Louisville Magazine

FEB 2014

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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The Basketball Diaries By Bill Doolittle Illustration by Bart Galloway As tournament time approaches, writer Bill Doolittle remembers the making of Kentucky and Indiana high school hoops legends. H ow does anyone score 75 points in a high school basketball game? Well, it helps if he's already averaging 52 points a game, then one night gets hot and cranks it up to 75. Still, 75 would seem almost impossible in a 32-minute game — especially back before the three-point shot, when all baskets counted for two points. But this scribe saw it done on a cold night in January 1980, in a little place called Phelps, Ky., way back in the Eastern Kentucky mountains, past Pikeville and almost into West Virginia. A light snow had dusted the roads and hillsides, but inside the new Phelps High gym, bright lights accentuated the baskets for Ervin Stepp, a 6-foot-2-inch phenom who had led the nation in scoring as a junior, at 47.2 points per game, and was now running about fve more a game as a senior. Ervin Stepp didn't just happen. He was the third of four Stepp brothers to singe Kentucky high school nets. Joe Alan led the state in scoring in '71 and '72; Jimmy led in '78. Te Stepps were actually from Inez, in Martin County, which had, decades before, won two state championships. Uncle Orville had been an all-stater and dad Joe Stepp Sr. was a student of the game, as well as a player. Joe cut a section out of a regular basketball rim and re-welded it to narrow the basket's diameter from the standard 18 inches to 16 inches, and all the Stepps sharpened their shots on that rim. When oldest brother Joe Alan got the coaching job at Phelps, Ervin and youngest brother Randy moved with him. Ervin did the shopping and most of the cooking. He was also a straight-A student. It was a game against Feds Creek that I saw, and Ervin got of to a slow start. He hit just two of his frst eight shots and Joe Alan called a timeout. In the huddle, the coach said, "Get your lift, Ervin. Get your lift." Which is Stepp Family Language for surging of the foor into your jump shot, sending the energy from your legs up to your hands. Ten fre. When Ervin came back on the foor, he came back with his lift, and the ball few of his fngers. A kind of low-arc shot, with a snap to it. Big hands around the ball. Didn't matter where he was on the court, the shot was the same, like a machine. Get up and snap. Basket. And the points poured in like they were coming of a conveyor. At the end — after missing six of his frst eight — Stepp had canned 25 of 42 from the feld. And 25 of 27 from the free throw line. Tat's 25 times two for 50, plus 25 at the line. Tat's how you get 75. I t's hot as heck in July as the sun sets on the Dirt Bowl in Louisville's Shawnee Park. Te Dirt Bowl court isn't dirt, and the place isn't a bowl. It's a smooth outdoor asphalt court, set under some shady trees on the park's grand lawn. Te only dirt is where the grass is worn down around the court, where fans bring lawn chairs to watch the big boys play basketball. On this night, the big show comes when young Darrell Grifth, maybe 15 years old but already emerging as a star at Male High, sets sail for the basket, where Artis Gilmore, the Kentucky Colonels' 7-foot-2-inch ABA all-star center, is waiting for him. No head fakes, no dipsy doodles, Grifth goes straight up. And on this night he delivers a whole 'nother level of lift — dunking over the Big A. Tere's a huge cheer. Te players hoot and howl, and fans at courtside pick up their folding chairs and wave them in the air. Just one shot in a lifetime of shots. But by the next day, the couple hundred people who were there to see Grif dunk over Artis, have told 200 more, who have each told 200 more. I heard about it by noon at the University of Louisville's Cardinal Inn. You didn't have to be there. Not many people were. You just had to hear about it, which, of course, is how a legend is born. High school basketball — now gearing up for the champion-crowning tournaments — is great like that. Or at least it was back in the day, when special players, special teams and magic moments became legendary players and teams and moments. Tat's not to say there can't be a new legend born tonight. Or tomorrow night. But it sure seems like it's been a looong dry spell. So when Ervin Stepp threw in 75, that got the state talking. So did the night in 1970 when Wayne Golden hit 84 for Louisville Shawnee. Legends grew in that fertile ground where fact met myth under history's shade. Newspapers carried the news about stars like Grifth and Bobby Turner, of Male, Jef Lamp and Lee Raker at Ballard. Or Male stalwart Wesley Cox. Tere were stories about stars out in the state such as Clem Haskins and Mike Casey. Legends would come to town. One night George McGinnis, of Indianapolis Washington, tore up Freedom Hall in the Indiana-Kentucky high school all-star game. With eight minutes left, one of McGinnis' shoes practically disintegrated. Big George pulled of what remained and tossed it of the court. He fnished playing with one shoe and one sock — and 53 points and 30 rebounds. Up in the Hoosier state, all you needed was Oscar Robertson, the Big O, of Indianapolis' Crispus Attucks High. Little schools had the Milan Miracle of 1954. Every Hoosier knew the story of Milan star 2.14 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 29

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