3/9/2010
TIM UNRUH
BROOKVILLE — They’re old men, now, who have logged lifetimes of sweet memories, from falling in love to parenthood, career moves and retirements.
When March rolls around, however, one cherished recollection common to a shrinking group of Brookville High School Cardinals briefly trumps them all.
“At the time, it was the biggest thing that ever happened to us,” said Ward Watkins, 74, the sixth man on the 1952 Cardinal state championship team.
A town of a few hundred people, from a high school with 25 students, the Cardinal players, bolstered by an athletic hitch-hiker from Detroit, bagged the first-ever Class BB state title, edging Haviland 53-51 in the championship game.
They played in front of 7,000 fans in the shiny new Hutchinson Sports Arena.
“We’d never seen glass backboards before,” said Sam Alcorn, 75, of Colorado Springs, who was a starter on the Brookville squad.
“It was like shooting in a wheat field,” said Alan Neelly, 75, of Hutchinson. He was a senior on the Haviland squad.
“Yeah, we got second place because of (Brookville). They had a good ball club,” he said.
The state crown was “like a miracle,” said Bernie Johnson, 74, of Topeka, the Cardinals’ point-guard. “I don’t have the words. It’s a big event in your life.”
He was among three from the team who admit a state crown wouldn’t have been possible without the raw athletic prowess of Doug Clash, a brash 6-foot-6 kid whose move to Brookville in 1949 was pure chance.


Read more about the Ell-Saline state championship team in Wednesday's Salina Journal.

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