Life was completely different sixty years ago than it is today.
Life was much simpler and many still long for the relative calm that was present in 1947.
It was one of the rare times in American history that we weren’t at war.
One aspect of life in the commonwealth remains the same however, that constant being basketball, which as most of us know who are Kentuckians is a religion to many and an obsession to many others.
In Maysville in 1947, the mood was joyous when the beloved hometown school brought home the big trophy from Louisville after capturing the only state championship in the history of Maysville High School.
Many in the area still consider themselves Bulldogs and they remain proud of their alma mater, which was well-respected in the world of high school basketball for many years.
The 1946-47 team played their usual demanding schedule and legendary head coach Earle Jones knew coming into the campaign that he had another team capable of accomplishing a great deal. The Bulldogs had played in the Sweet Sixteen the previous two seasons and were coming off a year that saw them achieve a 22-7 record that ended with a 46-38 loss to Ft. Knox in the second round of the state tournament.
A pair of standouts and the top two scorers from that team had graduated, Kenny Reeves, who went on to star at the University of Louisville, and Gene Brothers. Reeves and Brothers were the only double-figure point producers for the 1945-46 team, having averaged 14.3 and 10.9 points per game, respectively. Another starter, Albert Ritchie, had also graduated.
Still, Jones was confident he could mold the 1946-47 squad into a well-oiled machine by the end of the season and he did precisely that.
Laurnie Caproni, former Ledger Independent sports editor, says Jones was a coach who was far ahead of his time.
“Coach Jones was a close friend of Adolph Rupp and would often spend weekends with him, talking basketball with him and taking notes,” said Caproni. “Coach Jones coached Ralph Carlisle at Kavanaugh High School before he came to Maysville and he also went on to become an outstanding coach. The thing about Coach Jones was he would always have his teams ready to play in March. He felt the 1947 team would be good, but they had lost three starters from the year before, so he began the season with a soft schedule before throwing them to the wolves. They lost five out of six games at one point but after losing to Inez, they didn’t lose another game.”
That defeat by a 54-32 margin on Valentine’s Day couldn’t have set well with Coach Jones. It dropped the Bulldogs’ season mark to 13-6 and not even the most ardent Maysville supporter was dreaming of a state championship.
Jones, inducted into the Kentucky High School Association Hall of Fame in 1989, compiled a remarkable overall record of 541-197 and he was 470-186 during his 24 years leading the Bulldog program. Maysville won 19 district titles during his tenure and were state runners-up in both 1938 and 1948. At Kavanaugh, Jones was 71-11 in three seasons and his teams combined to post a 19-10 record in state tournament play, the 19 wins still standing as the most in the history of the Sweet Sixteen.
A former player for Jones, Gene Downing, said Jones could have coached at just about any university but preferred coaching at the high school level.
“He was one of the very best, there’s no doubt about that,” Downing said. “Back in those days, Maysville would even scrimmage against the UK freshmen before the season started.”
Arthur “Punk” Griffin, a Maysville sports legend in his own right and a proud 1944 grad, who was a team manager, scorekeeper and later a scout for Jones, recalls how the Bulldog leader “demanded perfection” from his players.
“Coach Jones was the greatest and he was always thinking one step ahead of everyone else,” Griffin noted. “He had complete control of he team and back then they ran plays. Maysville never did have a big team but they were disciplined and Coach Jones was a great teacher of the fundamentals of basketball. He was a great judge of talent and he got the most out of his players. He just had a knack for noticing all of the little things that make a team a champion.”
Griffin also mentioned the Rupp-Jones connection and how many colleges were interested in hiring Jones.
“He had many offers to leave, everybody wanted him but he enjoyed coaching at the high school level and eventually retired in Maysville as the superintendent of schools,” Griffin explained. “He and Coach Rupp were close friends and his college roommate at UK was Paul McBrayer, who was an assistant under Rupp until he moved on to coach at Eastern Kentucky. Coach Rupp, who I feel was the greatest speaker in the world, spoke at the celebration dinner after Maysville won the title in 1947. I remember we were met at the county line when we returned from Louisville and we had a caravan coming into town.”
The season began with six consecutive wins until the Bulldogs were defeated by a highly respected Lexington Lafayette team on the road, 35-30. Following another six-game winning streak, Brooksville came to Maysville and knocked off the Bulldogs, 43-41, in a double overtime thriller. That defeat was the first of four consecutive losses before Jones righted the ship with a rout of Mt. Sterling, 62-22.
The next game was the low point of the entire campaign when Inez came to Maysville and delivered the Bulldogs its 24-point loss, which represented the second time in two weeks that Maysville fell to Inez. Their other defeats came at the hands of Olive Hill and, for the second time in the season, a loss to Lexington Lafayette, this time, a three-point loss at home.
