In my sophomore year (1931) a basketball team was formed, and we began practice in the Town Hall, a nearly square floor area too small for a regulation court.
There were only a few boys to draw on to make up a team and I became center, though I had what was called “lazy eye”, poor vision in one eye causing poor depth perception and so poor ability at ball handling.
We had uniforms and a schedule of games was arranged with some county schools. Portage had no such thing as a school bus, and as long as the roads were open, various well-wishers with cars carried us to games away. I remember Reggie Bartlett taking some of us to Washburn for what may have been our first game away.
Typically, Washburn court was in the basement of a school building; the ceiling was very low, ruling out any looping long shot. Typically again, familiarity with these individualized courts always favored the home team. At any rate, by allowing the final period to run a little long, the final score was Washburn 100 and Portage 11, possibly the soundest defeat on record. However, using this home court advantage, in just a few years, playing at home Portage produced teams that defeated many of the four year high schools they faced.
Once enough snow had fallen to end auto travel, Crowley, our teacher and coach, having set up a game schedule, hired Victor Jimmo of Ashland to haul the team by snowmobile on a circuit that included Limestone and Fort Fairfield. The machine was completely open; Victor and Crowley sat in front, and probably eight of us sat on two benches lengthwise of the rear, with blankets over our laps. It was usual at the time for the home team to take visitors one by one into private homes for supper, sleep and breakfast.
If we were on the road, Crowley would work out an agreement with a restaurant to serve us all the same basic lunch. We all got school letters at the end of the year.
William “Bill” McConnell, 100, is part of the Leisure Village Writers group in Presque Isle, who work each week with Martie Pritchard of East Chapman, a retired school teacher. For readers who think of Ski-doo, Polaris, or Arctic Cat when we hear the word “snowmobile” Bill offers this clarification: A snowmobile was a regular truck or car outfitted with skis to match the distance between the paths made by the workhorses. Sometimes they also had a track, similar to a bulldozer, in the back. In Bill’s high school years folks didn’t get around much in the winter without a good team.
