Passion Knows No Season

-


There is, as Tom Hanks said in A League of Their Own, “no crying in baseball,” and there are no snow days in basketball, either.

We love this pic of Ryan Wilson (CV ’25), who doesn’t let winter weather deter his passion for growing in the game.

In the spirit of Hoosiers' Jimmy Chitwood’s relentless shooting at his rustic farmyard hoop, Ryan's passion is like that of many other basketball players in our small towns down through the decades who have jimmied gym door locks, crawled through church gym windows, dribbled basketballs wherever they’ve walked, and have not let darkness, bent rims, rickety backboards, cold, rain, or snow deter their love of the game.

Shout out to Ryan and others like him who are carrying on the all-out tradition that has made our Conval Hoop Heritage so rich and enjoyable. In the words of former NBA great Tim Duncan:


“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.”


Popular posts from this blog

Hail to the Chief

-
Image
Antrim High's Ed Coughlan, December 1965...more than a force on the court. P erhaps it’s a rural New Hampshire thing, but the nine towns that send students to Conval High—the Contoocook River bending its way around several of them—have long been interconnected. Each town is unique in its own way, and yet there is this sense that when you cross the town line from, say, New Boston to Francestown, you have entered Cougar Country as much as you’ve entered one of its nine towns. Last year’s boys’ basketball starting five, for example, represented five different towns. And when you explore our region’s hoop history, those interconnections keep popping up. In 1964, for example, when Antrim High was alive and well, little would Conval fans realize that Antrim’s long-time basketball coach, Chick Hamel, would one day become CV’s first assistant principal. (See “Paving the Way” ). And one of Chick’s star players in 1964 would one day become a legend in Hancock for many years. “You don’t have
Read more

50th Anniversary: When Conval Slayed a Giant

-
Image
Key to a shocking 1974 quarter-final win over Lebanon was Ray Abbott's (25) work on Raider big man Doug Murphy (21). Photo: Ernie Hebert, Keene Sentinel O ur Conval Hoop Heritage has had more than its share of highs and lows come tournament time, but in the history of the Regional, few tournament games will ever match the 50th anniversary drama of the 1974 Class I (D2) quarter-finals against Lebanon.   The 1973-’74 Cougars, coming off a 12-8 season in which the returning players felt “never gelled,” was loaded with speedy, athletic, good shooting veterans: Ray Abbott, John “JD” Davies, John Cuddihee, Ed Lennon, Paul Krulis, Joe Reilly, Mike Crowe and Marshall White . But small—very small. Among the starters, senior Ray Abbott was the tallest of the bunch at 6’2” and sharp-shooter John Davies was next at an even six feet. Newcomers to the team were Ted Davies, Mark Sizemore, Peter Jennson and Doug Smith . The task ahead against a brutal Class I schedule seemed formidable, but Coa
Read more

Paving the Way

-
Image
Fifty-three years ago, Conval High opened its doors for the first time, with two Antrim boys (Neal Wiggin and Chick Hamel) leading the way and the lead editorial in the Peterborough Transcript trumpeting the news. I t may seem strange that a high school basketball history blog should start with this: the story of the first day in Conval High's history, August 27, 1970. But in that first year alone, the local newspaper was alarmed that there was a drug problem, a few students in an anti-Vietnam War era refused to stand for the national anthem, and hundreds of orphaned seventh and eighth graders squeezed into the new high school when their school burned down on Christmas morning. Stress and strain were everywhere. But then, there was basketball! Amidst the chaos came a rallying cry for a student body and the community. In 1970, there was no hockey or wrestling or gymnastics to compete for attention. Only skiing (more a participant-oriented sport) and popular and excellent cheerleadin
Read more