February 15, 1963 Basketball Game: FHS vs. Springfield Central High School

Basketball Statistics, 1964-65 FHS Bulldog Season

These two pages show statistics for the 1964-65 Fayetteville High School basketball team. The pages were complied by Coach Willard Smith. That year, we had a pretty good season and were ranked in the top ten most of the year. That year, FHS traveled for the first time to play teams in El Dorado and Texarkana. We also continued to play teams in Missouri.

The four players who usually started, Robert Wilkes, Kenny Ramey, Bill Crook, and I, had been playing together since the 9th grade at Hillcrest Junior High School, when we lost only one game. Unfortunately, most of us did not grow much after the 9th grade, so the team was not very tall. The fifth starter, who had played in the 9th grade at Woodland, was Louis Bryant. Though we were about the same height, he played as if he were much taller. In addition to the usual starting lineup, Bill Shirley and Johnny McNair played quite a bit every game.

Wilks, our best and most athletic player, was our inside guy and our leading rebounder. Bryant was both an inside and outside guy. I liked to to shoot from the outside and am shocked to see from these statistics that I led the team in shots attempted. No wonder Louis was always calling me "gunner." I really do not remember shooting so much. I just wish we had had a three-point arc in those days. Crook was more of a outside shooter, but since I was shooting so much, he probably did not get to attempt as many shots as he would have liked.

I started the season well, but had a terrible slump about midway through it. For a couple on games, including one important one at Springfield Central, my shots barely hit the rim. It got so bad that I when I took a jump shot, my thumb kept hitting my nose.

Kenny Ramey played guard. He rarely shot, but was a good playmaker and excelled at defense. Unlike Kenny, Bill Shirley was a shooting point guard. Johnny Mac was tall enough to help out at center and good enough to play forward.

FHS Basketball, Justin Daniel and J.D. McConnell, 1961-1962

The 1961-1962 Fayetteville High School Bulldogs had an outstanding basketball team led by two superb athletes whose talents were augmented by several other excellent athletes. The best two players are shown in these pictures. J.D. McConnell played guard, putting to use his height, fluidity, and almost magical no-look passing. Justin Daniel was the center, though he was the same height as J.D.; he was a warrior with a hook shot.

I have written a few pages about the season of Justin and, J.D. It is available at this site:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/48613345/The-Season-of-Justin-and-JD

That article tells how the Bulldogs lost narrowly to the North Little Rock team in the Arkansas State Tournament. During that game, the team's main problem was getting the ball up the court: both Justin and J.D. played well against NLR, but the NLR team disrupted the guard play. One of the reasons for this problem was that Troy Steele, a fine player who had been the team's main guard, was missing (see his picture below, front rwo center). When I wrote about the FHS-NLR game, I did not know why Steele was not playing in the tournament. I have been told that he was kicked off of the team (by the principal, not the coach) because he got married during the season.

Young love cost FHS a state championship.

Hillcrest Jr. High Basketball Team, 1960-61

1963-64 FHS Basketball Schedule

This schedule showed FHS still playing primarily in the Ozark Conference (Central , Glendale, Parkview, and Hillcrest were in Springfield; Fayetteville was the only Arkansas team in the conferene), plus games in an Arkansas conference made up of area schools (Springdale, Ft. Smith, Rogers, Subiaco, Harrison, Van Buren and Valley Springs).  FHS had joined the Ozark Conference several years earlier when many Arkansas schools refused to play against us because the team was integrated. The Springfield teams provided tough competition.

The 1963-64 teams was mediocre. Paul Ramey, though lacking finesse, was probably the best player; Freddie Rice, Bunky Lee, Newt Land,  David Adams, Eddie Guinn, and others were capable players, but the team lacked a star.

Robert Wilks, a junior and the best athlete on the tam, played regularly and Louis Bryant got lots of minutes on the court; Bill Crook, Kenny Ramey, and I also got in several games, especially when it became apparent we were not going to win any championships that year.

The following year, FHS joined a new Arkansas Conference playing against not only Springdale, Rogers, Fort Smith and Harrison, but also going to El Dorado and Texarkana. We also played several games in Springfield and Joplin in 1964-65.