Dan Mudd and Holy Rosary 1962

Part 1

The town has changed. The game has changed. Almost everything has changed really. When Dan Mudd played basketball at Holy Rosary High School in Monroe City, MO the gym ceiling hung at 14 feet above the well-worn floor and had sizzling steam radiators on a wall under each goal. Forget about any shot farther out than 10 feet unless you banked a laser off the metal backboard. And a hard drive to the basket without the ability to stop on a dime ended with a scorched butt.

When he returned to work at the school in 1959, a new gym had been built, one good enough to host a Regional Tournament. Mudd coached the basketball team, the baseball team, taught history and hygiene, and he made $300.33 a month. He held the job until the spring of 1966 when the school unexpectedly closed its doors.

What is the same is a now 85-year-old man who has remained not only true to his town and his profession but also to himself and his family, a consistency of character shaped by a burning ambition to lead young athletes. If you will listen close you can still hear it in his words. 

I had not spoken to Coach Mudd in almost 25 years.

“Doubt I have much that can be of any help to you,” Coach Mudd said upon greetings, “but let’s see what we can do.” We talked for over two hours.  

Until 1966, the Trojans of the Monroe City Catholic Church Holy Rosary fielded their own high school team, one with long and rich traditions. Many, now aging alumni keep the pride alive. The team Purple and Gold can trace their basketball playing roots as far back as the public school. In 1926, Monsignor E. Connolly led the first recorded edition of the Trojans.

Connolly, a native of Ireland, became a legend in his own right, arriving to open the school in 1919 and leading the parish for 55 years. In 1966, when the final graduating class marched out into the real world, the school had handed out its last of 668 diplomas.

Connolly left and indomitable mark on many Monroe City youngsters. One was Dan Mudd.

“Father Connelly was a man who just loved athletics,” Coach Mudd states, “If you would go over and check the trophy case in the old school, you will find pictures of him coaching football at Holy Rosary at what had to be back in the 1920s. I remember he was also a great golfer. He was the kind of guy that a young boy looks up to, turns into a hero.”

Seventy-five years later Mudd still recalls vividly the first time the Priest showed an interest in him - and it changed the trajectory of his life. “When I was in 5th grade,” Mudd recently shared with me, “My brother bought me a baseball glove for my birthday. We were out in the open field at recess and Fr. Connelly had a fungo bat,” Mudd remembers. “And I had my new glove. He said, ‘get out there in the field and let's see if you can catch a flyball.’ I was hooked after that. I knew I wanted to be a coach and I knew I wanted to be a teacher, just like Father Connolly.”

The Trojan basketball legacy is a shroud of myths. Such as the Archbishop himself decreed, after a fight during a Sunday afternoon game in the fall of 1959, that Holy Rosary and McCooey Catholic of Hannibal would no longer play. Or veteran official Bill Leaser barely escaped with his life from a charging Coach Ozzie Osborn after swallowing his whistle as Charles Kendrick was mugged on a layup as the buzzer sounded to end a one-point 1958 Regional Championship overtime loss to Madison, who would finish second in the Class S state tournament. Or Fr. Connolly was personal friends with Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. In 1925 the Trojans’ sent their star player, Lowell “Red” Hagan to South Bend to play for the Rock. In 1927 in a hotel room the night before the Fighting Irish tangled with the Iowa Hawkeyes, Ft. Connolly showed Rockne a trick play he had designed called the Flipper. Rockne used the play the next day and it became a staple of his playbook. He also took credit for designing it. Today the trickery is known as the widely used “flea flicker.” Or so the story goes.