The Bulldogs ran the table after the stunning loss to Inez, beginning a season-ending 14-game win streak with a satisfying 54-39 win at Brooksville to avenge the earlier defeat. The regular season ended with a 56-48 win over Louisville Manual and Maysville was 17-6 heading into the postseason.
Maysville breezed through the district tournament and the first two games of the regional at Paris High School, setting up a rematch with Brooksville in the title game. The Bulldogs prevailed in another close contest, pulling out a 34-31 win and capturing its third of what would become four consecutive 10th Region titles, meaning a trip to the Armory in Louisville for the Sweet Sixteen.
George Cooke, an eighth grader, stepped up his play late in the season, finishing the year as the team’s fourth-leading scorer in the Bulldogs’ balanced attack. Cooke led Maysville with 39 points in the three regional games, including a team-high 11 in the championship game over Brooksville.
“Cooke was the key to the whole season,” recalls Caproni, and Griffin was also complimentary of the talented eighth grader.
“Cooke and Bobby Ormes were both eighth graders in 1947 and they both played quite a bit,” said Griffin. “George knew where the basket was and he took the ball inside strong.”
The team leaders were Ed LeForge, Gus Stergeos and Buddy Shoemaker, Harold Walker and Buddy Gilvin.
Caproni referred to LeForge as the “steadying influence and even though he was a late bloomer he later played at Kentucky Wesleyan.” LeForge finished the season as the team’s top point producer, averaging 9.0 points per game. Stergeos was the Bulldogs’ second-leading scorer, averaging 8.4 points.
Shoemaker, described by Caproni as a “terrific player” was named to the all-state team in both 1947 and 1948, despite averaging just 7.8 points per game for the state champions.
“Bud was rangy, he had long arms and great hands,” added Caproni. “He played some in the pivot and was only about 6-foot-1 but he played like he was 6-5.”
Griffin was complimentary of Walker and Gilvin and feels that Gilvin deserved all-state consideration as well.
The primary authority on high school basketball in the commonwealth, who has witnessed more Sweet Sixteen games than anyone, Griffin still remembers the 1947 tournament with fondness.
After Maysville dispatched Corbin (39-30) in the opening round and Magnolia by a 48-43 score in its quarterfinal matchup, the Bulldogs were forced to meet Owensboro in the semifinals, held on Saturday morning.
“Owensboro was a very big team and Maysville wasn’t supposed to have a chance to beat them,” said Griffin. “We were probably 15-point underdogs in that game but instead, we won by 15 (56-41) and had to play Brewers, a team that hadn’t been beaten all season, in the final Saturday night.”
In the upset win over Owensboro, Gilvin paced the Bulldogs with 13 points and was joined in double figures by Cooke and Shoemaker, who each tossed in 12.
That victory set up the championship against Brewers, another school no longer in existence from the far southwestern part of Kentucky, in Marshall County.
Led by LeForge’s 14-point effort, with assistance from Shoemaker, who scored 12, and Walker’s 10, Maysville pulled off what appeared to be an impossibility just a few weeks prior, by holding off Brewers for a 54-50 win and the only boys’ state title in the history of the school, in their seventh appearance in the event.
(According to the March 24, 1947 edition of the Daily Independent, Maysville girls’ team won a state title in 1926 before the Kentucky Athletic Association outlawed girls from playing organized basketball in 1931.)
The Bulldogs fell in the title game in 1938 to Sharpe, 36-27, and returned in 1948, coincidentally facing Brewers again in the final.
The Marshall County school exacted a measure of revenge by winning 55-48, after a tired Maysville team had defeated a legendary Carr Creek team in the semifinals.
All of that would occur one year after the winning 1947 team surprised the local populace with a magical season, setting off what the newspaper termed at the time, “a riotous welcome from fans.”
The title game was won by the Bulldogs because of their outstanding team play led by Coach Jones’ superlative coaching, which Griffin remembers well.
“It was a very balanced team and Coach Jones emphasized team play,” said Griffin. “In that championship game, Coach Jones’ strategy really confused Brewers. He used players at different positions during the game and Brewers didn’t know who they were supposed to be guarding.”
The game was close throughout but Maysville prevailed by a four-point margin after leading at the end of each period. Ormes was mentioned in the game account for his scrappy play as he swarmed all over the court after being inserted into the lineup. Shoemaker was credited for leading the Bulldogs in the first half, “while in the second half, LeForge, playing his last game under the Gold and White colors, took over.”
The final three paragraphs of the game story from the March 24, 1947 Daily Independent describe the title game vividly:
“The championship game was won, as were all other games in the state round in which Maysville participated not by any individual but by team play.
As the final gun sounded, the players and Maysville fans gathered up their master-mind coach, placed him on their shoulders, and carried him through the Kentucky Hotel as the group staged a demonstration.
So happy were the Maysville players and their coach over winning the state event that they could not restrain themselves and tears of joy streamed down their faces.”
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