Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 4, April 2003

Copyright 2003 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article and photos below in your research. Be sure to quote the Seattle Sun as your source.

STAN'S LOOKOUT

Basketball game brings back memories

By STAN STAPP

LITTLE DID I REALIZE, as I paid my two-bits and walked into the Morgan Junior High gym, that I was about to witness a doubleheader basketball game played by boys and, in addition, a lot of clever gymnastics performed by girls.

It occurred on a Friday evening 45 years ago. I wrote about it in my Outlook column of Feb. 20, 1958 interested in comparing the differences between youth activities of that day, and when I was a junior high student in 1933.

Thus began my Outlook column:

THE BAND WAS competently playing a boogie number as eight rosy-cheeked song leaders, girls in green sweaters and beanies, swirled and swished their white pleated skirts and green pompoms, leading the student body in a school yell.

The automatic scoreboard flashed green and orange numerals indicating the remaining minutes before game time.

The two pink-legged squads, professionally attired in green and yellow for Morgan, and green and white for Butler Junior High (another North End school), plus students in matching beanies pony-tailed girls with yellow scarves, or colored barrettes or that girl with the beautiful long red hair (a rare sight

today) and even the gym itself, with walls of canary and blue-gray, split by the now raised burnt orange curtain which is lowered to make two gyms (one for each sex) during school hours all making a very colorful scene.

As Morgan at the moment houses sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, the preliminary game was a seventh grade contest which from the first was evidently going to be a fairly even one.

The song leaders lost no opportunity to work in another yell, and if you haven't kept up on school yells, here are several:

Song Leaders: "ALL SET?"

Students: "YOU BET!"

Everybody: "LEAN TO THE LEFT, LEAN TO THE RIGHT, STAND UP, SIT DOWN,

FIGHT TEAM FIGHT!" (A lot of action in this one!)

Another:

Song Leaders: "ALL SET?"

Students: "YOU BET!"

Everybody: "TWO BITS, FOUR BITS, SIX BITS, A DOLLAR. ALL FROM MORGAN STAND UP AND HOLLER!" (Even inflation hasn't changed this one.)

Another:

Song Leaders: "ALL SET?"

Students: "YOU BET!"

Everybody: "WE'RE FROM MORGAN, COULDN'T BE PROUDER! IF YOU CAN HEAR US, YELL A LITTLE LOUDER! YEAH!" (By the third time this gets pretty loud, all right.)

After every yell, the eight Song Leaders pick up the pieces of paper that swish off their pompoms, as the teams take to the floor again.

Despite the closeness of the contest (the half ended 11-14) I noticed that quite a number of students seemed to thrive on the excitement generated without being particularly aware of the basketball game being played.

Such as the little black-haired girl in saddle shoes who constantly chewed bubble gum, proficiently popping rather large size bubbles. Whether she eventually swallowed the gum, I don't know, but three times at least she left her seat, and went somewhere outside the gym, and came back with a new stick of gum.

I was a little surprised towards the end to see this 12-year-old show up with a cigarette. I was just about to warn her about the danger of smoking as she put the lighted end into her mouth until I noticed the brand she was smoking was "Lucky Smiles!"

Each quarter, as the scoreboard recorded the remaining seconds left, the entire crowd of 528 students and parents started counting down from 10.

Whichever player had the ball at the count of "ONE" would give a giant heave towards the basket, even if he was clear at the other end of the floor.

But the crowd was fooled at the end of the game when a timeout was called with but five seconds to go. They kept counting anyway, then had a good laugh on itself. Morgan won the first contest, 31-25, and was over-confidently relaxing for an easy eighth grade "varsity" game, until they saw the size of those boys from Butler. Several were roughly one-foot taller than the Morgan players. The height advantage showed up at the backboards and Butler was off to a 19-4 lead. Anything looked good at the time to Morgan supporters, the father sitting behind me commenting as Morgan made it 19-6 at the half: "Well, we closed the gap."

Morgan actually outplayed Butler the second half, but the lead was too much to overcome and the varsity game ended 33-25.

Butler was undoubtedly helped by the spirited rooting of a half-dozen girls who showed up for the second game. Brave, but self-conscious, they made nearly as much noise as the entire Morgan rooting section. I have a suspicion they were Butler's Song Leaders, but were not supposed to "take to the floor." Other sidelights that made the game interesting: The time the gym teacher climbed a step ladder under one of the baskets, knocking the ladder over, and clinging to one of the basket supports until rescued ... the activities of the school principal who always had a worried look on his face as he moved rapidly about, solving problems of seating, etc ... or the incongruity of the band in being able to play "Lullaby and Goodnight" while the students chanted "FIGHT, BEAT 'EM, FIGHT, BEAT 'EM," ... excellent half-time entertainment featuring student tumblers in various exhibitions ... eight girls in white blouses, blue shorts, and white shoes and sox, skipped

rope in time to a lively recording of "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby."

Four boys and four girls demonstrated rope climbing, the boys team making it with a little more ease to the ceiling beam than the girls some 25 feet up. But the girls were smoother than the boys as they demonstrated the bird's nest, skin the cat, inverted hanging, etc. Appreciative whistles greeted the girls on every performance.

Highlight of the tumbling was the game of drop-out in which 16 girls took turns diving over first one girl, then two, and so on, until only one tumbler was left who successfully made it over five girls, and then completed three smooth somersaults.

As a bugler softly played "Taps," 15 girls got down on their hands and knees and the "star" prepared to dive over 15 girls. It looked impossible and was. But the girl calmly turned three somersaults in a row down the backs of the 15 girls, and brought down the house with applause and laughs.

Now, what was so unusual about this basketball game, a junior high student might ask? To him, very little.

But to me it was a strong contrast with my days in junior high school. What I saw was the emancipation of students in several fields and the outward poise it had given them. When I attended Hamilton Junior High, if the school had a team, it was kept pretty much a secret. Inter-school rivalry at the junior high level was practically unknown: a night game would have been out of the question ... Boogie-woogie? Even Bing Crosby was a sinner then ... girl song leaders, girls in shorts, girls sitting with boys ... girls and boys tumblers performing together! ... At Hamilton you couldn't even walk to school with a girl if you didn't have a note from your parents and that even included walking with sisters.

And Morgan's principal didn't even wear a necktie! At Hamilton, all male teachers and students wore ties and if you forgot one you went to the gym the first thing and borrowed one from the emergency stockpile ... and the yells: "two-bits, four bits," etc. We may have gotten away with that language later at Lincoln High, but at Hamilton, if we'd had a yell it would have been cleaned up to: "Twenty-five cents, fifty cents," etc.

All in all I found the change of attitude good, the greater participation of the girls with the boys a healthy improvement, and the poise with which they accepted their greater responsibility, excellent.

My impression was that good citizens, not delinquents, were being bred here at Morgan and Butler.