1950 Census and Best All-Time D-B Basketball Players

 

The 1950 Census Is Online!

The National Archives released the 1950 census the first week of April and I've been searching it for my family. This is the first census that I appear in!

The index is still in rudimentary form – there is not a good index yet. In other words you have to be lucky to find the page your family is on. It is searchable but the artificial intelligence program used for the index isn't very good.

If you have the patience, and the time, here are a few tips.

 

You can find the Census search page at:

https://1950census.archives.gov/search/

 

The search boxes for state, county, name and enumeration district are on the left. The simplest way to search is click on State and County.

Sullivan County, Tennessee is county number 82.

My neighborhood is Enumeration District 38, which is composed of 56 pages. If you have the patience, and you lived near me (it should be called the Garden Basket Enumeration District), search 82-38. Be aware that that is a lot of pages to look through.

Frankly it’s easier to search for names, despite the limitations of the search index. Think of your old neighborhood in 1950 and the neighbor with the most unusual name.

I managed to find my neighborhood because of the woman who lived two houses down, “Lula Deck,” mother of legendary Kingsport City Schools Bible teacher Margaret Deck.

Lula Deck’s name actually shows up in the index. My father, “Lyle Staten,” doesn’t show up and the index mostly produces links to pages with “Kyle” on them.

I found the street behind our house, Clover Street, by searching for another neighbor with an unusual name, “Afton Arnott.”

You may discover some amazing things in the census, like neighbors you don’t remember. I discovered my mother and father were renting our upstairs to a couple I had never heard of, David and Ruby Bradley. Of course I was only two when the census was taken.

David Bradley was a student at ETSC and Ruby was a “paper cutter” at the “paper mill.” (Mead, I assume.) And in digging around I figured out how they came to rent our apartment: Ruby was the sister of Mildred McKay, my mother’s best friend from Chuckey High School.

The census also revealed that our next-door neighbors, the Shankels, were renting out their upstairs to another familiar couple, Paul and Joy Jordan. I had no recollection of them living next door. I thought we knew them because my father worked with Paul at Penney’s. The Jordans would later move to Florida when Paul was named manager of the Penney’s store in Tampa. I can remember visiting them when we were vacationing at my aunt’s rental house in St. Petersburg. 

My mother was still getting Christmas cards from the Jordan family in 2002, when I moved back to Kingsport to take care of her.

 

 This 1950 Census page includes parts of Fairidge, Linville and Watauga Streets. I found it because I was looking for Lyle and found "Kyle," Kyle Huddle. 

 

Best All-Time D-B Basketball Players

1975 D-B team

On March 13, 1988 the Kingsport Times-News published a short news item headlined “Fans’ List.”

The story went like this:

“Here are the results of balloting conducted at the Elizabethton/Dobyns-Bennett basketball game recently (Feb. 16, 1988) when spectators were invited to vote for the best all-time D-B basketball players. Assistant coach Al Wilkes, who supervised the Activities Office project, said selections could have been swayed some by the age factor of voters. Many of those who cast ballots were under 35:”

THE TOP 28 listed alphabetically (Coach Wilkes expanded the list to the Top 28 because of ties.)

Jerry Adams (D-B Class of ‘75)

Mike Ainslie (’61)

Bobby Bedford (’51)

Mark Begley (’72)

Chuck Blevins (’76)

Frank Bridwell (’59)

Clark Bryan (’59)

Anthony Eckel (’75)

Mark Elliott (’76)

Mike Evans (’75)

Leroy Fisher (’64)

Larry Garber (’59)

Lee Garber (’81)

Bill Greene (’55)

Randy Harkleroad (’84)

Tommy Henry (’76)

Carter Johnson (’73)

Stan Johnson (’55)

Charlie Leonard (’58)

Robert Leonard (’62)

Earl Lovelace (’63)

Gary McGinnis (’50)

Cecil Puckett (’47)

Ronnie Releford (’69)

Kim Sensabaugh (’75)

Henry Stokely (’87)

Bruce Tranbarger (’83)

Dickie Warren (’53)

 

If you’re counting – and you don’t have to because I did – there is one player who graduated in the 40s, nine from the 50s, five from the 60s, nine from the 70s and four from the 80s.

There is one set of brothers – Charlie and Robert Leonard – and one father-son – Larry and Lee Garber.