Mudd would graduate from Holy Rosary with the class of 1955. After earning his teaching degree at Northeast Missouri State College in nearby Kirksville, Mudd became, in 1959, a trailblazer of sorts. “I was the first lay teacher ever hired by the school,” Mudd recalls, using a term for a teacher not belonging to a religious order; neither a nun or a priest. “There was a man in town named Maurice Ritter, we didn't have a school board. But he was kind of the guy in the Parish that oversaw the school. Holy Rosary had never had a teacher contract before. All the teachers had always been nuns and they didn't need contracts. Mr. Ritter went over to Mr. (Galen) Lankford, the Superintendent of the Monroe City public schools, and got one of their contracts. They crossed out Monroe City at the top and put in Holy Rosary. Filled in the amount $3601 and I signed it. That was the summer of 1959.” Mudd lived next door to the school.

In 1962, Coach Mudd and HR would produce the best one season record in school history, finishing 29-4. The team was led by John Thomas, the school’s career total points record holder with a total of 1,936.

“We had some really good teams at Holy Rosary,” Mudd states, “but my best team, by a whisker, was 1962. That was John Thomas’ senior year. I hope this doesn't make anybody mad, but John was the best player Holy Rosary ever had. He was the school's all-time leading scorer.”

Mudd recalls a fortuitus break in the summer of 1961 that helped stack even more talent at the small school. “The year before there had been a high school over at Indian Creek called St. Stephens. They closed and we had several of their boys move in. We were going to have a good team anyway, but they made us even better. And I remember there was a big commotion over whether they would be eligible or not. Eventually, the State Association said they were.”

A total of seven boys transferred from Indian Creek to Holy Rosary. Five played on the basketball team. For a school that finished the 1961 school year with only 17 boys enrolled, the St. Stephens additions were a windfall for HR.

The 1962 team was dominated by a strong senior class made even deeper by the Indian Creek additions. “I averaged 26 points a game my junior year,” stated John Thomas. “My senior year it was down to 21. We had a lot more help.”

TO BE CONTINUED AN NOON NEXT SUNDAY

 

 

Leave a Mark

If you're a high school basketball coach, the place you make your mark is in the gymnasium. It is where Coach Rick Baker is at home. “I have been doing it now for the last 48 years,” he says. “It has become my passion.”

At a recent Monroe City boys basketball game, the soon to be 71-year-old Panther assistant takes on a different persona than what I recall. Baker and I were head coaches of conference rival high school basketball teams in Kansas almost 30 years ago. Until this basketball season, I had not spoken to him since 1993. 

Observing him at a recent game, Baker, no longer occupying the seat at the head of the bench, to me, seems out of place. He logged almost 30 years as a head boys basketball coach, including a state championship campaign. Back in the 90’s he was demonstrative. He was a foot stomping, in your face type of coach who perpetually prowled the sideline. He was as an opposing coach irritatingly relentless, one who through his body of work earned your respect. Coach Baker was a very good coach and a worthy adversary. 

The best team I ever had in Kansas opened the season on a Friday night with a 27-point win over the pre-season #2 ranked Class 5A team in the state. The next Tuesday we traveled south down I-35 to Winfield for a visit with the Vikings and Coach Baker. It was never close. We were embarrassed. The next day newspaper headline was my one sentence post-game statement to the media: “I missed my son’s Kindergarten Christmas Program to watch this?” 

But now he sits stoically next to fellow assistant coach Ed Talton and two seats down from Panther Head Coach Brock Edris. He rises from his padded chair only for timeouts, and then he stands several strides away from the intensity of the team’s huddle, alternating postures from hands on hips to arms crossed as he listens to instructions barked by Edris. A head coach has no such time out decorum dilemma. You push your way to the middle of the players huddle, drop to one knee and deliver rapid fire hand gesturing instructional wisdom until you hear the buzzer. 

Edris tells me I have misled myself. Baker’s in-game persona may be flat as the state of Kansas, but in the big picture his influence soars. In a business in which coaches get reassigned, recycled, and relieved as a matter of course, Baker has been Edris’ top assistant since a wet behind the ears Edris took the reins of the Panthers in 2012. The two inherited a program with a 40-game losing streak, longest in the state. They ran it to 44. No one back in the 1980’s would have ever believed Monroe City could lose 44 consecutive boys basketball games. It was bad.

