Prospect High Boys Basketball Team of 1927 - "The Champions"

In the late winter of 1926, N. C. State College (N. C. State University or simply “State”) created and began a high school boys basketball tournament.  It seems to have been officially called “N. C. State College Invitational Basketball Tournament” and took place over a two and one half day period.  To make it fair, they divided the participating teams into three classes: A, B, and C based on the size and classification of the high school.

The college had a purpose behind this event – they wanted better communication between the schools of the state and the college itself.  All of this is per their 1927 Yearbook, The Agromeck. 

Continuing with the yearbook’s write-up found on page 249:  “It was decided that in view of the State elimination as sponsored by the University, that a basketball tournament open to all high schools was the best chance” [for contact].

That first year was far more successful than they ever dreamed – so successful that the 1927 year’s entries doubled the 72 schools entered the prior year.  They made the decision to limit the number of entries to 58 schools. 

That year, 1927, the Class C winners were the Prospect Boys Basketball Team from Union County, North Carolina. 

In the late Mary Hinson Whitaker’s book, Prospect Community Union County, North Carolina, 1817-1994, she recounts:

In 1927 Prospect’s boys’ team rode to Raleigh in freezing cold to participate in Class C schools tourney.  They played without all of their substitutes because they could not afford to take two cars.  They won the tournament, mostly on pure determination.  Perhaps, they also played harder because they realized they were underdogs, having come from a small, rural school without many of the advantages that others had.

Only 7 players made the trip in March of '27 – they are in the photo here from page 92 of the same book.  Whitaker lists them [not the order of the photo]:  Bundy Belk, Dowd Rape, Cyrus Purser, Ray Lathan, Frank Crane, Stanley Cox, and Clayton Purser. Added note:  Turns out that Whitaker had the names in correct order except for Belk - moving Belk to the third place makes the list correct.  A granddaughter of Dowd Rape correctly identified him as the first one on the left.  Still later, right under our noses at the library, this same (original) photo was shared by The Heritage Room with the Enquirer-Journal's "A Pictorial History of Union County, North Carolina (Vol. I)" published in 2005.  The caption had the order (surnames only listed here at this blog post) as:  Rape, Purser, Belk, Lathan, Crane, Cox & Purser. 

The son of the late Bundy Belk, whose visit to the Dickerson Room led to this blog post, shared that when they arrived in Raleigh, it was the first time they had ever played indoors.  Whitaker also points out in her book that the team played and practiced on a hard-pack dirt court.

It is probable that they did play some local games occasionally indoors, as there is evidence of  area school basketball games being played on a court at Lake Tonawanda, Monroe’s amusement center of long ago.  It is most likely that court was also the dance hall known to have been there.

Whitaker notes the rest of the team was:  Hugh Nesbit, Thurman Rape, Vern Moore, Wesley Hunter; the Principal of the school was P. O. Purser; Assistant, Tommy Hoover.

There was little fanfare made about this win in our local papers.   However, in the March 14, 1927 issue of The Monroe Enquirer (p. 5) there appeared the following recognition, over ten days after their win:

Next Thursday night at 8 p.m. Prospect and Waxhaw will play the first of a series of three games to decide the county championship.  Prospect has just returned from Raleigh, bringing home with them a silver cup, eight gold basketballs, and the championship of group ‘C.”  Waxhaw has won no laurels outside the county, but her team is recognized as a strong one.  Place, Lake Tonawanda.  Admission 25 cents.

In my effort to seek out the facts surrounding this event one thing was constant in my mind.

These 7 young men from the Prospect area of Union County reached for something that probably seemed just about impossible.  They crammed themselves into a single car (or truck perhaps, a more logical choice from down our way), bore the discomforts that so many would refuse to do so today and literally played their hearts out. 

Wow – what a story!  The stuff movies are made of, yes? 

Now that we have the order of the names confirmed, if you have anything else to share about this event, you can reach me at the Dickerson Room of the Union County Public Library in Monroe, NC.  704-283-8184 x224. 

Sources:

- Mary Hinson Whitaker’s “Prospect Community” (complete title in blog post)

- North Carolina State University 1927 Yearbook – accessed online a transcript of the page cited above at

http://www.e-yearbook.com/yearbooks/North_Carolina_State_University_Agromeck_Yearbook/1927/Page_249.html
NOTE:  On this same page was given the winners for both 1926 & '27:  Prospect won against a school listed as "Everetts". 

- Conversation with Michael E. Belk, April 4, 2014 at the Union County Public Library
-Amanda, granddaughter of Dowd Rape, visited The Dickerson Room to id her grandfather in the photo.
-A Pictorial History of Union County, North Carolina (Vol. I) - http://opac.union.lib.nc.us:8080/?config=pac#section=resource&resourceid=231591766&currentIndex=1&view=fullDetailsDetailsTab
For newspaper articles collected during research for this post please ask for:  UCVF: Union County Schools History - Prospect (at the Union County Public Library).
This post revised/tweaked several times over the course of April 5-6; Information about the team beaten for the win was added April 7, 2014.   This post was again revised on May 13, 2014 to update the seven names of the winning team and to add a link to catalog record of the book that contains a better copy of the original photo owned by The Heritage Room, not to be confused with The Dickerson Room.