D-B, know then as Kingsport High, began playing basketball in 1916 (in a game against Fall Branch). But voters at that 1988 game had probably never heard of Matt Lunn (class of 1924), who held the single-game scoring record of 22, for over a decade, or Blackie Grills (1933), reputed to be the best player of the early years. And most probably they knew Cecil Puckett because he had been D-B activities director until 1985.

Even given the youth of those who voted, I think there is one glaring omission on this list: Skip Brown (’73). Perhaps the newspaper editor made an error in transcribing Coach Wilkes’ handwriting. I don’t think there is any question that Skip belongs on this list, maybe at the very top.

I think John Penn (’65) and Sam Bedford (’65), younger brother of Bobby Bedford, also belong.

If you put Leroy Fisher on your list, then you should add his teammate at both D-B and ETSU, Richard Arnold (’64).

I could make a case for Worley Ward (’63), who was a spot starter on a team that finished third in the state tournament (this was my sophomore year). Worley became a starter during the district tournament and just took off, even landing on the All-State Tournament team and winning a scholarship to North Carolina State. He eventually ended up at ETSU with Arnold and Fisher on the ’68 team that beat Florida State and Dave Cowens in the NCAA tournament round of 32 before losing to Ohio State in the round of 16.

 
A very young Cecil Puckett puts 1945 state championship trophy in the case.

The Fan Favorite List is light – very light – on players from the early years. Only Cecil Puckett (’47), George McGinnis (’50) and Bobby Bedford (’51) played during the forties and Puckett was well-known in 1988 as a coach, teacher and activities director at the school.

What about those early players? They played a different style of basketball, where the set shot reigned and the jump shot hadn’t been invented.

But in fairness we should note a few of them.

In 1935 legendary D-B coach LeRoy Sprankle picked his Best All-Time Team for the Kingsport Times. (He had been named head basketball coach in 1922 so he had only a dozen or so teams to pick from.)

“Guards, George Grills, Claude Wright and Robert Dodd; centers, ‘Nat’ Reasor and Fred Saylor; forwards, Matt Lunn, Mansfield Jackson and Luke Bellamy.”

He wouldn’t pick one all-time best but the Kingsport Times did.

According to a story in the same issue by Billy Figg, then a sophomore at D-B, “George ‘Blackie’ Grills (’33) has been called by critics the best ‘all-time player of Dobyns-Bennett.’ Grills played for five years at Dobyns-Bennett and his spectacular shots and ability at handling rebounds amazed the crowds as did his magnificent guarding. Grills played last year with the Kingsport Drug Independents and is now playing on the Augusta Military Academy five.”

 

1953 D-B team from yearbook - note autograph by Stan (Soupbean) Johnson. In the newspaper he was always called Stan The Man Johnson. 

30, 37, 49, 50, 53 points!

Guy B. Crawford, Stan Johnson, Charlie Leonard, Randy Harkleroad and the D-B single game scoring record

One thing that stands out to me is that the list includes three record holders for most points in a single game: Johnson, Leonard and Harkleroad. And two of those – Johnson and Leonard – were coached by another record-holder, Guy Crawford (before he became “Guy B.”), who scored 30 in a 1939 game.

Stan Johnson, the 6 foot 5 inch center on the 1952-1955 D-B teams, set the single-game scoring record of 49 in a Nov. 27, 1954 contest against Ketron, breaking his own record of 46, set the season before. As a sophomore he had scored 37 in a game, breaking Guy B.’s record of 30, set in 1939.

Three years after Johnson’s 49-point game, Charlie Leonard broke the record by hitting the 50-point mark in a game against Rogersville.

Leonard’s record would stand for 27 years until Randy Harkleroad scored 53 in a 1984 game against Morristown West.

All these records were set before the advent of the three-point shot and the shot clock.

 

1938-1939 Basketball team with Guy Crawford, back row, far left, next to Coach Sprankle. 

 The Amazing Basketball Life of Guy B. Crawford

He is remembered today, if at all, as the flamboyant – and hugely successful – coach of Dobyns-Bennett’s basketball teams in the fifties. He famously waved a red bandana to signal for a timeout. And he famously won games, taking his teams to the state tournament virtually every season.

But before he made his name as Coach “Guy B.” Crawford, he made his name as a D-B basketball player, Guy Crawford, a record-setting scoring machine, who played only one year, his junior season.

Here’s what Kingsport Times sports editor Frank Rule wrote about him on Jan. 8, 1939:

“This boy Guy Crawford, sensational ace of the Kingsport high school cagers, will set a new high scoring record for the Indians if he continues the pace he has set in the last seven games.

