ILWACO – Fifty years ago Ilwaco won their only state basketball championship in school history. The Chinook Observer is featuring a week by week summary to help fans relive that magical season. Information for the 15-week series was gathered from player interviews, original copies of the Chinook Observer edited and published by Wayne O’Neil and copies of The Tribune edited and published by Dick Murfin and salvaged by Larry Phelps. Dennis Oman provided photographs and the official Ilwaco High School scorebooks for the 1959 and 1960 seasons that were kept by Tenho “Slub” Harju. Information came from eye-witness accounts, from “Tournament Fever” by James Stinson, the 1960 official state “B” basketball tournament program, and with the invaluable help of Rod Anderson, local sports historian.

Ironically the calendar in 1958 and 1959 is exactly the same as 2008 and 2009, so when you read a story about a Friday night game, it happened on a Friday night, 50 winters ago. Player profiles will be included with some game stories. Other news of the day from the Observer and Tribune are added at the end of each week’s game summaries to help set the tone of the era.

Price of admission to what was referred to as either the Peninsula or Ilwaco Fishermen games was 65 cents for adults, students 50 cents, and children could see “the only game in town” for 25 cents at Hilltop Gymnasium. Popcorn, candy, gum and soda pop cost a dime and hot dogs were a quarter. A pocket schedule “compliments of Sugarman’s Food Store, Seaview, Washington” aided fans in attending games. A subscription to either newspaper was $3 for a year or 10 cents for a single copy.

The season opened with the Ilwaco/Peninsula Fishermen splitting a pair of games with Wishkah and contributing to the team’s victory in a unique jamboree held at Raymond.

At Wishkah Valley

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 1958WISHKAH – The season began Tuesday, Dec. 2 when Ilwaco won a close 40-38 decision over a powerful team from Wishkah. The Fishermen used a two-platoon system of substituting five players at a time for coach Don Lee and reserves were called “the second string.”

Since there wouldn’t be a shot clock in college basketball for another 26 years – there has never been one in Washington’s high school boys’ hoops – the Fishermen stalled for a good portion of the final period to maintain their lead in the opener. Wishkah definitely “enjoyed home cooking, as they sank 22 of 30 free throws to only 6-16 for Ilwaco at the charity stripe. The Fishermen made 17 field goals to the Loggers’ eight.” Balanced scoring for Ilwaco overcame the 25 combined points from Entus and Parker.

Ilwaco (40) – Ken Sugarman 4, Bill Jacobe 2, Steve Gray 8, Bob Bales 8, Dennis Oman 4, Ken Tetz, Jim Peterson 5, Hawkins, Don Bales, Gary Tetz 6, Allan Dobbs 3

Wishkah (38) – Ancich 4, Clevinger 8, Entus 13, Parker 12, Allen 1

Raymond Jamboree

Friday, Dec. 5, 1958RAYMOND – The first Friday of the season, Dec. 5, eight teams came together in Raymond for an interesting format for a basketball jamboree. Each of the eight teams played two quarters against opponents determined the night of the jamboree. “Yell leaders from each of the eight teams drew numbers to see which schools played and when,” it was reported.

Teams from Ilwaco, South Bend, Naselle and Cathlamet represented the winning South squad (dubbed “the Confederates” by The Tribune) as they combined for an 86-71 victory over teams from PeEll, Ocosta, Valley and Raymond. The South’s victory knotted the six-year series at three victories for both sides. In Ilwaco’s two quarters they played Ocosta to close the team score to within 29-26 in favor of the North and then finished against Valley and helped preserve the South’s victory.

Home vs. Wishkah Valley

Saturday, Dec. 6, 1958ILWACO – It was back to work Saturday in a rematch with Wishkah and this time the Loggers turned the tables for a 45-36 win at Ilwaco. Poor shooting for the Fishermen was the culprit in their first loss of the season as they sank only 11 of 64 tries from the field for 17 percent. It was again the strong one-two scoring punch of Entus and Parker who combined for 30 points that did the Fishermen in.

Ilwaco (36) – Jim Peterson, Ken Sugarman 6, Steve Gray 5, Dennis Oman 9, Bob Bales 6, Bill Jacobe 8, John Cheplak, Don Bales, Allan Dobbs, Gary Tetz 2

Wishkah (45) – Ancich 5, Clevinger 8, Entus 12, Parker 18, Allen 2

The school year of 1958-59 began with the Ilwaco School District deciding to remodel the gymnasium and make other improvements to what is now the new high school or Hilltop. The cost of gym improvements was to be $145,000, a new shop and home economics wing was budgeted at $140,000, other improvements to the school would cost $40,000 and the heating system was to be upgraded at an estimated cost of $20,000. School districts at Chinook, Long Beach, and Ocean Park sent students to Ilwaco for high school and hence the name Ilwaco Fishermen became more prevalent than Peninsula Fishermen. The project never came to fruition as the schools eventually consolidated into the Ocean Beach School District. Henry “Scoop” Jackson defeated William Bantz 3,959 to 1,393 in Pacific County in the race for U.S. Senator.

