Story by George Edmonston Jr.
Newberg has a forgotten sports story that needs to be brought back to life.
It took place over 90 years ago and involved a group of young men who had served their country during the years of World War I, 1917-1919. They were members of Newberg’s Lester Rees Post 57 of the American Legion.
In the early 1920s they joined together to fashion one of the best basketball teams of that era, not just in Yamhill County or the Willamette Valley, but the entire Pacific Northwest.
According to Faith Gerstel, current adjutant of the post, and custodian of the group’s archives, several of the players’ names appear on the original charter of Post 57, which dates to Oct. 1919.
The team had formed in November 1920 under the management of local dentist Legion member, Dr. E.H. Utter. The guys played their first games beginning in January 1921.
Their names: Earl Baird, Oswald “Ozzie” Best, Don Craw, Howard Elliott, Forest Grove, a man named Harrington, Carl Miller, Earl Moore, Joe Nelson, Harold Nichols, Art “Hap” Parrish and Ray Russell.
Elliott had been a star player for Coach Russell Lewis’ spectacular 1916-17 Pacific College (George Fox University) quintet, winners that year of the Willamette Valley League championship.
From 1921-23 Newberg’s Legion team lost two games, with wins over most of the colleges and universities throughout the Willamette Valley and Portland, including the UO and Oregon State.
And yet, this wasn’t their real measure of greatness. Their real measure came in March 1923 when Post 57 played a team of visiting professionals from Minneapolis, MN.
Once the flour milling capital of the United States, this great city with 20 lakes was home to the Minneapolis Globe Trotters (no relation to the more famous team from Harlem).
The Minneapolis Globe Trotters were professionals and a force to be reckoned with. Sporting a record of 47-3 against the toughest competition in their part of the country, they now turned their attention to the Pacific Northwest.
Scheduling games in Oregon against the two teams they held in highest regard--the Multnomah Club and the Arleta Club, both of Portland--they needed a third game to complete their junket.
So they asked the one person they trusted for a recommendation, Arleta Manager Ray Brooks.
Brooks didn’t hesitate. You’ll have your hands full with the Newberg American Legion team he told them.
And so the game was set. The Newberg veterans licked their chops.
The Newberg Graphic newspaper did its part to pump the excitement: “This will be the big game of the season and should draw the attendance of every fan in this community. The local Legion has a very heavy guarantee to meet in order to get the Minneapolis team to come here and in spite of this the price of the game will be the same as usual, 50 cents.”
Pacific College basketball coach Chester Jones helped prepare the Legionnaires by staging a “City Championship” the week before the arrival of the Globe Trotters, pitting his “Fighting Quaker” five against the Legion on the Pacific College court. Legion 21, Quakers 17.
The Graphic wrote: “There were but few fans (in attendance) because it was generally considered a walk-away for the Legion. The game was played (using) two sets of rules, the first half under intercollegiate rules, the second half professional, in order to accustom the Legion to such rules before playing the Globe Trotters.
And so the big day, or the big game, arrived. Once again, the “P. C. court” hosted. Over 600 people descended on the small gymnasium, 36x48-feet in size and fashioned in 1895 by splicing two barns together.
If the number 600 doesn’t sound like much, remember that in 1923 this was about the entire population of Newberg. The tally at the door amounted to over $300, or $4,350 in 2016 dollars.
In the final analysis,, the local vets gave the Trotters all they could handle. But it was not enough, with the visitors finally prevailing 15-12. The difference came at the free-throw line. The Legion couldn’t convert, the Trotters could.
The newspaper summed things up nicely: “From the spectator’s standpoint, it was a good game as the score was close at all times.”
Unfortunately, the reporter didn’t report when the game was played. The recap was printed in the Graphic on March 21, 1923.
Before closing, here are some tidbits for basketball aficionados who want to know more about how the game was played in the 1920s.
After each basket, the ball was returned to center court for a jump ball.
Beginning in 1923, the player fouled had to shoot. Prior to ’23, the best free-throw shooter on a team took foul shots for everyone.
There was no “stall” line at center court requiring the team with the ball a certain number of seconds to dribble past it.
In 1923, a player could re-enter a game only once.
“Home court advantage” was alive and well, with some teams showing great ingenuity in devising schemes to gain an edge. Example: The Pacific College March 1, 1921 student newspaper, The Crescent, reports the “bump board” (backboard) at Pacific University in Forest Grove being painted the same color as the ball, therefore making it difficult for the uninitiated (visitors) to secure rebounds or gauge distances to the basket on missed shots.”