Over the years the high school hoops fans of Ohio have been dazzled by the play of some truly great basketball players and teams. Players like Jerry Lucas, Clark Kellogg and LeBron James. Teams like the national champion Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary team of 2002-2003, those great Middletown teams from 1956-1958, the undefeated Cleveland East Tech squads of 1958 and 1959 just to name as few. Many of us have seen at least some of these players and teams in action, so it might come as a surprise to many of you to learn that the greatest Ohio high school basketball team of all-time spun its magic on Ohio’s hardwood courts more than 70 years ago, that the team came from a school that had just 26 boys, the tallest player was only 6’2” – if that, and they played so many games in their second championship season that they did not have time to hold practice sessions once the season began outside of their 45 minute gym class.
That team was the one representing little Waterloo High School during the 1933-34 and 1934-35 seasons. Their school nickname was the Little Generals, but it did not take long before their on court expertise, and antics, had earned the Waterloo basketball team a more deserving moniker – the Waterloo Wonders.
Waterloo, Ohio, is located in Lawrence County at the southern most part of the state. This is rural farm country. Before the 1933-34 season there was little real reason to believe, or to even hope, that the local basketball team would be anything but decent, at best, that year. The first hint of future success may have come when Magellan Hairston returned to Waterloo High School as the basketball coach and principal in 1932.
Hairston, just 26 years old at the time, had been at Waterloo High School previously in 1929, but he had moved on to other Lawrence County schools, a total of three others, to advance his teaching career. However, as a basketball coach his record was very good, showing only a dozen losses in six seasons.
In his first season back at Waterloo, Hairston’s Little Generals won the county championship, their first title ever, with their home “court” being an old church building. When the community built a real gym for the high school later in 1932, the Waterloo team obliged by winning another county title during the 1932-33 campaign. Two consecutive championships was a bit out of the ordinary for the schools of Lawrence County. This team, therefore, was getting a winning reputation, at least at the local level. They were now about to take their winning state-wide.
Coach Hairston had three returning starters, all juniors, around whom to build his team for the 1933-34 season: guard Orlyn Roberts (6’0”), forward Wyman Roberts (5’10”), who was Orlyn’s cousin, and center Curtis McMahon (6’2”). Rounding out the starting line-up would be another junior, Stewart Wiseman (5’7”), a forward and the son of the team’s previous coach, and sophomore Beryl Drummond (5’7”), a transfer from nearby Cadmus who said that he had been “lured” to Waterloo by the high school’s new gym.
These five boys made up the Waterloo team over the next two seasons. Kevin McCauley was the team’s sixth man. There were at times as many as three or four other boys on the team, but for all practical purposes these five boys were the Waterloo Wonders for the next two seasons.
The Wonders’ statistics are impressive, in fact, somewhat mind boggling when you consider what they did and when they did it. In their two championship seasons they played an amazing 100 games, winning an even more astounding 97, including a then state record 56 in a row. Playing 100 varsity games, some of them against college freshman teams, is incredible enough. However, the thing that separates the Wonders from most of the other great teams in Ohio history is how they did all of this. Think Harlem Globetrotters in a high school setting, without the tall guys, and you get something of an idea of what they were like. They were great basketball players, with a great coach and a great system, who also knew how to have fun, a lot of fun, on the court.
Amazingly, unlike the Globetrotters or even other high school teams, the Wonders had no set plays. Through hours of off season practice, on their own after completing their daily chores, the Wonders had, among other things, perfected a passing game unlike any seen before - or since. They instinctively knew where each other would be on the court, and the speed with which they moved the ball around baffled both opposing teams and the spectators trying to follow the action. The Wonders followed no set pattern of play, had no favorite spots from which they took their shots. They roamed the court at will, free-lancing to the nth degree, and adapting their court tactics on the fly as the situation dictated.
Orlyn Roberts was the team’s sharpshooter, their most accurate point getter. More than 70 years later he still holds the Class B scoring record of 69 points for a three-game state tournament, as well as the record for most field goals in a Class B tournament, 29. Like the other team members, Orlyn was also a dazzling passer who often initiated the team’s mesmerizing passing exhibitions.
