Okanogan Boys’ Basketball Perspectives:


A Fan, Two Parents, a Coach, and a Player
By Dick Merriman

**The following article was originally written in 1994 and appeared in
the first edition of the Caribou Trail League Boys' Basketball Fact Book - Okanogan**
 

Richard (Dick) Merriman graduated from the University of Washington in 1963, after three years in the U.S. Army.  His teaching career began and ended at Okanogan, where he taught junior and senior high school English until his retirement in 1991. He was very active in coaching basketball at Okanogan.  He guided the Okanogan girls basketball squad to its very first state tournament appearance in 1982 and returned to Tacoma in 1983.  He stepped down after the 1987 season in order to watch his youngest son compete in basketball.  After a two year leave, Merriman returned in 1989.  In his final year (1991), he guided the Bulldogs back to the State Girls' Basketball Tournament. He finished with a ten-year record of 144-89. He is married to Linda and has four children, Mitch, Jennifer, Hallie and Eric. Merriman currently resides in Wenatchee, WA
Be sure to click on the following link and get a copy of Merriman's first novel, Okie Boy.  It is an excellent read.  I can't wait for his next book. Click here to purchase your copy: Okie Boy by Richard Merriman
My acquaintance with Okanogan boys’ basketball began when I came to Okanogan in the fall of 1963 to teach English and journalism in the junior-senior high school. I was warned when I signed my first contract that I might be expected to help in coaching after a couple of years or so.  Sure enough, a couple of years later I became the eighth grade boys’ basketball coach.

I did not believe in cheating to win or cutting corners to win.
But I did believe that it was foolish to be playing a game,
any game without making winning your main objective.
I had no real qualifications for the job.  Though I had played playground basketball at every opportunity since I was twelve years old,  I had never played school basketball, had never coached it.  All that I had was a deep love for the game and a belief that any time one played any game the objective was to win. I did not believe in cheating to win or cutting corners to win. But I did believe that it was foolish to be playing a game, any game without making winning your main objective. Without the objective of winning, the players on both sides are being cheated.  I have never changed any of these beliefs.
 
I was spoiled by the first group of eighth graders.  They were enthusiastic and talented athletes who taught me far more about the game that year than I taught them.  Lee Barker, Bill Brownlee, Jon Konsack, Dean Matson, Monte McLeish, Brian McManus, Mitch Mills, Gordon Pitts, Buzz Randall, Randy Schreckengast, Dale Tugaw – they were very tolerant of me and my shortcomings and rather than complaining they helped me when they could and they won seven-of-ten games that year.
 
The road got a lot tougher after that.  There were a few good years but more bad ones.  Eventually, I gave up coaching in the junior high boys program and began coaching junior high girls.  That, however, is another story.

The history of Okanogan High School boys’ basketball,
as I have observed it, is one of peaks and valleys
– with far fewer peaks than valleys.
The history of Okanogan High School boys’ basketball, as I have observed it, is one of peaks and valleys – with far fewer peaks than valleys.  My first year here the coach was redhead named Al Keeler.  He deserved better than he got.  He worked very hard at his coaching.  He had tremendous enthusiasm for the game.  He had very few talented players. He had limited success.  One player I remember from that era was a short, bespectacled guard named Larry McCormack who could really shoot the basketball.
 
Of all the basketball games that I have watched at any level, one of the most exciting finishes had to be when Dean Weyrick was the Bulldog coach.  It was February 3rd, 1968. The Bulldogs needed to win in order to hold to first place in the Caribou Trail League.  The game was, of course, against Omak at Omak.
 
Fifty seconds remained. The Bulldogs trailed by five points. Some of the fans were filing out of Omak’s old balcony-rimmed gymnasium.  Okanogan’s Alan McIlhenny made a pair of free throws.  Twenty seconds later McIlhenny sank another free throw.  With 20 seconds on the clock the Omak lead was two.  Omak then had two one-plus-one chances and missed them both, the last coming with five seconds showing on the clock. Okanogan rebounded the ball. A whistle blew. The buzzer sounded.  While the crowd broke into pandemonium, many fans, not sure the game was over, poured out of the gym.  But the whistle had been blown prior to the buzzer because big Mike Tomco, future All-American football player at Arizona State, had been fouled and was going to the line to shoot two foul shots.  As fellow player Scott Harrison puts it, “Mike was a team leader for us.”
 
Tomco sank both free throws, elevating himself a foot and a half straight into the air when he saw the second shot swish through.  The game was in overtime.
 
