The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Prep sports’ impact evident amid WW2
There was a time when, briefly, it was questioned whether high school sports should be part of the landscape.
As we begin a new calendar year, it is a time in part to express gratitude for who and what we have — and to pause and reflect upon those gifts.
In a high school sports sense, merely having the opportunity to compete seems like a given that could never be taken from American youth.
But there was a time when, briefly, it was questioned whether high school sports should be part of the landscape.
And in that moment, it was reinforced what they mean to their communities, big and small, across this country.
Seventy-five years ago, as 1943 began, the United States was of course embroiled in World War II.
There was no end in sight for the fighting abroad, being waged in part by young people who a few years prior had been the backbone for high school sports back home as athletes themselves.
Rationing was common for food, transportation and power because the resources were deemed essential to helping back the war effort.
The National Federation of State High School Associations mailed a survey to all 40 of their member states, curious as to how their schools were dealing with the situation.
“Our survey shows that last September (1942), many school officials were on the fence, not knowing whether to continue sports or not,” NFHS executive secretary H.V. Porter said in a story Feb. 9, 1943, in the Painesville Telegraph and in newspapers across the country.
All but four states, after consideration, elected to hold their basketball tournaments. Nevada, Maine, Montana and Michigan ended their tournament play after sectionals because of gas rationing.
Some schools made up their minds. Five percent of schools surveyed dropped their 11-man football teams, and 15 percent dropped their sixman football. Coaching staffs were reduced by 25 percent since the start of the war, and travel was reduced 35 percent. Gate receipts dropped 25 percent.
But high school sports kept going.
“American high school officials feel it is their patriotic duty to continue interscholastic sports for the duration and that football, basketball, track and other sports will have their places in the 1943 picture, curtailed only by transportation limitations,” the Telegraph wrote.
One area team that almost didn’t make it to the court that winter with the eye for rationing was the boys basketball squad at Chardon. It was reported at the time the school board was concerned with the resources being devoted to travel to away events, and that transportation should only be done in school buses.
But then-Hilltoppers coach Fred Scott had 58 boys playing games among themselves nonetheless. The boys and their parents pleaded for Scott to find a way forward.
Scott met with the school board trying to alleviate concerns, and four days before Christmas, Dec. 21, 1942, permission was granted to have a basketball team when it appeared Chardon wouldn’t have one that year.
“Transportation was the stumbling block, and Scott told the board the boys claimed they could get plenty of gas for games,” the Telegraph reported.
Scott said his eight varsity team members — returning lettermen Len Pentek and Dan Price, newcomers
Don Rhodes, Don Tincher, Dick Pentek and Robert Whitney and transfers Homer Barham and Will Shannon — would be “willing to pass up picture shows and other social events so they can save gas to go to games.”
The coach scheduled one game against Thompson (precursor to Ledgemont), but would not send out contracts for other games until the district was satisfied the transportation issue was resolved.
In the surveys, states and their member schools disclosed how they were making a go of it. Many coaches had been called into active duty, but principals and superintendents took over the vacancies.
For throws during the spring in track and field, athletes were said to use stove lids for discus practice, and one even used a 12-pound cog wheel from a corn grinder for shot put.
And some teams, when gas rationing wasn’t having the desired effect, walked. Some teams were reported to have walked 10 miles to take on neighboring schools as scheduled.
“Schools cannot afford to lose spectator interest in prep sports, because that interest is really an interest in the youth of the community,” Porter said. “It keeps the adults interested in young people — in the development of the youngsters.
“Prep sports are contributing to the American victory program. And since they are, school officials feel obligated to continue them — and they have an obligation, too, to the youth of their community. We must give these youngsters this chance to forestall a ‘what’s the use’ attitude as the boy approaches armed service age.”
They walked. They rationed. They pleaded.
So just when it seemed there was doubt as to the value for high school sports in an era dominated by a more important purpose, Americans answered loud and clear for that albeit brief escape.
Lillstrung can be reached at CLillstrung@NewsHerald.com; on Twitter: @CLillstrungNH