Stewart Wiseman, Orlyn Roberts’ backcourt partner, was less flamboyant than Orlyn, and because of this opposing teams often down played his importance – to their great dismay. Wiseman was not the scoring threat that his teammates were, but he could pop in a basket, and his points often came when they were least expected, but most needed. He was the team’s back court guard, rarely venturing much past the foul circle. On those rare occasions when the Wonders fell victim to a fast break, it was not unusual for Wiseman to hold off two or three opponents until help arrived, often ending the threat himself by stealing the ball.
Curtis McMahon played the pivot, and his uncanny ability to feed the ball to his teammates was just as important, if not more so, than his own ability to score. And his scoring ability was almost second to none, as he was able to hook with both hands - and occasionally thrilled the crowd by blindly tossing the ball over his head for two points. When he was not scoring, McMahon’s deceptive movements and pinpoint passing exchanges with his teammates confused the defense and opened the others to easy shots. He had a great knack for hiding the ball like a football quarterback, holding onto it until the last possible second before passing off to a teammate for an easy two-pointer.
Wyman Roberts was the team’s best passer and a master at finding the other team’s weaknesses on defense. One of the two corner players (with Beryl Drummond), Wyman would hang out in the corner, apparently not involved in the play. Then, all of a sudden he had the ball and a split second later was either setting up shots for the others with his incredible passing, or he would toss in a two-handed set shot from the corner or break across the key for a left-handed hook.
Beryl Drummond, a sophomore, was the youngest and least polished of the five as a player. While not a big time scorer like the others, his passing was just as crisp, and as he moved into his second year on the team his performance improved accordingly.
While the Wonders won 97 of 100 games during their two momentous seasons, and often by wide margins, they just as often trailed at the half, especially when playing a tough opponent. This was all part of their strategy, which was to see what the other team was capable of doing, sort of like scouting the opposition as they were playing them. By halftime the Wonders’ careful observations and mental notes on the play of the other team had given them all of the information that they needed with which to comeback and defeat that opponent in the second half.
This defensive strategy was apparently more than effective. During the Wonders’ undefeated 1933-34 season their margin of victory averaged 26 points, was as high as 60 points and only twice did they win by less that 11 points. The next season, playing twice as many games and a considerably tougher schedule, they still managed to maintain a winning margin that averaged more than 16 points.
The Wonders’ ability to avoid fouls was another of the team’s great traits. It was almost uncanny. Often the boys would go through an entire game having committed only one foul apiece. There were even a few games in which the team was never whistled for even one infraction. They were not totally immune to getting whistled for a foul, however, and one of their three defeats during the ’34-’35 season was in part due to four of the boys fouling out of a particularly “rough” the game.
About halfway through the 1933-34 season the Wonders’ winning streak was starting to attract some notice. But the thing that was really grabbing everyone’s attention was the way in which the Wonders were winning their games. It was not just the fine shooting, the great defense and the slick passing, but also the other antics that the boys employed.
The stories of these antics have evolved into the thing of legend, but the simple and amazing truth is that they actually did most of them – as incredible as it may seem. Often after winning the opening jump ball the Wonders would immediately give the ball to one of the players on the opposing team and invite him to take a free shot. Another “tactic” after that opening jump would be for one of the Wonders to race toward the wrong basket and drop in a two-pointer for the other team. As Dick Burdette writes in his book “The Fabulous Waterloo Wonders”: “The confusion that followed was worth the price of admission. The crowd roared, the officials bickered and the Wonders performed like Broadway veterans.”
At other times, when they lost the opening tip off the Wonders would politely step aside and allow the other team a free shot at the basket. If the shot was missed, they just as often gave the rebound back to the other team for another free shot. The psychology behind this was incredible, for the opposing team was often unable to regain its composure and confidence after being treated in this manner.