The Wenatchee World reported the rest:  “Gary Carlton hit a jump shot to give Omak the lead in overtime, but Okanogan followed with a free throw and a field goal to take the lead for the first time and Dean Weyrick’s Bulldogs refused to relinquish it.  A pair of reserves, Corky Larsen and Jody Walker, each connected on a pair of free throws to keep the Bulldogs ahead.”
 
The final score: Okanogan 50, Omak 45 (OT).
 
Scott Harrison’s senior season, under coach Jim Strom, seems to epitomize Bulldog basketball.  Scott says the team was not a highly talented group but a group of hard-workers that featured strong team concepts rather than star players.  According to Scott, improvement in individual players was always noticeable under coach Strom. Duane Morrison was a lightning quick player with no basketball skills or knowledge to speak of. Under coach Strom, Harrison says, Duane became a really effective post player.
 
Scott remembers many squabbles between team members Jim and Jody Walker, two of a set of triplets.  “They had lots of arguments in practice but did all right in the games.” Scott also has lots of memories of classmates Don Thomas, Gene Nicholson, Mark Klein and Bill Colyer, who all played on the team during his senior season.
 
In terms of wins and losses, Jim Strom was the most successful boys’ basketball coach when I was at Okanogan.  To watch and listen as he coached, the casual observer would probably be put off by his rather cynical and sarcastic style of coaching, but Scott Harrison explains that after practice coach Strom would often make a point of privately telling a player whom he had criticized severely that he could really be great if he would believe in himself an work at learning the fundamentals of the game.  It was in the teaching of fundamentals that Strom excelled.  He taught a deliberate offense and tenacious defense.  In 1969-70, his defense-minded Bulldogs finished third at the state basketball tournament.
 
Coach Strom has many memories of Okanogan High School basketball. He remembers one specific game in the 1968-69 season at Omak.

”We beat them, 70-55, and Gene Nicholson had a great game, scoring 20-plus points.  That night he calls me up at midnight or later and tells me his house burned to the ground. He was crying and really upset.  We took up a collection and got him some clothes and a place to stay.  He played the next night and we beat Cashmere, 70-63 and Gene really played well.”
 
He also recalls many things about the 1969-70 season when his boys finished with a third place trophy.  One game he especially recalls took place at Oroville.

”We were down by 10-points with two minutes left, and I put in two of my sub-guards, Gordon Pitts and Dale Tugaw, and we pressed them.  We finally caught them at the very end of the game. We got the ball up the court and Jeff Russell shot a 30-footer.  The buzzer went off and the ball was in the air and it swished through and we won, 64-62.
 
The last few games of that 69-70 season, of course, are a lasting part of Coach Strom’s memories.

”We beat Cashmere and Tonasket to get to state for the first time in eleven years and finished third, but the best thing was that we finished higher that Omak and they were District Champs, having beaten us, 45-41. They rooted against us the whole time in Tacoma.  Our game for third-place was the best game I was ever involved in, we beat St. Martin’s (now known as LaSalle High School), 65-62, in front of a full house.”

But I can never remember his stopping to complain
or his having some kind of childish tantrum
like those we see these days
more and more frequently in sports at any level.
I pretend no depth of knowledge of the game of basketball or any other sport, but as an all-around sports follower and fan, the athlete that I have most enjoyed watching was Alan McIlhenny.  He was not the most talented athlete that has gone to school here since 1963, but to my judgment he was the best competitor and had the best attitude toward whatever sport in which he was competing.  He seemed to give an all-out effort on every play of every game.  He made numerous great plays and maybe an equal number of mistakes.  But I can never remember his stopping to complain or his having some kind of childish tantrum like those we see these days more and more frequently in sports at any level.  Alan never had time for that; he was too busy playing his game and atoning for his error or a teammate’s or the official’s error or the coach’s error.  Alan was the kind of player who compensated for everybody’s error because he was always busy playing the game.  Perhaps there were more valuable Bulldog players during these years, but all I can say is if I were picking a team for a game that I really wanted to win and feel good about competing in, my very first choice would be Alan McIlhenny.
 
Oh, by the way, he also took good care of his grades.
 
Like Pop Strom and every other parent who has had the pleasure and pain of watching his or her own youngster perform in sports, I have some special memories of one particular group of kids.  In my case, it is the team of Pat Garred, Eric Merriman, Carl Middleton, Brett Neely, Jon Roberts, Eric Skirko, Kyle Swallom, Jim Webster, Danny Perkins, and Chad Cleveland.
 
This group, like Scott Harrison’s group, was not talented, with the possible exception of transfer Pat Garred whose personal problems finally limited the chances of the team to whom he had contributed to so much of their success throughout the season.
 
