All-Decade Team Introduction

I had hoped to post my 1920's All Small-School Team today but I left my notes in my other notebook at work. So, I'll introduce the project and hope to post it sometime Monday evening.

The idea was driven by a poster on Oregonlive, who asked the best 1A players of all-time. Now that is a loaded question, tough to figure out but fun to consider. I've decided one can't truly decide the best 1A players of all-time because there are just too many solid choices.



I am of the opinion that today's athletes would generally run circles around athletes from previous generations. Note, I said in general. There will always be exceptions.

But in general, today's athletes are bigger, stronger and faster than they were even 15-20 years ago. You start heading back 50-60-70 years, then the difference is even more pronounced.

I really believe, no matter how much I love Bellfountain and that story, they'd have a hard time keeping up with Powder Valley, Crane, St Paul or McKenzie. Too many good, quick athletes for the Bells to handle.

Would I love to see a matchup between Bellfountain and Powder Valley? Absolutely! If someone can make that happen, please do. In the meantime, I'll just have to speculate and give my opinion. You can take it or leave it.

I also hear old-timers (read: anyone my dad's age or older) lament about the lost art of the mid-range jumper. Go watch film from the 1920's and tell me how those guys shot. Since no film likey exists from that era, we'll have to settle for analyzing boxscores. Guys couldn't shoot back then. Think about it, when future generations took the floor and started playing basketball, there was a method established on to shoot the basketball, a way to make the ball go in the hoop more often.

Go back to the 1920's when the game is at it's genesis and has begun to spread to the westcoast. Players from that era didn't have specialty camps, AAU, instructional videos or any kind of template to instruct them how to shoot and play basketball. They just grabbed the leather and heaved it. The results were often comical.

So, all that is a long way to say that I have decided to create "All-Decade" teams made up of the best players from the schools in the smallest classification that decade.

So the first team will be from the 1920's and will feature prominently players from Wallowa, Athena, Joseph and other of the small schools that made the state tournament during the 1920's. Some great players who played huge roles on great teams. I hope you will find information on guys like Ted Mays, Vandon Sarrett, Glen Crawford interesting and fun to consider.

I will undoubtedly miss someone. I will be stupefied if I get a response from an angry player who felt slighted that he was left off my 1920 All-Decade team (though I think that would be awesome!)

As usual, all comments and questions are welcome and encouraged. Either email me or reply to any post you see.