CONVAL HOOP HERITAGE

L ike 2024, as the season wound down in 1951’-52, hopes for the following year were high in Conval Nation... The Peterborough Hilanders (pictured)—with players who would be elderly grandfathers today— had a rough go of it, finishing the regular season at 4-13. But these young guys would improve the following year and be among the elite in Class B in 1954 and 1955. Teaming with a one-loss JV team from 1951-’52, Peterborough High would be sparked by freshman sensation Dave Gavitt —a player remembered for giving his all and his leadership. including rallying his teammates for a shoot-around after losing the 1955 tournament game. Shown in the photo are (front, from left): Phil Bailey, John Twomey, co-captains Jack Harris and Jimmy Yakovakis, Eddie Wheeler and Dave Gavitt. Second row: Coach Dick Snow, Harry Clough, Tom Lawrence, Buddy Charest and assistant manager Tod Hofer. Back row: Bob Durkee, Don LaFontaine, Bill Taylor and manager Phil Petts . Yakovakis, Clough and Taylor were all f...

I n the winter of 1954, “Attn. Coach Snow” was the local newspaper’s prompting of Peterborough High coach Dick Snow to pay attention to this hot-shot junior from Hancock High, Bud Adams. It marked the last year that Hancock High would field a team as the town opted to join Peterborough in the fall of 1954. “The Friday triumph scored at the expense of arch-rival Antrim stands a chance of becoming one of the most glorious in the school’s history,” wrote the Peterborough Transcript. “Bud Adams, clever HHS guard and a good hoop prospect for any schoolboy squad (he’s only a junior) scored no less than 31 points as his team set back Antrim on the latter’s court, 59-41. This was Hancock’s tenth game of the season, and their lone victory.” The last Hancock High squad was a young one, with only one senior, guard Forrest Weston . The others were sophomore forward Gale Hennessey and seventh grader (!) Butch Kimball , and center sophomore Bob Kierstead (who scored 18 points against Antrim). Co...

Members of the 13-1 Hancock High squad of 1951-52 (front, from left): Bud Adams, Dick Quinn and Bob Brooks. Second row: Coach Joe Courteau, Bill Stearns and Al Prime. Back row: Lee McMahon, Ed Dow, Forrest Weston, Gale Hennessey and Bob Kierstead. (Prime and McMahon were from Stoddard .) I n 1954, tiny Milan High School in Indiana shocked the high school basketball world by defeating Muncie Central High School—a school ten times its size—for the Indiana state championship. The stunning victory was the inspiration for the legendary basketball movie “Hoosiers.”  Two years earlier, one can only wonder if tiny Hancock High School would have been the New Hampshire version of that famous movie... Finishing the 1951-52 season with a 13-1 record, and with only about 50 students in the entire school. the Blue Devils earned the third seed in the state Class C (small school) state tournament, held that year in Claremont. Hancock’s only loss was to Troy, with the two teams tied atop the Southe...

Janice Engstrom, Shirley Adams, Agnes Smit, and Jo Otis were four of the mainstays of Hancock High’s girls basketball team for 1950-’51 . Y ou forget that tiny, picturesque Hancock once had a high school (located on School Street, at the site of the Conval District grade school). You forget that in the 1940s and early 1950s, Hancock was one of the smallest and most competitive high schools in the state (there were just 13 boys in the entire high school in 1952! See "The Hancock High 'Hoosiers'" ). And you forget that when it came to girls’ basketball, Hancock was queen of the New Hampshire hill—41 wins in a row over three seasons. On December 12, 1950, that unbelievable winning streak came to an end. Four years later, Hancock High closed and joined forces with Peterborough High, and in 1970, the two towns joined seven others in forming Contoocook Valley Regionsl High School. Good to remember that our Conval hoop heritage, both boys and girls, is something worth remem...

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...

