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Subject: High School Basketball Wonder Teams (promo)
By: Dr. Charles "Chic" Hess
February 26, 2005
The Roaring Twenties in America was full of wonders. With the likes of Johnny Weissmuller, Babe Ruth,
Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Bill Tilden, Jack Dempsey, Knute Rockne, Bobby Jones, Red Grange, Gene Tuney, and even
Man o' War, the sports world prospered during this boom period.
Unbeknownst to one another at this time, there were two high school basketball teams performing legendary
feats. Carving a niche in Indiana basketball folklore were the Franklin Wonder Five who, during a
four-year period (1919-1922), went on a 104 to 10 rampage. Their coach was the youthful Ernest "Griz"
Wagner who had a winning formula and a phenom of a player in Robert "Fuzzy" Vandivier. The other team
was the Passaic Wonder Teams from New Jersey.
Professor Ernest A. Blood, who coached the Passaic Wonder Teams, holds the distinction of becoming
basketball's first great coach. Let us see why this is so. A nineteen-year-old Blood became
fascinated with basketball within months of Naismith's first game at the Springfield YMCA International
Training School. As a kid, Blood spent the most of his time in YMCA gymnasiums where he excelled in
all sports. Later, as a physical educator he used the new indoor game as a means to an end--making
stronger, healthier bodies and as a catalyst for shaping boys into men.
Starting in 1894, Blood began instructing others in YMCA classes in the skills of basketball. Shortly
thereafter, he was coaching his own team as the popularity of the game spread. His YMCA coaching record
illustrates his early experience.
| YMCA Location |
Dates of Employment |
Record |
| Brooklyn Central Branch |
Oct 1, 1896-July 1, 1897 |
33-2 |
| Nashua, NH |
Sept 1, 1897-Oct. 1,1898 |
54-2 |
| Rutland, VT |
Oct 1, 1898-Sept. 1,1899 |
16-1 |
| Pawtucket, RI |
Sept 1, 1899-Sept. 1,1900 |
75-10 |
| Somerville, MA |
Sept 1,1900-June 1, 1906 |
132-9 |
| |
|
310-24 |
By the time Blood arrived at Potsdam Normal School in 1906, he was a seasoned veteran with an over-all
nascent system in tow. His years as a student and later as an instructor at Dr. Dudley Allen Sargent's
Harvard Summer School of Physical Education put Blood on the cutting edge of the physical movement.
Because of his athleticism, training, and experience, Blood was ready to make his mark-particularly in
basketball.
At Potsdam (1906-1915), Professor Blood coached high school age boys to humble the likes of Niagara, St.
John's, Notre Dame, CCNY, and other adult teams. Records reveal that his crack "Normal Five" team
never lost to another high school team.
After moving to Passaic, Prof installed basketball hoops in school playgrounds and vacant lots throughout
the city. He included basketball fundamentals in the physical training curriculum and promoted basketball
in the city's recreation department and YMCA. The youngsters in Passaic, a town of immigrants, gravitated
to the charismatic little professor's style and enthusiasm.
"Prof," as peers, players, and fans in Passaic called him, lead Passaic to a 20-0 record in 1915-16 before
being directed away from coaching (1916-1918) because of the teacher shortage created by the war.
Returning two years later, Prof stretched his win streak to forty-one games before losing in the state
finals. The following season, he commenced the longest winning streak (159) in the history of boy's
scholastic basketball.
As Griz Wagner had at Franklin, Prof had a few standout players. One, in a long line of excellent
players, was Bobby "Thousand Point" Thompson, a 6'1" sharp shooting forward who became the first scholastic
player to score one thousand points in one season. During one stretch in the win streak, Prof let
Thompson play long enough to leave his mark--225 points in four games for a 56.3 average.
| Game #71 |
Wednesday, January 25 Ridgewood 101-12: |
63 points |
| Game #72 |
Saturday, January 28 Eastern District 100-28: |
62 points |
| Game #73 |
Tuesday, February 1 Hackensack 103-20: |
31 points |
| Game #74 |
Saturday, February 4 Williams Prep 145-5: |
69 points |
Passaic's squad numbered over twenty players with most of them seeing playing time in Prof's team-orientated
system. Who knows how many points Thompson would have scored had he been allowed to be the focus of the
offense and see more playing time.
During Prof's final season (1923-24) at Passaic, The Indianapolis News dispatched sports editor William E.
Fox to get the real lowdown on this East Coast aberration. After watching a couple of games, Fox made
an astute comparison. He agreed that Passaic had a "mighty-fine" team, but he felt that if they were to
invade Indiana for a period of five weeks and play the five best teams in the state, he would pick the home
teams in three of the five. Man for man, several Indiana teams bested the New Jersey boys.
The Union Hill game that Fox observed with all the noise and excitement reminded him of a Bedford-Anderson
game. He thought that the Passaic players physically resembled those at Anderson High School, but they
responded like the Franklin players-they didn't get excited, and they didn't worry about what the other team
was doing.
Fox did have one wary thought for the basketball worshipers in Indiana-Passaic was not what Passaic had
been. It was well understood that the previous year's Passaic team was thirty points better, and the
team two years before was better than last year's team. This edition of the Wonder Team survived almost
solely on teamwork. In the past, when the talent level was noticeably better, Passaic was a formidable
opponent for any team. In Fox's humble opinion, there had never been an Indiana team thirty points better
than the Passaic team he observed.
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Chic Hess, Ed. D. is the author of Prof Blood and the Wonder Teams: The True Story of Basketball's First Great
Coach, www.profblood.com. Hess is a former NAIA College
District and NABC-Kodak National Junior College Coach of the Year who is now serving as the Vice President for
the Division of Physical Education in the Southwest District of the American Alliance for Health, Physical
Education, Recreation, and Dance.
# # #
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