Eyeball-to-eyeball, no one blinks in the Public League Red-West Section and gets away with it.
”It`s a devastating section,” says Crane basketball coach G.K. Smith.
”The sad thing about it is you have to see the teams play to see how really good we are.”
”It`s like the Big East,” adds Collins coach Don Russell. ”Instead of Georgetown, Syracuse and St. John`s, there is Collins, Marshall and Crane, but there is the same kind of intensity any time there is a game.”
”You grow up playing basketball on the West Side,” says Marshall coach Luther Bedford. ”By the time a kid gets to high school, you don`t have to take time to explain what a basketball is.”
By any standard of comparison, the Red-West is the most competitive section in the Public League, which is the biggest, and arguably the best, conference in the state.
No, there are no Simeons and Kings to destroy the opposition. The last Red-West team to go undefeated was Westinghouse in 1977, and the Warriors had Eddie Johnson and Mark Aguirre on that team. Even the 1980 Manley team, powered by Russell Cross, lost one game in the section before it went on to win the state title.
This year is no different. Collins and Marshall are tied for first place with 7-1 records, Crane is in third at 6-2, with Westinghouse and Farragut tied for fourth at 4-4. All five teams have winning overall records.
”You worry about what happens in the last two or three games,” says Russell. ”The year we lost to Simeon in double overtime in the city championship, we finished second in the section, but if we lost one more game we would have finished fourth or fifth. It is always that close.”
How close are the teams?
— Collins (15-3) lost to Marshall 65-61 and faces Crane Tuesday, a team it beat by 10 points in the first meeting.
— Marshall (13-6) dropped a 74-72 overtime game to Farragut and plays Westinghouse Tuesday, a team it beat by six earlier.
— Crane (13-3) lost to Collins and Marshall (72-66) in the first half of the season and after playing Collins Tuesday, tangles with Farragut Thursday. Crane won the first game against Farragut 62-60.
— Farragut (10-5), Westinghouse (11-8) and even Manley (7-9) figure to beat one or two of the front-runners before the city playoffs begin at the end of February.
Intensity of competition begins in the grade schools. ”We have a lot of elementary schools on the West Side who have basketball porgrams,” says Bedford. ”You can start playing basketball in 6th grade. Some of the schools even want to organize into a grade school league next year.”
The top six schools in the section are virtually within shouting distance of each other. Manley and Collins are separated by three city blocks. Marshall is six blocks north of Manley and one mile south of Westinghouse. Crane is a little more than one mile east of Marshall and Farragut is 12 blocks south of Collins.
”The kids grow up playing basketball with each other,” says Smith.
”They know each other since grade school and when they go to different high schools, they want to show their friends how good they are.”
Smith recalls the efforts of Tyrone Hymon, who scored 22 points, including the game-winning free throws, in Crane`s victory over Farragut. ”He started high school at Farragut then transferred to Crane, and you know he wanted to prove something to his friends at Farragut.”
”The West Side has always been basketball conscious,” says Bedford.
”That goes back more than 30 years when Marshall was the most dominant team in the city and won two state championships in three years.
”I know that on the South Side, there is a lot of interest in both football and basketball. Simeon and Julian, for example, can fill up a stadium in football. Here, on the West Side, we have trouble getting our own students to see a football game. It has always been a basketball community.”
Bedford is concerned that other schools, those in different sections, could come in and recruit the top grade-school players on the West Side. ”It used to be we had to battle Catholic schools for the best players, now every school in the city knows where the top players are.”
If you want to improve your skills on the West Side, says Smith, ”you can play all the year round. If it`s not at school, you can go to any of the neighborhood Boys Clubs to play. There is always some sort of tournament being held for grade-school players.”
Russell recalls his days as a player at Carver and later as a coach at Amundsen. ”The players on the West Side were always different,” he says.
”They were always tough. They still are.”