Twelve years later, the Panthers enter the season as the number one ranked team in the state of Missouri’s Class 3 division. They have been to the state Final Four the last two seasons, have won the last five district tournaments and have claimed the Clarence Cannon Conference crown for three consecutive seasons. All three streaks are “and counting.” The Panthers are, this winter, rolling again. 

“I can't say enough about how much Coach Baker means to me and so many in Monroe City High School,” Edris says. “I was so fortunate that Coach Baker offered his experience to help me out as a first-time coach. He's genuine, honest, man of character and a friend. Every head coach needs a Coach Baker on his or her staff.”

Throw in Assistant Coach Ed Talton and Edris says he has the backing any coach would love. “We blend well as a staff. Both have different strengths and fill different roles for us, but what both share is (unquestionable) loyalty and ethics.”

The chronological steppingstones of the Panther coaching staff seem reversed. The Head Coach, Edris, is nearly 20 years younger than Talton and close to 40 years younger than Baker. However, the man with the top billing should not fear the “poisoned chalice’ backstabbing fate of so many Shakespearean Kings; both Talton and Baker neither see a head coaching position in the future. “No way,” says Talton. “Do I look crazy,” responds Baker.

Edris says game time impressions are not as they seem. “He (Baker) is very vocal to me, in games and out. We talk all the time. I want to hear what he sees, what he thinks, what I am doing that is not working. I always get input from both assistants before I talk to the players in a time out. The same before I talk to the team at half time and after the game.”

What Edris is acknowledging is that Baker's eyes have seen a lot of basketball. 

In a line of work in where image is a matter of obsessive concern, Head Coach Edris’ choice to seek out input from a staff not afraid to disagree is a welcome departure. An assistant coach who's afraid to speak his mind will be of no help to the man in charge. A “yes-man” will just widely inflate a head coach’s ego, and most I have known don’t need any help. 

Baker's nearly half century coaching odyssey has had more twists and turns than an Ozark Mountain logging road. “I grew up in Rochester, New York,” he says. “I came to Kansas for college. When I graduated from the University of Kansas in 1974, I got a job at Valley Falls High School in the central part of the state. I was very fortunate. For three years I had a great mentor, and it laid the foundation for my coaching philosophy.”

Remember the 1970’s quirky TV show Kung Fu? "When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave,” the Master would in the weekly introduction tell David Carradine’s lead character. “That was me, the Kung Fu character,” Baker says today with a laugh. After three years at Valley Falls, “I thought I could snatch the pebble and it was time to go.” But he would learn that the lesson is often a lot harder than it seems.

“I took a job in a little town named Lewis, just outside of Dodge City, in the western part of the state,” Baker recalls. The high school today no longer exists, swallowed up by consolidation in 2006 when high school enrollment dropped to below 50. “For three years I was both the head football coach and the head boys’ basketball coach. That was a very challenging three years, but I also learned a lot. But I still felt like I needed more time as an assistant.”

With head coaching experience now under his belt, Baker moved on to a three-year stopover in Valley Center, a much bigger school than Lewis. He once again, he says, fell under the guidance of a strong coach. He labored at Valley Center as an assistant coach in the boys’ basketball program. 

His next stop was at Garden Plain. “I was there five years,” Baker says. “And we had a great run of kids go through during that time. It's very similar to what we have going on in Monroe City right now, great athletes and great kids. That combination will spoil you. We went to the state tournament three times in five years. We won a state championship my last year there (1989). We also had a state runner up and a state 3rd place finish.”

Baker says after the state title at Garden Plain, he felt the natural next move was to gravitate to a bigger school that needed rebuilding. Winfield, Kansas High School needed a builder and Baker took the job. The Vikings played in the Ark Valley League, nicknamed throughout the state as the “Valley of Death”- a conference overflowing with tradition, interest, and talent.  