Other antics included the Wyman cousins sitting down at midcourt and starting up a game of marbles in the middle of the basketball game. At other times two or three of the boys sat down on the bench for a breather in the middle of a game, grabbing some popcorn or a hotdog while the rest of the team remained on the court. If the score was particularly one-sided, they would occasionally bounce the ball hard off of the floor and into the basket, or even dropkick the ball from center court for a two-pointer.
But there was a real purpose behind all of the Wonders’ clowning and grandstanding. Again, quoting from Mr. Burdette: “Wherever the Wonders played, fans flocked in droves to see their unusual style. But despite the endless run of grandstand clowning, no one wrote them off as showoffs who lacked the basic skills of the game. For when the Wonders clowned, it was for a purpose, a purpose as vital as passing, shooting and other phases of the game. When they clowned, they entertained, they rested and they agitated. And when they finally finished, only the opposing team had suffered. Throughout the entire routine, the Wonders controlled the ball, protected their lead, and drilled a bit further into the frazzled nerves of their opponents. And each time they performed, they enhanced their reputation of being the most talented, the most colorful, and the most unusual team ever to play on an Ohio basketball court.”
Even with all that has been related, perhaps the most amazing thing of all was that the Wonders were able to win their games in spite of the tremendous schedule that they played. During the 1933-34 season the Wonders played 32 games and won them all, including the Class B state championship. Five times they held the other team to less than ten points. In an era when 45 points was considered a relatively large score, the Wonders scored more than 50 points ten times, including a season high 69 points twice. Their victories included wins over three college freshman teams.
By the end of the season their reputation had spread far and wide – and everyone wanted to play them the next season. Coach Hairston was most accommodating, perhaps more than he should have been. So accommodating, in fact, that for 1934-35 the Wonders’ schedule had more than doubled to 66 games. They played the usual Class B teams, but also a lot of the big school Class A squads, as well as some of the better teams from across the river in Kentucky, including the defending state champion – which also lost to the Wonders. Today, not counting playoffs, that equals three years worth of high school basketball.
In a way the hefty schedule may have taken its toll. After winning their first 24 games to run their streak to a then state record 56 in a row, the Wonders dropped an overtime decision to Greenfield McClain High School, 26-24.
Needless to say, with a schedule like this the Wonders’ games were not restricted to Friday and Saturday nights. During one stretch they played five games in six days, all against Class A teams like Cincinnati St. Xavier, and won them all by an average of 16 points. To put this into some kind of perspective, that would be like one of today’s small school Division IV basketball teams playing five Division I teams over a six day stretch, and beating them and beating them soundly. On another occasion they played seven games against Class B opponents in nine days, and won all of those games as well.
Scheduling so many games was bound to cause a problem or two, and one did pop up. One night coach Hairston discovered that he had scheduled two games for the same night, in two different towns no less. Not a problem. In the first game, against Chesapeake High School, the Wonders went right to work and ran up a huge lead in the first half. At the intermission the five starters jumped into coach Hairston’s car and motored to the second game over at Jackson High School, leaving the seldom used bench players to finish the game against Chesapeake, which they did with Waterloo winning easily, 47-5.
When the team finally arrived at Jackson High School at 10:00 P.M. they were greeted by a still packed house, as nobody wanted to miss an opportunity to see the Wonders play. The Wonders proceeded to win that game as well, 45-24.
Just under 9,000 people (including about 500 who got in by breaking down a couple of doors) attended the Wonders’ final game, the 1935 Class B championship game. That number was almost 2,000 more than had attended the whole Class B tournament just two years before. The Waterloo Wonders won that championship game, 25-22, over Oxford High School. They are still one of only two schools, and the last one to do so, to win back to back Class B or small school Class A state championships.
That victory, the Wonders’ unbelievable 63rd of the season, brought down the curtain on one of the most amazing sports stories in Ohio high school history. There will probably never be another team like them. They were truly unique – they were the Waterloo Wonders.
(The book “The Fabulous Waterloo Wonders” by Dick Burdette, was one of the sources used in the researching of this article. If you can find a copy - I had to photo copy mine page by page at the Cleveland Public Library - buy it, it is a truly incredible story.)