CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - On a recent morning, Ted Beach and Earl Harrison huddled outside Combes Gym and hoisted the state championship trophy.
Just like they did 70 years ago. The proof’s in the pages of old scrapbooks.
“I don’t remember if I touched it when we won it,” Harrison said. “I know if I did, this is the first time I’ve touched it since then.”
Little did Harry Combes’ 1946 Champaign Maroons know then how special a feat they’d achieved when they beat Centralia across town at Huff Gym. In all the years since, in all of Champaign County, only two high school basketball teams have been crowned best in Illinois - Centennial in 2009 and St. Joseph-Ogden this year.
For Beach, Harrison and the 38-1 Maroons, there was little celebrating. They acknowledge the anniversaries as they come each March, but don’t make a big fuss about them. It was never their style, then or now.
They all got together 20 years ago to celebrate the golden anniversary of their championship, but only Beach, 86, and Harrison, 88, from that team still live in the Champaign area.
Rod Fletcher is in Anaheim, California. Fred Major’s in Houston.
“What I remember is it just seems like it was something we planned to do and we just went out and did it,” Major said. “We didn’t celebrate much; everyone just thought that’s what we were supposed to do anyway.”
The four remaining members of that 1946 title team - all starters - hardly get to catch up with one another these days, though Harrison and Beach picked up Tuesday at Seely Hall as if they spend regular time together.
But in their heyday, the Maroons were a tight unit.
“We had pretty good friendships. We traveled quite a bit,” Major said. “We had a Christmas vacation tournament down in Centralia that we all went down together and stayed on. We were pretty close.”
Beach and Fletcher both went on to play at Illinois, where they were reunited with Combes, who had become the coach of the Illini. Beach said he and Fletcher speak about once a week over the phone.
“We talk about everything under the sun,” said Fletcher, a sophomore on the ’46 team. “I’ve known Ted 75 to 80 years, so we talk about a bunch of stuff. We do talk basketball, too.”
“There’s so many good memories and that’s about all you have at this stage of life - looking back on the happy times, and those were really good years,” said Beach, who made The News-Gazette’s All-State Team in 1946.
“Ted had the best shot on the team,” Harrison said of his teammate, who scored 22 points in a 54-48 win in the championship game.
Try as he might these days, though, Beach’s shot isn’t what it once was.
“It wasn’t a jump shot; it was a one-handed push shot,” he said. “I can’t get the ball up to the basket anymore; I don’t know what it is.”
The shots might not come as easy as they did back in 1946, but the memories are just as vivid as ever.
“We were 106-7 in those three years (1944-47) and we never lost a game in this gym,” Beach said. “It was a lot of fun. We just had a good group of kids - good students and good citizens.”
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Source: The (Champaign) News-Gazette, https://bit.ly/1Wxabb6
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Information from: The News-Gazette, https://www.news-gazette.com
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