“The competition in the AVL was just unreal,” remembers Baker. “Great players, great coaches and packed gyms (AVL member Hutchinson's gym held 8,000). We had been down for a number of years. I'm proud of the work we did there (Winfield). In seven years, we had three teams go to the state tournament: 1993, 1995, and 1997, which was my last year.”

For his final two years Baker also served as the Viking’s athletic director. “The Superintendent didn't like me being both the head coach and the AD. I felt I could handle it. I had my building Principal’s backing to hold both positions, but she (the Superintendent) was insistent I had to give up one (job). I didn't want to give up the basketball coaching, but I also didn't want to take a $6,000 pay cut by stepping down as AD. It was a tough decision, but I decided it was best for my family that we move on.”

“I wanted to get into the Kansas City area,” Baker continued. “But I couldn't find anything in Kansas that I felt good about. I took a job across the river in Savannah, MO, just south of Saint Joseph. I stayed there four years.”

Candid as always, in self-evaluation, Baker says, “I just didn't get it done there.”

After the four frustrating years at Savannah, in the fall of 2002, Baker landed in Monroe City. He served as the Panthers’ head boys’ basketball coach for seven years. After a two-year hiatus, he returned as Edris’ assistant in the fall of 2011. He also currently serves as an assistant in the fall to the softball program and in the spring to the track and field team.

Baker says the culture of not only the basketball program, but of Monroe City High School is 180 degrees better today than when he hit town 20 years ago. 

Unfortunately, for a basketball coach, Baker arrived in MC at the most inopportune time. The program had been long neglected and in steady decline. 

“We were not as good as I would have liked for us have been,” Baker states about his team’s won loss record during his first Panther tenure. “But I have no doubt that we did leave the basketball program better than what it was. There is no way, at my age, I would be doing what I'm doing now if the school culture had not changed dramatically. The current coaches and administrators have had a lot to do with the positive feel we now have here. They work together."

Baker and his wife Stephanie have four grown children. His daughter Kasi graduated from Savannah High School in 2002. His youngest three are all graduates of Monroe City High School. Son Clay in 2003, daughter Brittni in 2012 and son Brady in 2016. Clay played basketball for his father. Brady played under Coach Edris.

Baker has no set timetable for retirement. Busy coaching three sports as a Septuagenarian does not leave much room in his life for nostalgia. He is looking forward, not back. He deftly deflected any attempt by me to let him play the role of a Secondhand Lion. I ask about his memories of his 1989 state championship team in Garden Plain, KS. “We won,” he said.

He is a man locked into the present. Recently, Baker without prodding, discusses in detail with me why Charleston coming out of the state’s bootheel is a team he is keeping an eye on for the upcoming Class 3 state tournament. “They are always a team with a chance, always underrated. I hear they are bigger this year.” 

He will turn 71 this season, and still he coaches. Why? Why is high school basketball special? Winning, sure, and Monroe City is doing that in bunches, but there must be more. At some point along the way most just stop caring - coaches burnout. Baker dares to avoid the skeptic and defy the norm. At his age, he says, he has no time to waste. He hears Charleston is bigger this year.

 

 

 

 

Anybody Know Who Won?

 

The evolving of the internet and social media has turned the world of communications upside down. Rural radio stations are disappearing from the dial at an alaraming rate. And we should all be concerned.

Small town radio stations are still a social facilitator; one of the key cornerstones of a supportive community; in essence, the town’s bulletin board. It keeps locals informed at home and at work, and that will never be replaced by impersonal web sites and blogs.

Gordon Sanders is the general manager of KJFM 102 radio in Louisiana, Missouri. “We are a family-owned business,” Sanders says. The station was started by his father over 40 years ago. The family has managed to this point in time to have fought off the corporate takeovers that have ravaged Small Town American radio.