Player profile – Dennis Oman, 5-10 guardILWACO – Fifty years ago Dennis Oman was characterized by all-state first team selections Ken Sugarman and Bob Bales as “the best player on our team.” Sugarman says, “Dennis was kind of cocky, but he had all the skills and his play brought out the best in all of us.” Steve Gray adds, “He made everything smooth as oil for us on the court.”

Oman is the most direct link between the 1959 state champion Ilwaco squad and the present team as he is a volunteer assistant coach for the Fishermen in 2008-09. Besides joining Sugarman and Bales on the all-state first team, Oman also was varsity basketball coach for Ilwaco in the late 1980s, suffering through a rebuilding 2-18 season.

“I was always a student of the game,” Oman says. “I gave coach (Don) Lee two books on basketball that I had learned from. One was by Claire Bee.” Oman began playing basketball at age 11 in the old Long Beach gym that his uncle, Roy Oman, Sr. moved to the present Oman and Son site in Long Beach. “We spent hours in that gym. It still has the markings on the floor, even though it is now used to store lumber.”

Oman has never stopped playing basketball and this year his team won gold at the Washington Senior Games and he won individual gold at free throw and at hot-shot shooting competitions. He has earned National and World Games gold medals as well. After graduation he started two seasons at guard for Grays Harbor College and then attended University of Hawaii and Western Washington University where he graduated in 1966.

He taught high school history and coached baseball, basketball and football at Mabton and Grand Coulee and admits he was “the state’s worst football coach, but we did pretty good in baseball.” He then went to Toutle Lake where he was Central League basketball coach of the year four times and took the Ducks to state three times, finishing fourth place in 1975. Oman then went into the real estate business locally and has helped with the IHS basketball program for decades. Oman was on the bench when Joe Williams’ Fishermen took second at the state A tourney in 1990 at the Tacoma Dome and worked with Paul Jarrett as a player, saying, “Paul was the best in Ilwaco history.”

“I learned most of my coaching from Virgil Simmons (hall of fame basketball coach from Kalama) when he was principal at Toutle. He used to tell me one drill was superfluous and another could be better if I also taught something extra,” Oman explained. “Coach Lee was a very good football coach and player at WSU and he stuck with the basics in basketball and made sure we were unselfish team players. He was calm and commanded respect. He listened to us as players and he didn’t get too fancy so we could concentrate on just playing basketball.”

Oman remembers a couple of crazy things during the team’s state title run. “We played South Bend there and the first game they left two players on the offensive end all night. We beat them, but it was different knowing they were always down there.” The second was more frightening. “Four of us were driving out by Goulter’s one icy night and we slid off the road, hit a tree and ended up in the ditch. None of us were hurt, but that could have been the end of our season.”

Oman believes the kids of today are in a lot of ways the same, “they want to play hard, have fun and win,” but he believes the parents and community sometimes have too high expectations of only winning. “Our second team always had players who would have started and done well on any other team in the county. We accepted our roles and we all liked each other and that was why we went as far as we did.”

He says, “My dad (Oliver Oman) never said a negative word about our coaches or the referees. He’d tell me that I had committed some fouls that weren’t called, so accept those that were. As kids we didn’t have a lot of other things to do, so we played sports, participated in school plays, whatever was going on. Even the kids who weren’t very athletic turned out for everything and later they were part of the rooting section.”

Oman relates, “We won the (Southwest Washington District) sportsmanship trophy three years in a row and that was a big deal to all of us. The guys wore white shirts and black hats and the girls all wore their blue Pep Club outfits and they packed over half of one side of every gym we played in. Our entire school was unified and behind us and I’m not sure that is the case anymore. I know every class reunion that’s one thing everyone seems to want to talk about is the state championship.”

In 1958 Oman and his Fishermen teammates “absolutely did not have the slightest idea of being state champs” he says. “I didn’t even know where the state tournament was held. All we wanted to do was get to district and not be embarrassed. We were thrilled just to win the county championship (for the first time in 16 years).”

Oman says of the district semi-final game against top-ranked Kalama, “Bob Moawad was my hero and when I guarded him I was a bit in awe. We were just hoping to not get beaten too bad by Kalama because they were rated first in the state and we were 10th and here we ended up winning. Even then we would have been thrilled to go to state and lose our first two games. Being state champions was something we couldn’t even imagine until it happened. I remember all the Spokane newspapers said about us was that we ‘added color’ to the tournament.”

True to form the cocky and still-active point guard Oman adds, “Of course the next year we were confident and wanted to repeat as champions.” An ankle injury kept Oman out of most of the title tilt in 1960 and Ilwaco lost a heart-breaker 56-54 to Grand Coulee, but in 1959 the Fishermen were at the top of the heap. Dennis Oman with his flat top haircut, shifty moves and deadly jump shot on the court, and cocky attitude was having the time of his life and now he’s passing on his half-century of experiences to the 2008-09 Fishermen team.

“That’s what it’s all about, sharing the love of the game of basketball,” Oman concludes.