Inductees

At the year-end banquet, just weeks after his team came up short in the state championship game, sophomore guard Gary “Cat Johnson had something to say. And so coach Mike O’Rourke gave him the floor.

What came next – and over the next two years – defined the Joplin Memorial High School boys basketball teams of the mid-1970s.

“To you seniors, this was the best year of my life, and we couldn’t have done it without you,” Johnson said, as O’Rourke recalled. “But we didn’t get it done. Next year, we will.”

That promise led to 737 consecutive days of practices — a stretch that fueled a Golden Era of Eagles hoops. In fact, that era is leading the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted the Joplin Memorial High School Boys Basketball Teams of 1974 to 1978 with the Class of 2020.

In that stretch, Memorial earned four Final Four berths in Class 3, winning state championships in 1977 and 1978 following a fourth-place finish (1974), quarterfinal berth (1975) and state runner-up surge (1976). The 1977 and 1978 teams won state championships by churning out records of 31-1 and 31-0, respectively.

The 1974 team (22-7) was coached by Ron Baker, with O’Rourke an assistant, and the roster featured Mike Lloyd, Notie Pate, Erwin Palmer and Dennis Warden.

“Mike Lloyd was a really good quarterback and one of the only upperclassmen,” O’Rourke recalled. “We were kind of establishing what we needed to with the young kids.”

O’Rourke coached the next four seasons, employing a pressure defense and high-octane offense.

The 1975 team (22-7) reached the state quarterfinals behind Pate, Kevin Donohoe, Ron Greninger, Allie Davis, William Jackson and Chris Palmer.

Johnson (MSHOF Filbert Five 2017) was part of the next three teams, with the 1976 squad (26-5) also featuring Davis, James Fields, Donohoe and Greninger. That team reached the state finals, only to fall 87-82 to St. Joseph-Lafayette.

To Johnson, however, work was unfinished.

“Two days after the banquet, he said, ‘Coach, you’ve got to come up to the gym,’” O’Rourke said. “I opened the door, and there were 25 kids in there.”

The 1977 team beat Charleston 80-73 in the championship game when Charleston was led by future University of Missouri standout Ricky Frazier, who scored 33 points. The Eagles won the Sportsmanship Trophy, too.

O’Rourke was as stunned as anybody.

The day before, he had watched Charleston improve to 31-0 and easily justify its No. 1 state ranking.

“I slept like a baby that night, because I was thinking, ‘There’s no way we’re beating those guys,’” O’Rourke said.

Instead, Joplin surged to a 35-16 advantage early before Charleston overtook the Eagles early in the fourth quarter. In the second half, Joplin Memorial went to a four corners offense, with Johnson in the middle.

The Eagles hit 30 of 36 free throws to win it, including eight of nine free throws in the final minute. That season, Joplin averaged 90 points a game.

“If you play that team 10 times, they win nine,” O’Rourke said of Charleston. “It was a Cinderella game.”

The next year, Joplin Memorial challenged itself but never broke. In February 1978, the Eagles were 18-0 and played 17-1 Fayetteville (Ark.) High School in front of 2,000 fans in Fayetteville’s tiny gym.

Joplin Memorial emerged as an 82-75 as Johnson scored 33 points with then-University of Arkansas coach Eddie Sutton and star player Sidney Moncrief in attendance.

Both teams went on to win state championships, with Joplin Memorial edging Columbia Rock Bridge 64-63 in the semifinals before ripping St. Louis McKinley 97-69 in the championship game. Johnson scored 30 and 31 in the final two games.

Players who were on both the 1977 and 1978 teams were Keith Carr, Fields, Joe Jameson, Shelton Jameson, Johnson, Mark Mense and Mark Taylor.

The 1977 team also included Clyde England, Carter Harbin, Kevin Haynes, Michael Hill, Kevin Sadler and Tony Thompson.

The 1978 team included Mark Fowler, Dave Gilliam, Vic Strickland and Bryant Thomas

The only team to beat Memorial in that stretch was cross-town rival Joplin Parkwood, which won in their fourth meeting of the 1977 season.

O’Rourke credits other opponents in the Ozark Conference for toughening up Memorial.

“The thing that catapulted us was winning our league,” O’Rourke said. “If we won the conference, we felt we could play with anybody. That gave us so much more confidence and let us believe we could make some noise in the state tournament.”