The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
1942-43 Kirtland hoops won beyond court
Before closing the book on the winter season — there is a chance of snow in the forecast this week, after all — there is one more inspiring story I’d like to share with you from yesteryear.
The 1942-43 Kirtland boys basketball team had quite the makeup on the court — one of the school’s most successful athletic entries in the first half of the 20th century, a Class B county champion and sectional qualifier that credited a unique regimen for its success. But its makeup off the court proved to be something else entirely.
On March 15, 1943, nine days after the conclusion of their season, there it is in the Painesville Telegraph — at the height of World War II, with all the ramification it carried:
The 1942-43 Kirtland boys basketball team announced collectively it was trading in its basketball uniforms for those of Uncle Sam, declaring every player on the roster would be joining the armed forces as soon as possible to fight for their country.
It’s been 75 years since those sentiments. The players who expressed them averaged 5-foot-7½ and 144 pounds. There were 21 juniors and seniors in the school, and 14 were out for hoops, 15 counting the manager.
But as the lens of retrospect clearly shows, their measurables in heart and mettle were off the charts.
Kirtland’s roster that winter consisted of Ralph Dyke, team captain Bill Parsons, Bob Johnson, Dick Stroud, Leonard Schneithorst, Frank Schafer, James Lemr, Gordon Wilcox and Paul
Kutscher, with team manager Vernon Chapman and Coach Henry LaMuth.
After season-opening losses in exhibitions against Euclid Shore and Mentor, the Hornets rattled off wins in 13 of their next 14, starting with a 36-25 win over Willoughby in which Dyke had 14 points and Johnson had 11.
“Although the Kirtland boys were at a disadvantage in the height department, they more than made up for this by playing speedy and aggressive basketball,” the Painesville Telegraph wrote. “They ran circles around the taller and slower Willoughby, and with their speed, they were able to get more than their share of the rebounds from the backboard.”
By February, they were rolling. Kirtland edged Harvey on Feb. 9, 1943, 32-30, and the Hornets, the Telegraph stated, “proved to be a TNT done up in a small package ... and they really unwrapped their lethal container before spectators at
last night’s routing.”
The postseason road was much different in that era. Kirtland first had to navigate the Lake County Class B tournament in order to qualify for sectional competition at Orange.
As has been noted a few times with other teams profiled from these years, tournaments sometimes consisted of playing two games in the same day.
That was no problem for the Hornets on Feb. 23 to earn the county’s Class B plaudits, with blowout wins over Wickliffe (38-22) and Madison (36-17). Johnson and Dyke, as they had for most of the season, paced the way offensively, combining for 48 points.
On March 5 at the Class B Orange Sectional, Kirtland opened with a 3736 overtime victory over Chardon. Dyke and Parsons fouled out in regulation, and the hero in OT was Schneithorst, who scored two points but hit the go-ahead free throw.
The road ended the
next afternoon, 26-23, to Bay, with Dyke scoring 10 points as the Hornets capped a 14-4 season. The legend was only starting.
After the season, LaMuth shared with the Telegraph the team’s key to getting on track after the setbacks to Euclid Shore and Mentor. How could a bunch of kids averaging 5-7½ — “from the smallest bailwick in Lake County,” as the Telegraph mentioned — enjoy such a turnaround?
“An analysis disclosed that both games in they were defeated mainly were lost in the second half of play. This fact indicated that the lads did not have the endurance to stand the pressure of an entire game, so it was necessary to discover something which would increase their energetic powers.
“Coach LaMuth finally hit upon a solution, but he was not certain how it would work out. Why not try feeding the team vitamins, all that were in the dieticians’ books, to see whether that
would increase their staying ability?”
Sure, why not? So LaMuth gave his players vitamins A, B, C, D, E and G, liver concentrate and iron sulphate in daily doses — and off they went.
After graduation, off they went to the battle theaters of the world. It’s one thing to plan to do that — and it’s quite another to actually do it. In this case, though, the promise was kept.
Among the 1942-43 Kirtland boys basketball team, seven served in the Navy, one in the Army and one in the Marines.
Schneithorst served aboard the destroyer escort USS Dorich in the south Pacific. Johnson was an aviation machinist mate on the USS Bairoko and Stroud was aboard the USS New Mexico, also in the Pacific Fleet. They all came home. Dyke was the longtime fire chief in Kirtland. Kutscher was a city councilman. Schneithorst helped lay foundation for the Little Red Schoolhouse
in Willoughby and was service director in Willoughby and Eastlake. Parsons was on the Kirtland zoning board and was a library trustee.
Stroud worked at East Ohio Gas for 30 years. Wilcox was a longtime custodian and bus driver for Kirtland. Johnson organized the Kirtland Youth Baseball League and built its first playing field.
“So as the basketball season ends, this championship quintet is preparing to carry their slogan with them when they trade their cage suit for a suit of khaki,” the Telegraph wrote March 15, 1943. “Play to the very end — you never can tell when a break will come your way.”
Through retrospect’s lens, maybe the break in the very end is having a generation like that to set such a high example.