| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
TOM CHANEY, Of Writers and Their Books : Remembering Cuba A book review: When Cuba Conquered Kentucky, by Marianne Walker One who wishes may find a copy of When Cuba Conquered Kentucky at the same address on Water Street, Horse Cave, KY, where the Cubs dined in defeat and victory. By Tom Chaney bookstore@scrtc.com In March of 1951 the Cuba Cubs lost the final game of the state basketball tournament to Clark County by 25 points. Dejected and disappointed they began the eight hour drive back to Graves County. Their coach Jack Story had nursed a dream since 1937 of taking a championship team to the finals. His dream did not take into account losing in the finals. The drive home promised to be a long one. No matter that the Cubs had become the darlings of the tournament. No matter that the fans in Memorial Coliseum were wild about them. No matter that the whole of Kentucky had cheered for them through four games. They had lost. Second place is not as good as winning. Marianne Walker tells it in "When Cuba Conquered Kentucky" Marianne Walker tells the story in her highly readable book, When Cuba Conquered Kentucky, Rutledge Hill Press, 1999. Story had made lunch time reservations with Buster Tapp at the Old Southern Caf in Horse Cave. On their way into town down U.S. 31-W coach Story's new Kaiser had become the lead car in a tremendous procession. One hundred fans lined Water Street as the Cubs and their supporters stretched their legs and entered the caf. "Hardly anybody got much to eat that day because of all the excitement in and around the [Old Southern]," Walker writes. From Horse Cave to Bowling Green, through Auburn, Russellville, Elkton, Hopkinsville, Cadiz, Canton, and Golden Pond they were met by another sheriff or constable and escorted through streets lined with supporters. "To them, Cuba represented the dreams of all tiny communities across. . . Kentucky -- the Cubs' success was theirs, too." Well-wishers in Horse Cave initiated telephone network to alert fans along the route home that the champions were near According to Walker "This seemingly endless gauntlet of enthusiastic well-wishers was the result of the efforts of a small group in Horse Cave, who had initiated a network of telephone calls. The residents of one town would ring people in the next town to alert them that the motorcade was headed their way. This network ultimately stretched 140 miles from Horse Cave to Eggner's Ferry Bridge in Aurora." Crowd of 8,000 welcomed them in Mayfield After transferring to new, borrowed Cadillac convertibles at Pete Light Springs the team led an eight-mile long motorcade ending in Mayfield where a crowd of eight thousand welcomed them home. All of this for the runners-up. The Cuba story is a great deal like the Wayland story in 1956 where the promise of championship basketball can be realized by a tiny town with no other claim to fame. The ingredients in the Cuba phenomenon were a coach committed to the vision of championship and at least two players who bought into that dream in junior high school. Story's father was principal at Pilot Oak Story's father was principal at Pilot Oak in 1937. He asked his son to accompany coach Clovis Wallace to the state tournament to handle the money and act as team manager. Pilot Oak lost to Midway in the quarter finals. Midway won the championship. "As he sat in Alumni Gym in Lexington that March night in 1937 watching Midway receive the magnificent championship trophy, Jack was so struck by the magnitude of the ceremony he told the Pilot Oak boys sitting next to him, 'I'm gonna come back here some day and win me one of those!'" He never wavered from that vision. In 1947 he took over the coaching job at Cuba and never looked back. But he did look out his window at the playground. "Off to one side on the dirt basketball court, five skinny, shaggy-haired boys dressed in overalls and plow shoes were playing basketball. . . . The tallest one of the five had astonishing natural ability to fake his passes to the smallest boy, who moved so fast as he dribbled the ball that he seemed to be floating above the ground. . . . All five boys handled the ball, shot, and moved with natural ability. As he watched them, Jack Story broke out into laughter, saying to himself aloud, 'Well, I be damned.'" Story unlentingly taught, coached and molded For the next four years Story unrelentingly taught, coached, molded Charles Kenneth "Doodle" Floyd, Howard "Howie" Crittenden, Jimmie Webb, Raymon McClure, Joe Buddy Warren, and the others into that championship combination which took second place in 1951 and won it all the next year.Doodle and Howie were the nucleus of the team as they moved from eighth grade to final night against Manual in March 1952 in Memorial Coliseum. Those boys also bought into the dream of hard work and glory. The Cubs made a pact in their room at the Phoenix Hotel after the defeat in 1951. Next time they would win! They needed greater endurance to win it all They saw clearly that the loss to Clark County had come from a lack of endurance. "They ran and practiced basketball all summer long. . . . Many mornings before school Howie and Doodle would run from their homes in Pilot Oak to Wrays three mile away where Ted Bradley and Jimmy Webb lived. Then all four would run to Cuba four miles down the road. . . . In the evenings sometimes, they'd run ten miles to Mayfield and back. Every afternoon they practiced." Story had showed the team a film of the Harlem Globetrotters early on. The boys adopted the freewheeling style of the Globetrotters, even to using their theme -- "Sweet Georgia Brown." Their flashy style coupled with their skill endeared them to their fans from the Jackson Purchase and across the state. Story and his cubs claimed the steak dinner in Horse Cave that Buster Tapp had promised at the Old Southern After their defeat of Manual, Story and his Cubs claimed the steak dinner Buster Tapp had promised at the Old Southern in Horse Cave. Their progress from Lexington back to Mayfield far exceeded that of the year before -- capping the American dream of coach and team. Marianne Walker has done a valuable service recounting the Cuba era in Kentucky basketball. She may be forgiven for getting the name of the Old Southern wrong and moving Horse Cave to Edmonson County. One who wishes may find a copy of When Cuba Conquered Kentucky at the same address on Water Street where the Cubs dined in defeat and victory. Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, smoking pipe-weed, and occasionally selling books at: THE BOOKSTORE Box 73 / 111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749 270-786-3084 Email: Tom Chaney bookstore@scrtc.comVisit website: The Bookstore This story was posted on 2006-03-22 14:30:19
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know.
More articles from topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books:
TOM CHANEY: Of Writers and Their Books/King Kelly Coleman biography TOM CHANEY: Of Writers and Their Books/Elvis biography TOM CHANEY: Of Writers and Their Books View even more articles in topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
