I would have to guess the year on this one, so I'll try and rely on some of you to get it correct.1954-55?
I remember all of these players and how good they were.
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Photo courtesy of Betty Smith Massengill.
Click to enlarge.
The date would have to be no later than 1955. John Olan, SeeSaw and Simmonhead graduated that year.
ReplyDelete1955 is it but that is Alfred Michael, not Simmonhead. Ellis Miller and Jap also graduated in 1955 and it is the year after Jimmy Baxter's accident.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of accident did Jimmy have???
ReplyDeleteJimmy had a serious handgun accident which ended his athletic career - he was a really good baseball pitcher. I believe it was his junior year in high school. He had some vision loss but has managed quite well for a lot of years, an inspiration to us all.
ReplyDeleteYoure right, I wrong!
ReplyDeleteSimmonhead was Ronald Michael, my bad!
He was a dandy basketball player, too. I heard that was where he got the nickname from, other teams were told to watch out for the simmonhead boy, so called because of a shaved close haircut.
Dandy basketball player was Simmon. He played with Bobby Palmer and they won a lot of games.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of basketball players, there was a player in the 1940's that played for Walnut High School that was named Max Palmer. Max was over 7 feet tall in high school. Billy Oakley was his coach before he coached at Northwest Junior College in Senatobia. Stories are that people would pack the local gyms just to see Max Palmer.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not wrong, Max was a wrestler, in the circus, in the movies, and did some television. He was billed as being 8 feet 2 inches tall; even some records said he was only a mere 7 feet 8 inches tall.
Max was born in Pontotoc, Ms in 1927 and died in 1984. He is buried in a cemetary at Randolph, ms next to his mother, who was 5 feet tall.
Basketball Fans,
ReplyDeleteIn the early 1960's there were two level one NCAA universities that had had head coaches that finished high school at Baldwyn, Mississippi, what were the colleges and who were the coaches? Also, which one of these coaches was on the Baldwyn Basketball team but never started a game?
Babe McCarthy and Country Graham @ MS State and Ole Miss. Babe had to be the one who never started a game since Country's 1932 team, with Doc Vandiver as a player, won the State Championship.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone have a picture of 1932 team? I can't find mine.
Thanks 1:09 for Max Palmer story. I had forgotten him but I remember he was all those things mentioned.
ReplyDeleteYes,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct about the college coaches. You are also right about Babe McCarthy never starting a game. I read that about Babe in the Sunday funny paper section of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. They had a section called,"As strange as it seems", which told about Babe McCarthy.
The record books tells that Max Palmer averaged 40 points a game for Walnut High School in 1947. If any wants to know more about Max Palmer, Just Google, Max Palmer, Ponotoc, ms. There are some pictures and stories on there also.
Jap Reynolds had a basketball scholarship to Mississippi State U but was unable to attend because his father became ill with cancer and passed away. He could shoot and was a super competitor.
ReplyDeleteI thought Jap was going to Ole Miss could be wrong...another trivial fact ..at the same time as Ole Miss and State had coaches frome Baldwybn, Delto State had one also. Coach Ricks...
ReplyDeleteL. Johnson