T he Conval Hoop Heritage project has been an absolute blast, and we (coach and historian Dick Ellingwood ’75 at left and bball stats guy and writer Steve Smith ’72 at right) want to give a huge shoutout to the Monadnock Center for History and Culture — and especially Executive Director Michelle Stahl ’85. Michelle and the Center staff have given us great access to a treasure trove of historic photos, documents and old newspapers that have been instrumental in telling CV’s 100-year hoop heritage story. We couldn’t have done any of it without them. And the thing is, there’s so much more to explore and many more stories to tell!…

At left, the 1993 Conval boys' team holds its breath as Jaime LeFlem steps to the line to tie the Class I finals at the end of regulation. At right, Madi Hatt of this year's Cougar girls' team concentrates on her free throws. E veryone likes the thrill of the “three” but hoop history has shown that teams and players who make their free throws in the heat of a close game or playoff atmosphere can make the difference in helping their team either move on or make an earlier than expected exit. In the earliest days of basketball, foul shots were considered so valuable that a “specialist” was allowed to come off the bench and go to the line. (That’s crazy!) The NHIAA demonstrated its belief in the power of the free throw by holding a state tournament contest from 1949 through 1971. Among the winners was a certain pro baseball prospect from Charlestown High School named Carlton Fisk !   Making clutch free throws with hundreds and even thousands of fans screaming in your ear has a...

A young Dave Gavitt (with ball) in Peterborough with teammates Bernie Cutter (left) and Ron Bailey, and as legendary coach at Providence College. I n the 1954-55 season, Peterborough High School enjoyed its finest year since the 1941 state champions. The Hilanders, paced by Wayne Crowell, Ron Bailey, Gary Brown , former Hancock High standout Bob Kierstead (Hancock had just begun sending its high school students to PHS), and a kid named Dave Gavitt , finished the regular season 14-2 and won the Monadnock League Championship. Highly ranked in the Class B state tournament, the Hilanders were heavy favorites against St. John of Concord (now Bishop Brady) in the first round. The Green and White seemed well on their way to the quarter-finals, holding a 10-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. Then, as the Peterborough Transcript reported, “everything went wrong. Not a tally was scored by the luckless Hilanders until co-captain Gavitt netted a desperation two points after six minutes o...

I t is hard to believe now but quaint little Hancock had two high schools in the earliest days of the town. Perhaps even more eye-opening is that in the 1940s and early 1950s, a singular and very tiny Hancock High (pictured, on what is now the elementary school grounds) was known for remarkable basketball excellence. The girls’ teams had a winning streak that extended more than 30 in a row at one time, and in 1948-49, the boys were the “Hoosiers” of our region. With only 16 boys in the school—believed to be the smallest enrollment of any high school in the state—seven Hancock boys were on the basketball team that finished the regular season 9-3. Its tiny sunken court was about the size of a large swimming pool. Substitute players came from the junior high. They became the first-ever Hancock team to qualify for the state Class C (small school) tournament, but according to local reports, “they were almost forced to pass up the tourney as mumps spread throughout the school. Practically th...

  1927-28 Peterborough High School heroes … Front from left: Joseph Emery, Assistant Coach Philander Mann, Harold “Jim” Clinton, Lawrence Carll, Coach Gordon L. Fox, Warren Smith. Back row from left: Lester Smith, Merrill Dole, Paul Myhaver, Robert Paquet, Wallace Flood, Arthur Smith, Harry Brenner. W hen Conval High School opened in the fall of 1970 , it was hailed as one of the finest in New Hampshire for its state-of-the-art academic and athletic facilities. And ever since that very first home basketball game in December 1970 against Tilton-Northfield (now Winnisquam Regional), Conval teams have generally enjoyed a big-floor home court advantage—even during the most challenging of seasons. For one thing, in nearly every game over the past 50-plus years, there seems to be at least one key turnover gained from visiting teams from smaller gyms who underestimate the size of the floor and the depth perception of our court’s spacious layout. But as with many things concerning Conval H...

The very first, and arguably the greatest, Cougars back in 1970-71. Front from left: Steve Hartwell, Gary Cabana, Coach Ray Richard, Paul Boule, Tod Silegy. Back from left: Tom Lithgow, Dan Pratt, Jeff Wheeler, Dick Blood, Bill Bishop McRae, Pete Fontaine, John Banks. Missing from photo: Kevin Chapman. D uring the 1969 school year, students at Peterborough and Antrim high schools completed a survey to determine a mascot and school colors for the new Conval High School that would open in the fall of 1970. In the end, the majority chose blue and gold, and Golden Cougars. Yes, Golden Cougars. No one seems to know how it got whittled down to simply Cougars, but not to be forgotten is that one of the contenders for school mascot was Warlanders—a combination of Antrim High’s Warriors and Peterborough High’s Hilanders, symbolic of two storied high schools coming together to form something new. After all, history was about to be made. Some teachers were so excited about the new educational opp...