December 8, 2004
Gym full of great memories
By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist
For the past decade or so, a lot of negative things have been written about the old Ocean City High School
gym on Ocean Avenue. They were deserved. The place had deteriorated and become outdated. The
students of OCHS deserved a better place.
They’ve got it.
In the new high school there are two gyms better than the old high school gym, plus a wrestling room that
could house a small plane and a first class weight room. All of this space is not just for the school sports
teams, it will also be put to good use during physical education classes and by the city’s recreation
department.
There is also a great display of championship trophies and plaques on display in the lobby entrance off
Sixth Street, including many trophies people haven’t seen in decades.
The great thing about this new facility is that it brings everything together. The athletes can walk down the
hallway and practice after school, rather than being forced to wait until the Intermediate School teams are
finished, sometimes arriving home after 9pm.
And the history of the sports teams can be laid out for the fans with a series of trophy cases lining the
entrance and a planned Hall of Fame display. Not to mention enough championship banners to cover most
of the gym walls.
Try to get there on Dec. 17 to be part of history as the girls and boys teams dedicate the new gym with a
doubleheader against Egg Harbor Township. Remember, no tickets will be sold at the door. You need to
buy your ticket in advance.
But, before we move completely into the future with brand new facilities, lets take a few moments to reflect
on the memories created in the old high school gym.
Those who have been around it recently, watching the roof leak and the other problems associated with
the deterioration, have a different feeling about it than people like Ken Leary or the Fadden brothers, Mike
and Jerry. When they returned to visit the old gym in its final year it brought back waves of memories,
almost all of them positive. That old gym was very special to them and many more like them. It was a
second home.
It was also home to proms, dances, the Junior Fair and a number of other non-sports activities that were
important memories for those who attended OCHS.
The boys basketball team hasn’t played there in a couple decades and the girls for more than 10 years.
The wrestlers bounced back and forth from the old high school to the Intermediate School, eventually
settling into the high school gym and trying to use the drab facilities to improve their “home mat”
advantage.
In its day, however, this gymnasium was almost a showcase. There was once a balcony on the east side
of the gym but it was removed for safety reasons. The bleachers on the south and north ends of the court
were the only seating many of us remember.
That old gym was the only home court Dixie Howell knew. He trained his first state championship team 50
years ago this season and his second, led by John Cranston, nine years later. The sounds of “Sweet
Georgia Brown” would come blasting through the speakers as the players dribbled between two lines of
cheerleaders onto the court for their three-line layup drill. The place was normally full and the orchestrated
entrance almost always brought them to their feet.
Wayne Thompson, Mike Fadden, Leary and Bill Fisher - the first four OCHS players to score 40 points in a
game – played their home games in that gym. Dick Fox, Charles Bringhurst, Frank Wickes, Wayne
Hudson, Charlie Baker, Bill Haynes, John Moore, Glenn Darby – they all averaged a double-double during
one of their seasons in that gym (two in Darby’s case).
Dick Grimes and Archie Harris called that gym home. So did Barry Banks and Randy Fox. And Bert Avis
and Ed Keenan. Fans got to see some of the great scoring combinations play in that gym. There were
Leary and Butch Krattenmaker, Brad Bryant and Bill Rackley, Fisher and Mike Sannino, Eddie Paone and
Willie Brown, plus the immortal Wickes and Joe Kennedy.
We got our first look at Gary Satrappe, who died this year, in that gym, before he became a Mainland
Mustang for his senior year. Reggie Miller, who died just before Thanksgiving, first came into that gym as a
freshman with a great future. Chris Ford played there, the first time as a freshman on a Holy Spirit team
that was 0-23. Mainland’s Cary Monroe, coached by former Raider Whitey Haak, scored 53 points in that
gym in the last CAL boys game played there, still the most points ever scored against the Raiders.
The gym was also the home to Pat Dougherty’s great girls teams and about half of those coached by
Chris Lentz. We saw Diane Snow make her first layup, Lisa Foglio nail her first jumper, Anne Brinkmann
connect on a her first look-away pass, Stephanie Vanderslice muscle down her first rebound and Joi
Johnson and Margaret Rowell glide down the lane for the first of their many buckets for the Raiders.
Trish Hopson, now one of Ocean City’s top coaches, played there before heading to UMass for her college
career. So did Pam McFarland, who went on to play for Duke, and Robyn Fortsch, who played at Penn
and later coached at Egg Harbor Township. Plus Margie Bonnett, Millie Foxworth and a room full of
Vanderslices.
And don’t forget the hundreds, maybe thousands, of cheerleaders who kept the spirit high in that gym.
Almost all of those people have great memories of that gym. The dozens of big games with Wildwood,
later to be joined by Mainland and other teams that challenged the Raiders. Some of them, incidentally,
have acquired a piece of the old gym floor. Those mementoes are being sold by Dougherty and Bill
Nickles, who painstakingly removed the boards as a way to raise money for scholarships and booster
clubs. You can purchase your piece of the gym floor by phoning them at the high school.
Ocean City High School has a beautiful facility for its winter sports teams, worthy of the young people in
the community. Lets hope the future in the new gym brings memories as great as those from the old gym.
Read more of
Tom Williams' columns