“We are really doing very well,” Sanders says with pride. A man who has never known a life not lived in a radio studio readily admits the industry landscape, due to the internet and the World Wide Web, has changed drastically. “But we have embraced the Internet,” he explains. "The WWW is here to stay and complaining about it constantly,  sounds like nothing but sour grapes. We made the decision to stay local, but we have also embraced technology. We are proudly community minded. We live here.”

Sanders title might be General Manager, but he said that's a lot more flashy than  what is reality. He is not just being modest. “Like everybody else around here, I do a little bit of everything. I was here early this morning to do the morning show. I'll go back into the studio this afternoon and we'll update our cancellations. We've got bad weather moving in and all the ball games and other activities for tonight have been cancelled. The locals know they can count on us for accurate and timely information. We are never busier than when we've got a storm coming through.”

High School sports are a mainstay of any small-town radio station’s programing list. They pay the bills. KJFM 102, The Eagle, as they like to be known, will broadcast over 100 high school basketball, football, softball and baseball games this year, covering seven local schools. With a nod to modern technology, the audio of the game is accompanied with a live video stream. Commentary and play by play on at least three nights a week is provided by Jim Ross.

We all somewhere in adult life search for own little niche of Never-Never Land, where the starry-eyed kid within never dies. We all do it. Michael Jackson built a ranch with a ferris wheel. Jim Ross broadcasts basketball games. 

Ross worked Tuesday through Saturday of the recent Clopton Tournament, every game played in the high school gym for five straight days. That is a bladder-tortured twelve total games, most with no assistance. On the last night of action, he was joined by his son Brendan. “Working with my son is special,” said the 62 year old. “Brendan is an Associate with Stifel Nicholas in St. Louis with their Public Finance Department. So, he doesn’t have much time, but we do get to do a couple of weekend games a year together.” Maybe Oedipus had it wrong. Sometimes, nepotism is cool.

Ross spends his days at the Louisiana People's Bank and Trust where he mans the position of Senior Vice President. He is winding down a four-decade career in the banking industry. But his passion is high school sports. After a topnotch prep basketball and baseball career at nearby Elsberry High School, Ross decided to continue his basketball career at Central Methodist College in Fayette, MO.

“Coming out of high school I wanted to major in Journalism,” Ross recalled. He originally intended to enroll in the prestigious College of Journalism at the University of Missouri. “But I decided I still wanted to be an athlete, so I went to Central and played basketball. I changed my idea on a major to Business since Journalism was not an option at Central.”

After college graduation, Ross joined the ranks of high school basketball officials. He held that gig for 27 years, most overlapping with a seat in the broadcast booth. “I have been doing this (broadcasting) for 26 years. So, I am living out that dream and it has kept me in contact with the game.”

A basketball broadcaster at any level dreads a blowout. You had better be prepared to fill a lot of dead time. In the recent first round of the Clopton Tournament, Monroe City led Silex at half time by a score of 65-6. But Ross was ready. He said he feared a runaway was coming and was armed with a heavy dose of time filling side stories. “A blow out can be challenging,” Ross says, “but there are players out there still busting it and they deserve their due.”

Ross covers athletes who call home the same town he does. You watch what you say over the air on a Friday night broadcast when you could, on your Saturday morning coffee dash into Casey’s, be served by a cashier who last night wore the sneakers of a point guard.

A good play-by-play broadcaster, like a good referee, must be incisive and possess a deep knowledge of the game. As both a widely respected official and a popular broadcaster, Ross has for going on 30 years demonstrated both.

Ross’ boss at the radio station, Gordon Sanders, says Ross has earned his stellar reputation. “Listeners respect him because of the job he has done over many years,” says Sanders. “He will call for us two or three times a week and he will do it the nine months of the school year. We have guys that specialize in one particular season. Maybe their basketball Or maybe their football. Or maybe their the diamond sports, softball and baseball. But what's unique about Jim is he can do them all and he can do them all very well.”