No one gave this team much of a chance; no one saw them as real players.
 
I especially recall the first big victory of their senior season over the Cascade Kodiaks, which was a highly rated and talent-laden team. They followed this victory with a win over the perennially powerful Cashmere Bulldogs.  They also went to Omak and beat the favored and over-confident Pioneers.  They stayed in the hunt that year until the game at Eastmont, which could have won them a state berth.  They played the entire district tournament without Garred, who had been dismissed from the team for disciplinary reasons.
 
This under-rated group just never believed that they could not win.  They were characterized, exemplified by six-five Jim Webster, who looked awkward on the court, did not have any basketball finesse.  But for fans and coaches who watched closely it became obvious that if you could get the ball to Webster within 10-feet of the basket, you almost always were rewarded with two points. Bulldog assist leader Eric Merriman knew that, and Webster paid big dividends for his team.
 
I also remember the game at Cashmere when Eric Merriman scored 39 points.  It was not Eric’s best game.  He was scoring on almost every trip down the court, but Cashmere always retaliated with a blistering fast break that left the Okanogan kids with no chance of winning that game.  The issue was never in doubt.  A better memory for me is Eric’s consistent defeating of the Omak press at Omak, making it possible for his teammates to score again and again and eventually with that game, another that they were supposed to lose.
 
“Omak’s guards are just too quick for us,” said Okanogan coach Mike Gilmore before the game.

Isn’t it interesting that a basketball program
that is mired at the statistical bottom
of the Caribou Trail League can yet find lots of good memories,
can have so many good experiences to relish over the years.
As well all, parents, fans, coaches, former coaches, players and former players, think and talk and, above all, feel about school sports, the difficult thing for us to do is to keep our perspective.  What are school sports all about?  What is most important after all?  I don’t know any final answers to these questions, but I do have some thoughts and feelings that are interesting and important to me.  Isn’t it interesting that a basketball program that is mired at the statistical bottom of the Caribou Trail League can yet find lots of good memories, can have so many good experiences to relish over the years.  Yes, the whole objective of a sports program is to be successful and, yes, I believe that the main goal has to be victory every time a team takes the court or the field.  Then how the good experiences, how the good memories?  For a blue collar, struggler of a program the losses are nearly all excruciating.  We have put forth all that physical, mental, emotional effort and come up short, again.  I have always believed that almost every youngster in almost every minute in almost every event gives a huge effort toward winning. No one wants to look bad before the eyes of his own people. All that effort and energy are expanded and yet we did not win. It's awful. As parents and fans, as players and coaches, we have all been there and we have all experienced this in one way or another and would all, all, prefer to win. But we did not.

There is a kind of beauty even in the losing,
in the exhausted and futile total effort,
that is worth the keeping.
I have heard many say that there is nothing good about losing and I tend to agree. But we must all certainly agree that on those rare and sometimes very important occasions when we do win, it is a more ecstatic and memorable experience than it would be for those area teams who have come to take winning versus Okanogan as a habitual and expected event. But there is more to it. There is a kind of beauty even in the losing, in the exhausted and futile total effort, that is worth the keeping. Such a loss if regarded from the right perspective is preparation for future victory. The all-out effort of everyone toward winning, makes both the winning and the losing more significant, the effort somehow worthwhile.

As a former teacher and coach,
the mistake for which I feel most blameworthy
have all been based on having expectations that were too low.
I believe that it is seldom a mistake to have high expectations so long as we are willing to work toward the achievement of them.  As a former teacher and coach, the mistake for which I feel most blameworthy have all been based on having expectations that were too low.  The very best thing that a teacher and coach can and must do is to believe in the nearly unlimited possibilities of his students/athletes. The second best thing that he can do is to expect and demand in a firm and human way the attainment of those possibilities.  That doesn’t guarantee their attainment, but it certainly makes them more likely.  I have known coaches who work to develop a kind of distain toward opponents.  That has to be wrong, no matter how successful they are.  Such people seem to me despicable because even as they win they fail to do so with respect and grace.  A true champion, it seems to me, can never become a loser because he has enough faith in himself to know that losing is a temporary condition and that the next time he will prevail.

Believe in yourself and play the game.
Play the game.
Play the game expecting to win
and winning is much more likely.
So, to all future basketball Bulldogs, we who have followed and love Okanogan sports in all their winning and losing games and seasons, be advised that we expect great things from you.  We expect you to win every time you step on the court. Believe in yourself and play the game.  Play the game.  Play the game expecting to win and winning is much more likely.
 
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