Basketball is a series of snapshots of our past. It is neither good nor bad; it simply is. From the Fab Five and the hip-hop revolution in the ’90s to the drug use of the ’80s all the way back to the old days of segregation, basketball reflects its time. It is left to us, the current stewards of the game, to learn what we can from the past.
In 1945, in the middle of the Mississippi wilderness, a ragtag team without a name put together a remarkable season that ended in heartbreak. The school disappeared, the players grew old and died, and the story passed into the abyss of obscurity.
Until now.
*** *** ***
In the study of my grandfather’s house there is a small sheet of paper hanging on the wall. It is a photocopy, a duplicate of something much, much older. A schedule. Lyman High School, Boys Basketball, 1945-1946. It is a school that doesn’t exist anymore. My grandfather is one of the few surviving players. The piece of paper sits between a mounted largemouth bass and some black and white Navy photos. And like everything in my grandfather’s study, it has a story behind it.
If you can get a straight answer out of him, my grandfather is 84. He is worn and whitened, and every part of him has lost the fight against the years — except for his eyes. His eyes look the same way at 84 that they do in those Navy pictures, like he’s up to no good and likes it that way. When I called him and asked if I could come and interview him about the Old Days, he snapped back with a chuckle:
“I reckon you’ll need more than one interview for that.”
I drove up to his house on a Wednesday and he led me into the study. He produced maps, picture albums and boxes of meticulously preserved newspaper clippings. While I sorted through the material he set himself in orbit around me, opening cabinets and drawers and poring through old yearbooks for anything that looked interesting.
“Tell me about that,” I said, pointing at the hanging schedule.
He thrust his glasses over the bridge of his nose and removed the paper from the wall.
“That’s a long time ago,” he said, finally.
The schedule had a corresponding table of results, so you could follow along and see how the team fared. There were lots of blowout wins and then the whole thing ended with one line at the bottom: Lyman 34, Natchez 36.
I had played basketball in high school and college, and I knew as well as anyone that when a season ends on a two-point loss, well … that’s the kind of thing that tends to stick to your insides.
“Natchez…” I said. “Tell me about—”
He didn’t even give the question a chance to hang in the air. His answer shot out, fully formed and prepared.
“Shouldn’t have beat us…” he said, first abruptly and then wistfully. “Shouldn’t have beat us.”
“What happened?”
The eyes flickered, the glasses came off, and the old man shook his head.
*** *** ***
Natchez High School was a member of something called the Big Eight conference. In contrast, tiny Lyman was not a member of any recognized conference. The graduating class for Lyman that year was 13. Only two of the ten players on the team owned a basketball. Practices consisted of an afternoon period in the gym for scrimmaging, and after that the gym was locked. Any additional work had to be done on the dirt court in the schoolyard.
Asked what the team mascot was, my grandfather snorted in fake indignation.
“Mascot? We didn’t have one! We were just Lyman. Blue and gold.”
He produced a sepia-tinted photograph of a group of boys standing in a field wearing letterman jackets and short shorts.
“That handsome feller right there is me,” he deadpanned, pointing to the rock-jawed forward wearing No. 3. My grandfather left his weathered finger hovering over the photo. He carefully moved down the line of players, giving a brief biography of each. This one passed away. That one is at a VA hospital and is fading. That one stole a car. This one passed a few years back.
67 years ago, the tiny hamlet of Lyman would squeeze itself into the high school gymnasium and watch its wonder boys run circles around the rival schools. There was the town oddball, Snake Clifton, slinking about in his cowboy hat. Then there was a man named Edward Page, who worked for Coca-Cola. Edward became so captivated with the Lyman team that he named his son Bunyan after my grandfather. The team had a hold on the town, and with good reason. Lyman was inexplicably, almost supernaturally, good. The team ran its record to 31-5 that year, with three of the losses coming to Gulf Coast Military Academy, a team that started players at 6-5 and 6-4. (Lyman did not have a player over 6-1.)
As the season drew to a close, Lyman fought their way into the South Mississippi Tournament. This required traveling north to Ellisville to the community college, which housed the tournament. The players were put up in a dormitory the night before the game — VIP treatment to the wide-eyed country boys, to hear my grandfather tell it.
Their reward was a first-round pairing against Natchez High School. By comparison, Natchez was a huge school. They had bigger players, and they were even alleged to have their own team bus. With air conditioning.
It was here, under the bright lights of the tournament, far away from the dirt courts and loyal fans, that the dream season ended. Natchez came back in the fourth quarter to put away the team with no name.
*** *** ***
Back in the study, sitting under the largemouth bass and between the stacks of yearbooks, my grandfather chooses his words carefully.
“I couldn’t get any help,” he says softly, as if the game had happened yesterday. “Natchez … they were big stuff. Big boys. But we had ’em on the hook.”
Sixty-seven years later, a two-point loss is still sticking to his insides.
As we sat there in the study, I saw it. Something that perhaps only another athlete could see. It was his eyes. The beacons of rebellion that a Depression and a World War couldn’t snuff out, that 84 years couldn’t bleed out of him. The fire was burning.
In that moment it occurred to me that if there was a basketball court in his backyard, and the members of the 1946 Natchez team were standing on it, my grandfather would be lacing up his shoes to go play that fourth quarter over again. He’d probably drag me out there to help him. I’d go, too.
Me and him, I think we’d win.
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