek and great-grandson Nicholas, will celebrate his legacy. "Ken loved a good joke and he loved to laugh," said his wife Joan. "He would have enjoyed this kind of party."

A standout at Rock Creek High School, Smith helped his team win county titles in 1936-37 and 1937-38 under coach Lewis J. Wiragas. But it was on Feb. 11, 1939, during a 5-7 senior season, that Smith exploded for a county and state record-setting 59 points in an 89-14 win over Colebrook. He made 28 field goals and 3 free throws—an astonishing feat during an era with jump balls after every basket.

“Ken was very good in everything,” recalled teammate Lucius Brettell. “He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.” Ed Kendzerski added, “He was fast, a good shooter and a strong defender.”

Smith’s scoring prowess wasn’t limited to that one night. As a sophomore, he reportedly scored 40 points in a game against Williamsfield. His game was defined by speed, anticipation, and shooting, making him a standout despite his modest 5'7" frame.

Smith’s other passions included baseball, and he had a tryout with the Columbus Redbirds. But after the sudden death of his father in 1939, he began working at Sanborn Wire Co. He was later drafted into the Army in 1941, serving in England and France during WWII.

Ken met Joan after corresponding during his service. They married in 1946 and enjoyed 47 years together, raising their daughter Connie. After returning home, Ken worked at Great Lakes Tractor, ran “Smitty’s Store to Door,” and retired from Rockwell Brake after 30 years.

He stayed active in Rock Creek, serving as a volunteer fireman and member of the Rock Creek Conservation Club. He organized the town’s first pancake breakfast in 1966 and enjoyed fishing trips to Canada, golfing, dancing, gardening, and following horse racing.

Today, his athletic legacy continues through great-grandchildren like Nicholas, a youth basketball player in Madison, and Emily, who also played in middle school.

Though Ken Smith’s 59-point night still dazzles, it's his lifetime of commitment to family, service, and sports that earns him this rightful place in Ashtabula County’s basketball history.

Our own Hall of Famer

By CHRIS LARICK
Staff Writer

Last of a series...

No one would have predicted a career in sports for Karl Pearson in his early years.

A cat on the basepaths, a gazelle on the courts, a cheetah on the track, a lion on the football field, a tiger on the golf course — Karl was none of these.

"It's bizarre to me, because I have no athletic ability," Pearson, who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame on Sunday, said. "My parents were not involved in sports. I did have two uncles who got me interested in sports."

Aha, it's the two uncles who are responsible for Pearson's 40 years in sports, most of them as a sports writer for the Star Beacon. Well, there's more to it than that, of course.

During his junior year at Madison High School, Pearson became a statistician for the Blue Streak football, basketball and baseball teams. Joe Nunney, who coached the basketball team and baseball coaches George Opron and Mel Reed discovered Pearson's talents in accumulating statistics and reporting them to media outlets. It was a natural progression to manager of all three sports as a senior, while Pearson kept the duties as correspondent to the media.

Everything went smoothly. Well, almost everything.

"My first year for the basketball team, we played Thanksgiving Eve at West Geauga," Pearson remembers. "I called in the stuff. John Dorko set the West Geauga record of 38 points. While I was calling in the stats, the bus left.

"I got left in Chesterland on Thanksgiving Eve. My parents had to pick me up at the Chesterland Police Department at 2 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning. Joe Nunney offered me a cowbell for the next time."

During that time, Pearson took on the duties of writing accounts for the Blue Streak, the Madison school newspaper. When he began college at Cleveland State after graduating from Madison in 1971, he continued his statistical duties on the weekends, after spending the week on campus.

"I'd call the box in," Pearson said. "Not everything we have now, just all of the scoring, the score by quarters and the final score. I did that for the Plain Dealer, the Cleveland Press, the Painesville Telegraph, the Willoughby News Herald, the Star Beacon and the Jefferson Gazette."

Since most of those newspapers paid their correspondents, it proved to be a pretty good deal for Pearson.

"It was a big part of helping finance my college education," Pearson said. "I'd make probably close to $20 a night calling in stats. Most teams then played Friday and Saturday nights, so there were often two games a week."

Pearson's efforts caught the eye of Jerry Masek, a classmate of Karl's at Madison who had become sports editor for the Geneva Free Press.

"Jerry was looking for somebody to cover Madison and Perry sports," Pearson said. "All I had to do was cover the games, get the information and write stories. I came home on weekends and did that."

At Cleveland State, Pearson majored in political science, a suggestion of one of his teachers, Earl Delp, who thought that might help prepare him for a career as a teacher or a possible step into law school.

But when Pearson graduated, he found there were fewer opportunities in the teaching field, particularly in social studies, the field in which he had done most of his studying. But there was a news writing opening at the Madison Press, a weekly tied to the Geneva Free Press and Star Beacon through the Rowley family, who owned all of the papers.

Attending civic meetings, Pearson found little relationship between the things he had studied and what actually happened when a group of citizens in a small town got together to solve problems.