Sanders notes Ross’ vast background and the many roles he has filled over the last 40 plus years. “The old timers remember when he played,” said Sanders. “Most all fans remember him officiating. And everybody in town knows who he is because of his position at the Bank. His pedigree is impeccable, well-earned and widely known,” says Sanders. “You could talk to a lot of people in this area and spend a couple of days doing it and I bet you won't find one who has anything negative to say about him. He'll be the first one to tell you he's not a professional broadcaster, he's a banker that just loves high school sports. But I will tell you with no hesitation, the performance he gives us on the air is very professional. He does his homework. He talks to coaches. He talks to athletic directors. He talks to players. I guess to sum it up, Jim knows what he's talking about.”

I would bet when Jim Ross was a kid, he had hidden under his bed a $10 transistor radio, a cheap pair of earphones and a stash of AA batteries. Together the trio could magically through the wonders of the AM airwaves carry into his darkened bedroom captivating far-off ball games. Sometimes, if the Cardinals were on the West Coast, the game would progress to way past bedtime and Mom’s patience. (Jack Buck and Harry Caray with the call from Dodger Stadium). I would also bet he had a cheap tape recorder into which he broadcast imaginary games to an audience of none.

It takes passion, dedication, and love to log a full adult workday before reverting to a Peter Pan world of eternal youth, spending six consecutive evenings broadcasting high school basketball games. “I love it, always have,” Ross says.

******

Problems normally arise when a basketball  official decides he or she is the show- the need to develop a distinctive style to get noticed and perhaps promoted. What is next? Referees with entourages, a Kardashian sister on each arm, rolling into the Clopton Tournament Hospitality Room for the best Chili on the tournament circuit?

I am the Rain Man when it comes to officials. I like a narrow focus, keep me in my comfort zone and the rest of the world can stay away. I just want to watch the boys play basketball, oblivious to who is blowing the whistle. 

There will always be tension between the guys stomping the sidelines in the flashy warmup gear and the guys in polyester prison stripes. Coaching is how a coach feeds his family, whereas most refs, who for sure work very hard at their craft for little pay, are moonlighting, picking up a little extra pocket change and gas money between their real job’s` duties. Sometimes this causes a problem, the guy who has a vocation on the line thinking the guy enjoying his avocation is not taking the game serious enough. But not often. 

As I walk into the Clopton Gym between semifinal games, I spot standing at mid court Ronnie Richardson. We both used to have a lot more hair. This will be, he informs me, his 47th season of officiating high school basketball games.

Ronnie is my kind of an official, a hard-as-tungsten work ethic and an engaging personality. “Got the Covid last year,” he tells me. “Ended up in the hospital for five days but I was back officiating two weeks later.” Ronnie lives in northeast Missouri. How long does it take you to drive down here I ask? “Oh, a little over two hours.”

Ronnie officiates for the right reason, he enjoys it. He is a main cog in a system that has benefited countless boys and girls over the 47 years he has served them. He is still able to get up and down the floor very well, always hustling and always in position. His longevity may now get him notoriety, but he has been for years, and still is, a very good official. You would need both hands to count the times over the years Ronnie rang me up. That’s ok. I earned every one of them.

After the game we visited at midcourt. Ronnie tells me that long time Northeast Missouri basketball official Jim Brumback had passed away. On a similar brutally cold winter night over 30 years ago in the hospitality room during the Monroe City Tournament, legendary official “Big George” Thompson, with his normal rueful candor, and a young Brumback, whose own dad had partnered with Big George for years, told an assembled crowd of coaches, officials, and area basketball junkies of a game they had called years before over in the Quincy, IL area.

