History repeats: Ashland not first unbeaten to lose state title hopes to quarantine
Should the suspension of the 2020 Kentucky Boys’ Sweet 16 — part of the efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic — ultimately lead to its cancellation, it will be an especially bitter blow for one school.
Had the world remained normal, unbeaten Ashland Blazer, champions of the 16th Region, would have faced 5th Region champ Elizabethown (27-3) on Wednesday in Rupp Arena in the first round of the state tournament.
At 33-0, the Tomcats of Coach Jason Mays would have come to Lexington needing four victories to become the first undefeated Kentucky boys’ basketball state champion since Brewers (36-0) in 1948.
Amazingly, Ashland is not the first Kentucky high school boys’ hoops team whose realistic drive for a perfect state championship was ended by what was essentially a medical quarantine.
On Feb. 28, 1936, Coach Milburn Taylor’s Benham Tigers ended their regular season with a 44-28 victory over Knoxville (Tenn.) Central. It gave the school from the coal-mining town in Harlan County a perfect 22-0 record.
For reasons you will see below, the most impressive of those 22 wins was a road victory earlier that 1935-36 season at Corbin.
The Benham players, led by star Wyatt “Spider” Thurman, had every reason to think they had as good a chance as anyone to win the 1936 state championship.
Then, for reasons similar to what has happened to Ashland in 2020, they never got to try.
On the front of the March 6, 1936, sports section of what was then called The Courier-Journal, sportswriter Earl Ruby reported that the 63rd District Tournament had been canceled. That was done “following the decision of Harlan County authorities in forbidding the playing of the district tournament because of the epidemic of spinal meningitis which has claimed 25 lives in the county.”
In an echo of our own times, Ruby reported that the initial plan was to conduct the 63rd District Tournament at Harlan — comprised of the teams from Black Star, Cawood, Evarts, Hall, Harlan, Highsplint, Loyall, Lynch and Wallins in addition to Benham — “behind closed doors, only the players and the officials being admitted, but the health officials decided against that plan last night.”
Bill DeVary, 86, is a former, longtime Kentucky high school basketball referee. He spent the first 10 years of his life living in Benham, where his parents, Reuben (math) and Sue (English), taught at the high school.
Reuben DeVary even drove the team bus for the Benham basketball team.
Though only 2 in 1936, Bill DeVary says he grew up listening to stories about the ill-fated 1936 Benham basketball season.
What made the plight of the Tigers basketball team even more frustrating, Bill DeVary says, is that the meningitis outbreak in Harlan County had not reached Benham.
“It was not in Benham. It was not in Lynch. It was not in Cumberland,” Bill DeVary says. “... None of those towns were affected. But they had this meningitis scare (in other parts of the county) and whoever was in charge said they couldn’t play.”
The exasperation in Benham only increased when Corbin led by star center Marion Cluggish — at 6-foot-7, considered a giant at the time — emerged from an upset-laden Sweet 16 as the state champion.
“That year, (Benham) had beaten Corbin by 27-14 at Corbin,” DeVary says. “I was raised on the ‘fact’ that Benham had the better ball club that year.”
The state champion Redhounds finished their season 28-1.
In 2020, Ashland’s situation may ultimately be different than what befell Benham 84 years ago. This year, there may not be a state champion at all. For Tomcats fans, that may be a little easier to live with.
DeVary says folks at Benham, including his parents, never fully got over the disappointment of their unbeaten 1936 basketball team not getting the chance to compete for a state championship — only to see it ultimately won by a team the Tigers had defeated.
Benham never won a state title. The school, which closed in 1961, made two Sweet 16 trips, in 1931 and 1935, but lost in the first round each time.
After Benham, “Spider” Thurman went on to become a three-sport athlete at Eastern Kentucky University, and an EKU football star. Following college, Thurman became an iconic high school basketball coach at Clay County, going 279-54 with six trips to the Sweet 16 in 12 years.
As a hoops referee, DeVary worked games in which Thurman coached. He said he would sometimes bring up 1936 and the spinal meningitis quarantine that cost a Benham team with a perfect record a chance at postseason glory.
“That ate at (Thurman) for his whole life,” DeVary says. “He thought they were really good. And, to the day he died (Feb. 28, 2015), he thought they should have gotten to play (in the postseason).”
This story was originally published March 18, 2020 at 7:46 AM.
