PROMOTION
HALL OF FAME UPCOMING EVENTS Oct. 2: Kansas City Celebrity Golf Classic Oct. 12: First Annual Sporting Clays Shoot Oct. 16: Football Kick Off Luncheon with Dick Vermeil, Trent Green and Mike Jones For details, visit: www.mosportshalloffame.com Lonnie Combs, 34, guarded by three Salem High School players in the Springfield Blue & Gold tournament. The Salem Tigers were coached by Charlie Spoonhour, who went on to college coaching fame. Bradleyville won the game.
filled the once empty gym. They entered the Hartville tournament and won. They played and won their tenth game — more games won in one year than Bradleyville had won since becoming a four-year high school in 1942. Roy Combs was known as the Iceman. Gibson said he would rather be one point behind with 10 seconds to go with the ball in Roy’s hands than to be one point ahead with the other team in possession. Roy was dependable and proved it at the old Brewer Field House in Columbia when he hit the winning shot to beat North Harrison High School for the 1962 Class A state championship. Most citizens of Bradleyville drove to Columbia to watch the Eagles and followed them back the next day in a caravan featuring pickups with gun racks in the back windows. The Springfield News-Leader photographed the entire K-12 school, about 140 kids, and ran it on the front page. During the year, Bradleyville, with 65 high school students, had beaten schools 20 times larger. Coach Gibson left at the end of the year,
taking a job at a larger school. Argil Ellison, fresh out of college, took his first coaching job at Bradleyville. The Eagles won almost every game during the next four years, failing only at the end of the first season to get to the state semifinals. Ellison felt especially good about his team going into the fall of 1966. Bradleyville met the 2,000-student Springfield Parkview High School in the Blue and Gold tournament during the Christmas break. The Blue and Gold tournament drew large crowds when small schools had the opportunity to play large schools. David Combs, Bradleyville’s 6′5″ prep All American center, complained to coach Ellison, “You are calling too many time outs. We’re never goin’ to get out of here. Me and Rex Maggard are goin’ coon huntin’ tonight, if this is ever over.” Bradleyville proceeded to beat the unbeaten Parkview Vikings. After losing a game early in the season, the Eagles from the tiny village in the hills were undefeated the rest of the year, downing Archie High School to win another state championship.
Every opponent was gunning for Bradleyville, ranked number one at the beginning of the ’67-’68 season, but David, his cousin Lonnie Combs, Duane Maggard, Garlin Pellham and Kenny Newton methodically hammered all comers. They won every tournament they entered, including the Blue and Gold for the second consecutive year, winning 63 games in a row over two years. On March 2, 1968, the Eagles faced a formidable foe in the state championship game. The Howardville Hawks was a powerhouse African-American school from southeast Missouri. The Hawks featured two 6′6″ men and two lightning-fast guards, one 5′5″ and the other 5′7″. The Eagles and Hawks fought a great battle. Howardville led by two with 10 seconds left in regulation. Ellison called time out, reminding his players that 10 seconds was plenty of time. Lonnie inbounded the ball, Duane got it to David down under, and David tied the score with his famous jump shot, ending regulation in a tie. The teams played four overtimes, setting a state record for the longest game in playoff history. Bradleyville pulled out the win in the final seconds, its 64th consecutive win, a record that stands today. This true story is based on a book, Bradleyville Basketball, The Hicks from the Sticks, by James Leon Combs, a bestseller in the process of being made into a feature-length movie. The book is available on Amazon.com.
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