The visiting team was down one point and had the ball out of bounds with four seconds left in regulation play. It was a bandbox gym packed to the rafters. The game had been a rough one and the boisterous crowd had been spilling all night on to the playing floor. It was a Friday night, and the smell of alcohol permeated the smoke-filled gym. As the visitors launched a potential game winning last second shot, a fan of the home team threw a coat over the rim of the basket. The ball hit the coat at the same time as the game ending buzzer sounded, bounding off the rim and harmlessly away. (Try to find that one in the rule book). All eyes were now on Big George, the trail official and the one who had to make the call. He motioned to his partner, Brumback Sr., to follow and both sprinted to the locker room. Once in the safety of their private dressing area, Big George made his ruling, sort of. “Let them figure it out,” he told his partner. “Dad had to check the paper the next day to see who won,” laughed Brumback.

Give the Bench Buddies Their Due

 

Give the Bench Buddies Their Due

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.  Peter 2:7

It is to a strange fraternity these five belong - The Bench Buddies. They are bound by being labeled as ones of inferior talent, however, they wear their dubious status with pride, as a badge of honor. On the surface it is certainly strange. There is no logic. You spend all summer and every day after school playing a game you seldom get to play in. How crazy is that? So, why? Listen and they will tell you. Like the grieving lyrics of a country music song, you take what life gives: lose the ego, accept the selfless pledge of always being a good teammate and youth is fleeting, so it is what it is. And it is good. If you are not going to play, then at least make a lot of noise.

Jaylyn Countryman, A.J. Shoemaker, Percy Campbell, Bo Patterson, and Owen Lehenbauer are members of the Monroe City boys’ basketball team.  Countryman is a Junior. The other four are seniors. They get into a meaningful game about as often as the geese go south. They do at times get mop up minutes, but only when their coach starts to worry that his team is running up the score on a hapless opponent, the kind of lopsided win that leads to those nasty sportsmanship letters to the editor.  No coach needs that, so get in there boys and hold the score down.

For a player, life on the Bench is a state of mind. It's like sitting on the dock fishing all day with a cooler of beer and a Cardinal baseball game on the radio, but with no fishing pole. There is a lot of hanging out with your fellow Bench Buddies, but come the end of the day, not much (tangible) production to show. There are interruptions to the lull, some activity to keep the blood flowing. You get to jump off your perch for every good play one of the chosen ones on the floor makes and every time one of the “regulars” comes out, high fives are slapped all around. Then you sit back down.

But deep inside, these less than Fab Five have got to be thinking, "I don't care what the coach says. Win or lose, it ain't my fault." Right?  No, not at all, says Jaylyn Countryman. “Yes, it's true I do not get to play very much,” the reed thin junior states. “Of course, I would like to play more but I also want to give back. I want to be a good teammate. I want to push our guys hard in practice and if I can do that then I can contribute. If we can win the state tournament, then I can feel like I was a part of that, that I contributed.”

Countryman is an “outsider, not from here,”  as the locals say. “My grandparents moved down here from Iowa in 1989. I lived in Columbia (MO) with my mother until my freshman year of high school. Then we moved here.”

Maybe he just was behind and never caught up?  Not in what counts, he explains.

“To be honest, I was starting to get into trouble. Columbia wasn't a real positive environment for me. Structure was really lacking. I liked coming up here to visit my Grandparents. I liked the guys that I met up here. Many of them were on the basketball team and I thought if I could move here, it would really help me stay out of trouble. I had to talk my mom into it. It was not easy because it was going to be a big strain on her. She has a good job in Columbia that she did not want to, nor could afford to, give up. She agreed we would move up here because it was best for me. She has been commuting to Columbia ever since, for two years. That's a long drive and a big sacrifice and she knows that I really appreciate it. ‘Then show me by making something of yourself,’ she tells me. I really am trying to.”

Would any of the Bench Buddies trade their dream of a state title for playing time? Nope, according to Bo Patterson.  In his assessment, one would defeat the other. “The best guys are the ones playing. They give us a better chance to win,” the mild mannered and friendly bench rider admits, with no hesitation. “I just try to work hard every day at practice. I know I'm not an overly talented player but still being part of the team is rewarding. If I am not as good as the guys playing ahead of me, then the way I see it, I need to do two things; work hard to try and get good enough to play and, second, be a good teammate by supporting the guys playing ahead of me. That they are my friends, makes the second part easy.”