“Although resorting to an unorthodox style of firing at the basket, Crawford already this season has chalked up 151 points, topped by his 26 against Elizabethton in the Indians’ 45-10 conquest Friday night.

“An end and tackle on the football team during the past season, Crawford, who hails from up Fall Branch way, is playing his first season on the hardwood for the Indians. He has looped 63 baskets from the field and has tossed in 25 free shots for his 151 total.

“Considered just another cager at the start of the season, Crawford played only portions of the first seven games, but since that time has taken part in practically every minute of play.

“And it is in the last seven games that Crawford has scored most of his points. Since he became the Indians’ ace he has accounted for 112 of his points. He scored only 39 in the first seven games.”

Let that settle in: Guy Crawford was not expected to be anything more than a serviceable reserve on LeRoy Sprankle’s team.

He had varsity basketball experience before arriving in Kingsport. He played on the Fall Branch High varsity as an eight-grader and as a freshman, transferred to Jonesboro High as a sophomore – where he played two games in the fall semester for coach Bob Beck - and wound up at D-B for his junior year.

His form shooting a basketball was awful, a twisting, turning, jumping style that sportswriter Rule compared to a “girl throwing a rock double-handed.” His free throw form was even worse, a two-hand overhead, leaning-backward shot.

But he made those shots, like no other Kingsport high player before him, and unlike any who came after him, at least not until the fifties.

He had perfected his shooting style on the playground rim at Green Shed School in Fall Branch – they had no indoor gym. (Side note: My father went to Green Shed School. He was five years ahead of Guy Crawford. He never once mentioned Crawford to me, probably because my father cared nothing about sports.)

Crawford set a single-game scoring record at D-B in 1939 – scoring 30 points against Johnson City - that would stand until it was broken by All-State player Stan Johnson 13 years later.

He played only one season at D-B, his junior year, coming off the bench for the first third of the season, then sitting out another game in the heart of conference play because of grades.

And still he set a new record for most points scored in a season: 440 points.

Rule wrote, “He got his first real test against Homestead while on the Florida trip and registered 19 points. Against Redlands in the next game he scored nine. Then against Miami, Jacksonville, Chattanooga and Bradley he racked up 18, 9, 15 and 16 points, respectively. Coach Leroy Sprankle, who has produced many championship basketball teams for Kingsport, says Crawford is a ‘natural born basketball player,’ and it is upon the shoulders of this star he is placing his hopes of returning the Indians to power in upper East Tennessee cage circles.”

And then Rule got into that unorthodox shooting style: “Crawford doesn't go in for ‘form’ and ‘gracefulness’ in making his baskets. He fires them in a manner that probably would make Glenn Roberts, Joe Lapchick, Davy Banks and other great stars of the hardwood, shudder. But they ring true often enough which, after all, is what counts on the score sheet. On his foul shots, Guy toes the foul line with one foot, the other back just as far as it will go. He raises the ball over his head, leans backward and lets go.”

His fellow students dubbed his field goal shooting style the “hoot-nanny shot.” Hoot-nanny was used then as a term for something folks didn’t understand, like a “thingamajig” or a “doohickey.”

Frank Rule again: “The shot looks like 50 percent physical exertion and 100 per cent prayer, half of the prayer being provided by the Kingsport rooters--but how it gets results!”

Guy Crawford didn’t play basketball at D-B his senior year. Sports editor Frank Rule explained in August 1939, “Guy Crawford is entering Virginia Polytechnic next week ... Guy was ruled ineligible to participate in basketball this year at Dobyns-Bennett, so he attended summer school, gained the credits necessary for graduation and decided to enter the Virginia school... Guy, who is no slow-poke in the class room, is expected to make his mark in grades as well as on the basketball floor at Blacksburg.”

Crawford graduated from Virginia Tech in four years, served in the Army during the war, then earned a Masters at Columbia in New York before being hired in 1947 to teach sociology and coach basketball and baseball at D-B. Although his basketball teams never won the state – finishing second and third multiple times – his baseball teams won two state championships, in 1952 and in 1957.

Guy Crawford became “Guy B” Crawford for the first time in a March 1939 Kingsport Times story when he made the baseball team. He was “Guy B” from then on.

I wish that a film existed of him shooting. I’d love to see that “hoot-nanny shot.”