THE NIT --- A WEEK TO REMEMBER FOREVER

[wkrq59]

First, I can verify what Owl said about the snowballs. The old blue and white bus was indeed snowballed by Xavier students as it lumbered up from the field house drive by the football stadium. The students who fired the snowballs were doing it more as a joke than something vindictive, and the bus had trouble getting up that driveway to Victory Parkway. It rolled back once and sent some unwise students diving to the side.
I was editor of the Xavier News, a forerunner to the Xavier Newswire. Bob Coates and the school offered me a chance to accompany the team, but there was a young man, Eddie Adams, who was a better writer and had worked his butt off all year and really deserved to go with the team, so I gave him my tickets.
Owl has all the details of the games and what happened before absolutely right. There were a couple of little asides he probably forgot. Like Tartaron stumbling (that's his version ) slipping and falling up the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral and cutting his forehead. The entire team and its traveling party had been celebrating not only a victory in the NIT, the first-ever national championship for ANY Cincinnati team, but St. Patrick's Day. Being a good Irishman, Tartaron was among the many (Big Mac included) who took part in the celebration. Draw your own conclusions.
My one lasting memory of that championship game was watching on a fuzzy black and white Philco TV as Hank Stein made free throw after free throw in the overtime to win the dog-gone game. And big Jack McCarthy, who missed the hook shot that would have won the game for Dayton, was from Purcell High School and had made some comment that he enjoyed beating Xavier because he had turned down their scholarship offer because Dayton was a bigger and better program.
The one thing I remember about Al Gundrum was his cockiness. A graduate of then tiny Colerain High School, Gundrum had a mean streak in him rivaled only by Franny Stahl. Not nasty mean but devlish in kind.
He had a 28-inch waist and was so skinny they had to punch extra holes in the smallest men's belt they could find so he could keep his pants up. He also was one helluva defender; sort of a Stanley Burrell and Drew Lavender combined. He was small in stature but had the quickest pair of hands and again, that attitude, that said "If you score on me you'll have to pay a price and be sorry."
Ducky Castelle was one of two African Americans (Corny Freeman the other) on the team at the start of the season. They were the second and third blacks on the team, Ray Tomlin the first. There would have been four blacks on that team, but two Lockland Wayne products, Fletcher Yates (Tony's brother) and Virgil Stallcup, both had trouble with academics as freshmen and left the school before practice even started. Xavier as I recall was a pioneer in the recruiting of blacks. Neither Ned Wulk nor Big Jim saw color. They just saw players.
Bradley's vaunted press had beaten Ned's last team the previous year. Down by 20 at the half in the NIT, they came back to win by 30 over X.
Their coach said Xavier was the one team he didn't want to play in that championship season.
I remember practices before the start of the season. Big Jim started the first day with a lesson in how to break a press. No fouls were called on the pressing team during practice, and it got rough. What Mac did was simply have the player who received the inbounds pass, fire a pass to a man in the middle of the floor, midway between the free thrown line and the 10-second line. the player who inbounded the ball would scissors-cut off the middle-man and the passer would scissor off the other side. One of the two cutters would get the ball and immediately throw it (hard) to a middle man at mid-court. Xavier got a ton of layups off that press-breaking formation because the first man in the middle would run like crazy to the offensive end of the court and set up a second post to handle another pair of cutters for a layup. I remember Xavier using that plan at Western Kentucky (Bowling Green and Eddie Diddle) to get a tough win on the road.
When the team came back to Cincinnati at the airport in Kentucky, the weather had turned, literally, and it was so darned hot there were numerous cars on the side of Donaldson Road with hoods raised and radiators boiling over.
One indelible picture still remains in my mind--that of Hank Stein on the shoulders of his teammates wearing the most valuable trophy, a silver bowl, on his head.

[Wisexuowl]

Dude ... remember your dad? Hell yes, and your Mom too. Franny lived in Marion Hall when I lived in Marion Hall .. he on the third floor with Bill Douthitt, and I was on the second floor with my bro. Your dad had an old Buick (I think) gray convertable .... the only car in the dorm (he was a GI vet transfer from 'Nova) and he used to shuttle the rest of us to din-din on rainy nights. He married that following summer and he and your Mom had an apartment in Norwood, and I can't tell you how many times they fed us on weekends when we didn't have a cafeteria pass. Loved 'em both ... and you dad was a great (in typical Kentucky fashion) shooter and ball handler supreme. When I watch Drew today, his skills remind me of Fran.

As for tickets, try this. Call Tom Eisner the SID at Xavier. Tell him your dad finished playing in '57 but as a transfer played with Hank, Joe, Stu, et al on the Freshman team when they were freshmen and would like to see those guys.

If no success there ... post your e-mail on this site and see if any of the other MM posters can help.

God bless, and thanks for jugling my memory with Franny's name.

[wkrq59]

Owl..Remember Franny and Temple's All-American Guy Rogers? Remember Franny, "What's your name kid?" after Rogers congratulated him on a fine defensive job?

[japer]

Wise--

Thank you very much for posting this. Awesome read! My father often speaks fondly of this team and I wonder what it was like to win it all like that and what it felt like to experience that.

My dad would have graduated from X by that time, but he recently told me that he saw a list of the season ticket holders longevity and he was near the top. Although he is winding down a bit these years, he was there during this great time of XU basketball. I think I'm going to print this out for him and he will enjoy it as he is not computer saavy (yet).

Thanks again!

japer

[gundun]

Jasper, I hope you get those tickets.

Wise and Q, thanks for the stories. I got to X four years later and still remember Ray Baldwin telling the stories and until now never believing all of them. Now I realize that they were all so true.

Just one more question, was there ever a coach who had the manager set up a chair near mid-court and would sit down and coach from there without removing his overcoat? Or was that Ray's one falsehood?

Wish I could be there Sunday, but I like the 70s down here in TX

[Wisexuowl]

Hell yes they .. and his name was Lew Hirt ... and while "coaching" from that chair he also read the daily Racing Form .. and he was a helluva handicapper too.

He was a "hunch" guy . one time as the bus started down Victory Pkwy enroute to lexington and a game with UK, a player came running after the bus at the light and got on .. saying .."sorry coach that I was late."

Lew asked Baldy who the player was ... true story .. and when Baldy told him his name .. Lew played a hunch and started him that night. Started a player he didn't know eight hours earlier.

If you think I'm kidding gang, ask Don Ruberg!

[Shadow]

Thanks Wise,
Brings back a lot of old memories. I had left Cincinnati and was in grad school by then but I still knew some of those players.

[Mr O]

Great Memories, Jack. I'm going to dinner tonight at X and I will certainly give NIT Champs you regards. I'm doing very well for 77, have been a season ticket holder now for 50 years and we still make several away games. We will be in Charlotte for the game on Wednesday. Don Rueberg lives in the same condo complex as us. He is not feeling well, a case of flu and he had to cancel out of tonight's dinner.

[XUBBall]

Thanks to all for the stories. I was in the eighth grade in 58. I remember the year before the people in my family were furious with Ned Wulk for losing the lead. I remember watching the NIT finals on TV and everyone going nuts. We went to the airport the next day. I climbed through a window to get out near the plane. We hurried back to Xavier to catch the celebration at the fieldhouse. Great memories!