The Boys of '52
Harry Truman was in the White House, TV was still in its infancy and the Glenwood boys basketball team was in the Iowa State Basketball Tournament for the first time.
The year was 1952.
Tuesday, the Rams make a historic return trip to state - taking on Williamsburg in the Class 3A quarterfinals at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.
It's been so long since the Glenwood boys last played at state (63 years), the school can’t locate a trophy or a plaque from that season.
That ‘52 season was a year of firsts for Ram basketball. First to win a Hawkeye 8 Conference championship – its first year in the conference, no less. The first to win a district championship. First to win a substate championship. First to earn a state tournament bid.
Just how big was the state trip for the Glenwood community?
A group of local businessmen chartered a plane to fly to the game in Iowa City.
“It was a smaller community then,” said Gary Newman, a student manager on the 1952 team. “And a smaller town, but it was a big deal for the whole community.”
A group of nearly 500 Ram fans packed into the University of Iowa Fieldhouse for the Rams’ state opening win over Manning.
Phil Edwards was the team’s point guard and one of five senior starters on the squad. Joining him in the backcourt was Stan Davis. Garth Collier was an undersized forward who led the Rams in scoring with 10.1 points per game. Duane Bruestle and Ron Vrba, 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-4, respectively, were the Rams’ top post-players. Guard John Gregory and Lyle Filkins were the top reserves. Davis, Edwards, Bruestle and Collier had played together since middle school. Vrba was from Nebraska and transferred to Glenwood in high school.
Bruestle, the team’s captain, was a big strong kid, according to Newman, who moved with his family to South Dakota prior to his senior year but he refused to go unless he was allowed to play basketball in Glenwood his senior year.
“He wouldn’t go unless they (his parents) promised he could come back for his senior year because he wanted to go to the state tournament,” Newman said.
“We had five seniors that were just awesome players,” said Bill Agan, a self-described “skinny, little freshman” and “12th man” on the varsity that season. “We worshipped those guys. With those guys, we’d get way ahead and us underlings got to play a little bit.”
Heading into that season, the buzz in the community was the Rams, with a senior-laden roster and coming off a strong football season, could be good.
Jerry Kaiman was in high school when the senior class of ‘52 was in eighth grade. He refereed games the season that bunch won the eighth grade championship in southwest Iowa. He can still recall a conversation he had with Coach A.C. Nuckolls about the group.
“A.C. Nuckolls told me, 'When those kids get into high school, they're going to state,’” Kaiman said. He went on to ask the legendary former coach why he thought that and Nuckolls said he was impressed that the boys on the team spent their summers together playing basketball on the hard-surface parking lot near the school (now West Elementary).
"They were a hard-working bunch of guys," Kaiman said.
Newman said he sensed the boys were in for a strong season but you can’t ever predict a state tournament-type season.
“You always had high hopes going into a season,” Newman said. “I don’t think they had any idea how good they were going to be. Everybody hopes for a great season. They were determined, I guess. The right guys coming together at the right time matters. Certainly there’s probably been better players one at a time or two at a time in Glenwood but when things come together like they did, it works out.”
The team was coached by Bill Miller and assisted by Nuckolls. Miller was a former University of Nebraska football player and Lincoln-native who coached just three seasons in Glenwood.
Agan recalls Miller as an “enthusiastic and animated” coach but one who everybody liked.
“He was an awesome coach but he put it to you,” Again said. “He was demanding but supportive. A very good coach. He wanted tough defense.”
The Rams gave up just 35.3 points per game that season to lead the conference. Both Davis and Edwards were second team all-conference players.
Glenwood beat Malvern and Silver City to open the 1951-52 season – Mills County had seven high schools at the time. After storming through its first season in the Hawkeye 8 Conference as co-champions with Creston, the Rams entered post-season play that season with a record of 18-3. But no one could have predicted Glenwood’s unprecedented run through districts and substate.
Wins over Council Bluffs St. Francis and Malvern in sectionals, Farragut and Missouri Valley in districts followed. Glenwood then knocked off Corning in the substate semifinals before facing undefeated Manning with a trip to state on the line. An article published in The Opinion-Tribune said “Glenwood’s remarkable Rams stunned the state Friday night as they won their mightiest task in the tourney burst with a 36-28 win over previously unbeaten Manning.” Manning entered with a 24- game winning streak.
Their 24-3 record in tow, Glenwood headed to Iowa City for the Iowa State Basketball Tournament. Iowa’s high schools competed in three classes (A, AA and B) then but all of the boys teams competed in a single, 16-team state tournament held at the University of Iowa’s Fieldhouse.