"What I learned in political science had nothing to do with how local government works," Pearson said. "I enjoyed it, but I found that theory and reality did not match."

Though he had accepted the job as a news writer, Pearson made it clear to his bosses that if an opportunity arose to write sports at any of the Regional Press newspapers — at the Telegraph or Star Beacon in particular – he would like to be considered for it. In September, 1978, a sports position opened at the Star Beacon. Darrell Lowe, who had recently become sports editor, accepted Pearson into the fold.

Hired on Sept. 15, Pearson found himself in a football season that had already begun. His first week, he covered Joe Kearney and Pymatuning Valley on Friday night and Jim Henson and Grand Valley on Saturday.

Lowe, Pearson and Bill Kurtz made up the sports staff at the Star Beacon at the time. Rick Malinowski and Chris Larick came over from Geneva to help cover football and basketball games on Friday and Saturday nights.

At the Star Beacon, Lowe was beginning with a new staff and he, with a lot of help from Pearson, made some changes. At Pearson's suggestion, he began covering girls' sports which had become officially sanctioned by the OHSAA just a few years earlier in the winter of 1975-76.

"Girls basketball was in its infancy," Pearson said. "Girls athletics started in 1975. I was interested in covering girls sports. I said, 'I'll take on as many girls sports as you want to give me.' I also did wrestling until (Mike) Scully came along."

Lowe also was responsible for beginning the Star Beacon boys and girls basketball games.

"We were probably the first in the area to do it," Pearson said. "We saw the level of basketball around here was deserving of it. We started the boys and girls games the same year, the 1978-79 season."

Lowe originally went to Harbor Principal Bill Clark and asked what it would take to run the game. Clark listed expenses for floor rental, officials, police and a few other things.

"It came up to significant bucks," Pearson said.

So Lowe, who was impressed with Ball Gymnasium as a facility, went to talk to Adam Holman, then the athletic director at Ashtabula High School.

"Adam said, 'Wonderful! As long as we have kids participating, you won't have to pay anything, just for police and maintenance people.' If not for Adam Holman, there might not have been an all-star game. God bless Adam Holman."

If Lowe was the one who dreamed up the Star Beacon Senior Classics, Pearson was the one who did most of the work involved in their execution. He did — and continues to do — most of the player and coach selection. But that was the mere tip of the iceberg.

Among the great teams Pearson has seen he includes Andrew Isco's team of 1983-84 that made it to the regional finals, Huber's PV team from last year ("They played the game the way I think it's supposed to be played — up and down the floor, great defense, great fundamentals"), several of Rod Holmes' Jefferson's girls teams ("He probably has the most reason to brag about what he's done and toots his own horn the least of any coach I've ever met"), Houston's Conneaut teams with Pape, Lyons and Coxon and Tom Ritari's Conneaut girls' team of 2000-01.

Pearson admits that basketball is his favorite sport.

"I used to like football the best, but as time went on, basketball became my favorite. It's artistry, a combination of poetry, artistry, music and dance — large bodies functioning in such a small space and doing it with grace."

Everything has not always gone smoothly for Pearson. Both of his parents, Karl A.E. and Winifred, died relatively young, as did a sister, Sonja. A brother, Jim, who lives in Eastlake and works as an auto parts manager, still lives, as does a second sister, Faith, who is Ashtabula County Coordinator for Brighter Horizons, a company that deals with nursing home care. Faith has two children, Tabitha, a sophomore at Kent State University's home campus, and Cody, 10, a student in Jefferson schools.

Religion has always played a huge role in Pearson's life. He has been a member of the First Baptist Church of Perry for more than 50 years and is currently serving as Moderator for the Ashtabula Baptist Association, which includes American Baptist churches in Ashtabula, Lake and Geauga counties. He also has worked at Camp Koinonia, where he was camp director for 20 years and is on the board of directors.

"My faith means a lot to me," Pearson said. "(Sports writing) is kind of a tough job, with demanding hours. It's tough on relationships and includes driving around in bad weather late at night, a dangerous situation.

"I feel I have something extra on my shoulder when I'm out driving around. It helps me through stressful situations.

"God gave me a lot of gifts. I'm able to communicate through writing, somewhat through speaking and through music to some degree. They may not be athletic gifts, but they're gifts anyway. If a person has one gift, he has a lot of gifts. Hopefully, I explore all of them."

Pearson, also a member of the Ashtabula County Bowling Hall of Fame, admits he's humbled by his selection to the ACBF Hall of Fame.

"My thanks to the ACBF," he said. "I couldn't be prouder of my association with it and proud of my association with the (Ashtabula County Touchdown Club) Hall of Fame. Those are two groups of people who have their hearts in the right place, who want to see the best for those who have been involved in those sports in the past and present.

"I love Ashtabula County. There are a lot of people who put Ashtabula County down unfairly. We have a lot of problems here, but there are good people here, salt-of-the-earth people."