Forty years later, it seems almost ludicrous.
It seems almost impossible to believe that Chicago was once the joke of Illinois high school basketball.
This is the town, Peoria Manual notwithstanding, that believes it practically owns the sport. This is the town that before Manual’s current four-year title streak had won nine of the previous 21 Class AA state championships.
This is the town that figures this year’s tournament is little more than a victory lap for Young.
It’s the way the rest of Illinois–curiously dubbed Downstate, even though part of it lies north of Chicago–used to feel. Downstaters always believed the state title was more their right than a privilege, and who could blame them?
For the first 30 years after its public high schools joined the march into madness in 1928, Chicago’s forays into the tournament had ended in futility. The city, in fact, could get just one of its teams into the state-title game; and that DuSable team, then considered perhaps Chicago’s best ever, had fallen to Mt. Vernon in 1954.
Downstaters snickered that their patterned brand of basketball was superior to Chicago’s more wide-open style. Some whispered that the black players who dominated Chicago ball lacked the discipline and defense necessary to win the only game that mattered.
That all ended March 22, 1958.
In a game that changed Illinois high school basketball forever, that signaled the start of its transformation from country game to city game, Marshall defeated Rock Falls 70-64 at Illinois’ Huff Gymnasium.
It was the first state title for a Chicago team, the first state title for a predominantly black team; and it sparked a Windy City celebration that lasted for days.
“We knew the whole city of Chicago–all the teachers, all the students, all the parents, the neighborhood kids, the business associations–we knew everyone was depending on us to bring back the big trophy,” said George Wilson, a center on the team. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t disappoint the folks back home.”
The road to the historic title started the previous summer when Isadore “Spin” Salario returned to Marshall from a year’s sabbatical. He inherited a veteran team that had finished second in the Public League playoffs in 1957 and would feature Wilson, a 6-foot-6-inch sophomore of immense ability.
“We had height, speed, experience and chemistry,” Salario said Wednesday as he leafed through scrapbooks in his northwest suburban home. “I knew we could compete with any of the Downstate teams.”
Salario believed Chicago teams fell short in Champaign because they wore down late in the season and flinched on defense. So he made his players do calisthenics until their bodies ached and ran them until their lungs screamed.
On defense, he used a full-court press and a half-court trap; on offense, his orders were to run always and shoot early.
“He just basically told us, `I’ll get you in condition to run and shoot and press all the time . . . and win,’ ” Wilson said.
Perhaps most important, Salario kept his players focused on the game at hand instead of a state title, never mentioning the chance to make history. He also kept his seniors’ egos in check, a key because Wilson, who became unstoppable once Salario taught him the hook shot, got a ton of media attention.
Marshall sailed through the regular season, and a trip to the supersectionals seemed assured when it led Dunbar by five late in the Public League title game.
Salario, however, didn’t believe in protecting a lead. The Commandos kept running and gunning and had to go into overtime to win 68-59 and move on to the supersectional against Elgin.
At 26-0, Marshall was the only undefeated team in the state, but a published poll ranked it just fifth among the Sweet 16.
“The attitude was Downstate coaching was better and their players were better,” said M.C. Thompson, a junior forward for Marshall. “Chicago had to break through that.”
Marshall beat Elgin 63-43 in Evanston behind Wilson’s 26 points and headed to Champaign for a quarterfinal game against No. 2 Herrin.
The Commandos defeated Herrin 72-59 Friday night and West Aurora 74-62 Saturday afternoon to advance to the title game that night against No. 1 Rock Falls. Wilson scored 28 in the first game, 23 in the second.
Only DuSable had gotten this far, and many Chicago fans believed it had been a victim of biased officiating. And it was clear racism was alive and well in Champaign when a motel employee turned away Salario’s all-black team even though it had reservations.
The coach found other lodging and kept the reason for the switch to himself, fearful of disrupting his players’ focus.
Rock Falls led 38-32 at halftime. Wilson was called for his fourth foul about 2 minutes into the third quarter and left the game with Marshall trailing 41-34, leaving its fans fearing a DuSable rerun.
But senior forward Steve Thomas, senior guard Bobby Jones and Thompson combined to score 32 of Marshall’s 36 remaining points. Wilson, who scored the other four to help seal the game, finished with a season-low nine. Thomas led all scorers with 26.
The victory sent Marshall’s fans into delirious celebration, but its players’ faces were oddly devoid of smiles. Some of that resulted from the fatigue that comes with playing three games in 24 hours, not to mention carrying the hopes of an entire city.
But some also may have resulted from hearing an announcer refer to Rock Falls as the state’s top team while presenting it the runner-up trophy, something both Wilson and Thompson recall with amazement 40 years later.
But if Marshall’s players and coaches couldn’t quite appreciate the magnitude of their victory then, they do now.
“Being the first (Chicago) team to win state is really big,” said Salario, a retiree who still works out 2 1/2 hours a day. “Sometimes I can’t really fathom it.”
Wilson would lead Marshall to the 1960 state title and win an NCAA championship at Cincinnati and an Olympic gold medal, but he calls that ’58 crown one of his greatest thrills.
“I was part of history,” said Wilson, a dean and coach at an alternative school in Cincinnati.
Thompson, who starred at DePaul and is now branch director for an Atlanta YMCA, says he and his teammates never set out to prove anything.
“But when we won it,” he said, “it became kind of a rallying cry for other city teams that they could do it too.”
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Send e-mail to Barry Temkin at BarTem@aol.com