Percy Campbell is another latecomer to the club. “I moved in here (Monroe City) for my senior year,” he shares. “I attended my early school years in Normandy (a district in North Saint Louis County). I lived with my mom. I went to Vashon my first three years of high school. My mom and I moved there from Normandy. Vashon is considered kind of a rough school, kind of a ghetto type school, but my experience there was very positive. I had good teachers. But I just felt like I could do a little bit better in a smaller school.”

Many city kids, even at a young age, have carefully cultivated an aura that will keep outsiders at bay and insiders off balance. Percy displays no such demeanor. He is open and pleasant for a stranger to speak with.

In this land of pickup trucks and cream gravy for breakfast, Campbell says he has adjusted well. “It is different than the city, where I have always lived. But it has been good. I have gone hunting for the first time.”

“My Stepmom got a job last year down at The Landing (a seasonal water park on the nearby Mark Twain Lake)," Campbell continues.  “And when I would come up here for a visit and I really liked it. I worked there this summer and Josh and Josiah Talton both worked with me. I got to know them. And that had a lot to do with my decision that I was going to move out from my mom's and come up here and live with my dad and stepmom for my senior year (of high school). I had never played organized basketball before but both Josh and Josiah encouraged me to give it a try. When I started playing this summer the coaches and my teammates were all very supportive. I don't have any (illusions) that I'm a great player. I know that this is a very talented team and these guys have played together for a long time. But I don't feel like an outsider. I work hard in practice; I'm trying to get better.”

Owen Lehenbauer is a legacy. His parents grew up and attended Monroe City schools. Mother Kara (Thompson) was a Panther athlete. “I know what it is like to play basketball and I know what it is like to sit on the bench.” She also understands. “As a parent, sure, I would like to see Owen play more. But I have no criticism of the coaches in that matter at all. They do a very good job of making all the kids feel like they have an important role on the team. This group of seniors is just so close, they pick each other up, they will not let each other be down.”

“I just like being part of the team,” Owen says. “I couldn't ask for better teammates than I have in our senior class. They support me and I feel I need to give back in the same way. I've learned so much by being a part of the athletic programs here at Monroe City. My job right now is to prepare the guys that do play. I spent a lot of time on what is called the “scout team.” It is me and the other varsity guys who do not play much. We (take the role) of the other team's players. We show our guys what they need to be able to do against the team we are preparing them for. When I'm on the bench, I want to be the guy that cheers the loudest. I want to be the first one up to congratulate a teammate. That's my role and I think it's a big role and I'm proud to play it.”

A.J. Shoemaker moved to the area when he was young. His father and mother grew up north of Monroe City, in Keokuk, IA and Kahoka, MO, respectfully. A.J. quickly states he would like to play more but has learned to see the big picture. "I work hard in practice, the best I can. When the games come, I try to do my best to encourage (my teammates). We have developed a routine on the bench, the five of us. We are up cheering each good play we make on the floor and we try to meet the guys coming off the floor for a time out with enthusiasm."

Shoemaker says having played with his teammates so long makes the camaraderie he treasures so vital to his feeling of belonging. "It means a lot," he says.

Shoemaker accepts that many may not think what he and his fellow subs do is much of a contribution, but he begs to differ. "Coach tells us we matter. He shows us respect. And even if they don't always say it, I know our teammates respect us."

Respect, there is no more treasured affirmation for one who must sacrifice his own needs for the good of the group.

The Bench Buddies will never hold equal status with the totemic figures from Panther programs' past. So be it. But, for this team to claim a state title in March, it must have a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts. The individual parts of this team are just not good enough. The epitome of low maintenance, don’t overlook the cog these five fill in a wheel rolling on the path to post season dreams.