More than 9,000 attended the Ram’s state opening 41-35 win over previously unbeaten Grundy Center. Davis led Glenwood with 11 points. Vrba and Bruestle added 10 each.
Reporters estimated the crowd at 16,000 in the Rams’ quarterfinal matchup with tiny Dinsdale, then among the smallest schools in Iowa. The Red Devils were coached by John Paul Jones and had won 34 straight games entering the Glenwood game. Jones had formerly coached in Glenwood in the 1920s.
The quarterfinal was a dramatic, back and forth game that came down to the final two and a half minutes, according to The Opinion-Tribune coverage.
“It was the torrid see-saw battle in the last 2 1/2 minutes – rapid-fire exchange of seven straight baskets – that brought the jam packed galleries to life with an electrifying roar,” wrote sports writer Richard Osterholm.
Down 48-46 in the final seconds, the short-handed Rams – Vrba and Collier both fouled out in the third quarter – turned to Davis who charged to the basket and was fouled, giving the senior a chance to tie the game at the free throw line. But Davis missed the first of his underhand free throws before hitting the second. Dinsdale pulled out the oh-so-close 48-47 victory to end the Rams’ historic season.
Dinsdale would go on to lose to eventual state champion Davenport in the semifinals.
“I tried to erase that memory,” Newman said of his recollection of those fateful final seconds. “There were other mistakes, just like in any other game. No game comes down to one play.”
Newman said Davis was “distraught” after the game.
Newman doesn’t have just a single memory of that season six decades ago. He remembers most of the games at state and the traveling by car on country roads pre-interstate to Iowa City and staying at the Hotel Jefferson with all 15 other teams. And a congratulatory telegram from Farragut, a team Glenwood beat in districts, after reaching state.
“They said, ‘Don’t worry, those guys at the state tournament put their pants on the same way you do,’’ Newman recalled. “And Phil Edwards looked at the telegram and said, ‘Yeah, but they put them on a foot higher.’”
Edwards, Vrba and Bruestle have all since passed away. Davis currently resides in Des Moines and Collier retired to Arizona. Gregory is a resident at the Glen Haven skilled-care nursing facility in Glenwood.
Agan, who played sparingly in the regular season along side the team’s only other freshman, Jack Sprague, never got to play at state or in the post-season that year. He contracted the mumps a week before the end of the regular season and was left off the 12-man travel roster.
“There were 12 guys on the traveling squad and I was number 12, no questions about that,” Agan said. “And I just didn’t get back on. I went to the (state) tournament but I went as a spectator.”
By the time state rolled around, Agan was healthy again but had to watch his teammates from the stands. He said the community response and the Glenwood contingent at the games was loud and proud.
“It was pretty awesome,” he said. “It was pretty enthusiastic. It was the first time we had gone to state and we were in our first year in the Hawkeye 8. We were one of the smaller schools in the conference back then so we were really, really proud.”
There’s plenty of parallels between the 1952 Rams and the 2015 version. Both clinched state bids in Atlantic as heavy underdogs. Both teams started five seniors and played tough, hard-nosed defense. And both teams were sent off to state with a school pep rally and a fire truck procession around the square.
Current Glenwood boys basketball head coach Curt Schulte is aware of the historical significance of the Rams’ state trip, six decades removed from its only other visit.
The day before his team’s substate game against Denison, Schulte sat his team down for what they thought was a routine film review session. Unknowingly to his team, Schulte slipped in footage of the 1952 Rams’ state opener against Grundy Center. The video was a grainy, black-and-white conversion of a eight millimeter film.
“They loved it,” Schulte said of the 15 minute video. “We wanted to give them the feel of the state tournament 63 years ago and how they could make history by winning their substate game. I thought it was a pretty good motivational tool.”
It worked.
The Rams rallied from being down 11-2 just four minutes into the game and knocked off Denison in a thrilling 54-49 victory for their state bid. The Monarchs were ranked No. 6 in the state at the time and had defeated Glenwood twice already this season.
“I wanted them to visualize what that must feel like going up the ladder, cutting down the net and then looking at that 2015 banner sitting right next to 1952,” Schulte said.
Just hearing from fans, longtime Glenwood supporters and community members, has been fun, Schulte said.
“It’s great to get people’s feelings about that time and that team and relating it to now. It gets you fired up and you can tell it fires up people about our team.”