Thanks to sebuckeye, WarriorBlue, trojandave, TigerPaw22, and White Thunder for the additions, updates, and corrections. They have been incorporated into the original post.
I remember that 1997 Belpre team's surprising run. I think they shocked then-Chesapeake coach Norm Persin and his Panthers, knocking them out of a Final Four appearance if my memory serves me.
Sorry about my total omission of Marietta. I was still thinking of you guys as D-I, and of course, there are no D-1 teams assigned to the Southeast District anymore. The Tigers looked to have been a powerhouse prior to WWII, with 8 trips to the State Tournament, including 3 Final Fours. It is my belief that Marietta has had a solid program and some very good teams in the past 10-15 years, but that the size of your school has made it more difficult for the Tigers to make a deep run to the Big Dance in Columbus. Keep hope alive up there in the Mid-Ohio Valley!
And yes, Leesburg did finish as Class B State Runnerups in 1936, beating Millersport in the semis, but losing a 3-point heartbreaker to Sandusky St. Mary's in the finals.
State Champs from the Southeast District
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pembrook burrows III
- JV Team
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JIMMY THE GREEK
- All Conference
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Re: State Champs from the Southeast District
Surprised to learn there has never been a State Champion from the SE District in D3. Who will be the first?
Re: State Champs from the Southeast District
That is what Mr. Jordan told me just recently....SOCFAN1430 wrote:sparky wrote:who were the coaches for se 5 final four appearances? was jordan there for all 5?
66,67,77,81,90 - I'm pretty sure Coach Jordan was a part of all 5 of these except one(1977)
66,67 as a player
81,90 as a coach
Someone confirm if you can
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pembrook burrows III
- JV Team
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Re: State Champs from the Southeast District
In my initial post in this thread, I noted that Proctorville-Rome lost a one-sided affair in the 1930 Class B final by a score of 34-3 to Lancaster St. Mary's. I then made the offhanded remark about that Proctorville-Rome team being coached by a guy named Phoney Smith.
If that statement sounded flip or disrespectful, let me now apologize to Mr. Smith. Tonight, through the power of Google, I found out who Phoney Smith was. And he was a giant.
Mr. Smith was a high school football star from Fayetteville, Tennessee, where he was nicknamed "Fawny" for his speed and grace. He matriculated first to the University of Alabama to play football, but stayed only a few days. He then left for Mercer College in Georgia to join his brother, Crook Smith, and it was at Mercer that his chums altered his nickname to "Phoney." It stuck for the rest of his life. Together, the Smith brothers and their teammates spearheaded a renaissance of Mercer football under then Head Coach Bernie Moore, who later coached LSU into 5 bowls and became a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Phoney Smith went on to become an All-League and All-American halfback for the Mercer Bears from 1925-1927. He still stands as Mercer's all-time leading scorer with 176 points. Sportswriters from the day referred to Mr. Smith as a "fleet-footed and bareheaded" ball carrier of enormous talent. The small school Bears stepped up to the big-time during Smith's senior season in 1927, playing larger schools and before bigger crowds than at any time in Mercer's history. A season ticket cost a whopping $8! The team finished the season at 5-4, including a 34-0 rout of Wake Forest. Mercer lost to unbeaten and powerful Georgia 26-7, but team-captain Smith ran a kickoff back 95 yards for a touchdown, a feat he later recalled as the "greatest thrill" of his football career. That same season, Georgia yielded only 3 points to Auburn and only 6 points to Alabama. Mercer also lost that year to Florida 32-6, but the Bears' lone touchdown was a 65-yard scamper by Phoney Smith.
The 1928 Mercer College Yearbook, The Cauldren, was dedicated to Phoney Smith. It referred to him as an individual not only with athletic talent, but with "charisma" as well. It said that Phoney Smith "...sent the name and fame of Mercer College all over America." In addition to football, Phoney Smith starred in basketball and baseball at Mercer. He was eventually named a member of the Mercer College Athletic Hall of Fame, as well as to the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Phoney Smith spent the latter part of his life in the Miami area, where he worked over 20 years as an educator, a coach, and an athletic director at South Broward High School, a Class 7A school. Harold Phares, a former South Broward principal, said, "Back in the early years he had to coach just about everything. It was just us, Fort Lauderdale High, and Pompano High way back then, and I recall we did quite well with Phoney as coach. He was the kind that could really get the boys up." Clarence Noe, also a North Broward administrator, recalled, "He was a great athlete, a helluva athlete. And a great coach."
During his waning years, Phoney Smith could be found relaxing and playing golf under the Florida sun. Not surprisingly, he was remembered as a "great golfer," and he used to teach golf at the old Dania County Club. Joseph Farrar "Phoney" Smith died in 1985 at age 80.
So how did this "giant" of sport end up coaching the Proctorville-Rome boys basketball team to the Ohio Class B State Finals in 1930? Well, that happened when Phoney Smith left Mercer for the bright lights of Ironton, where he had a short-lived pro football career as a member of the Tanks. It was common at the time for the Tanks to recruit high-profile college stars and find them teaching jobs to supplement their meager football pay. That would have meant that Phoney Smith may have played on the last Ironton Tanks team in 1930. That's the same one that defeated the New York Giants 13-12 and the Chicago Bears 26-13. The Bears were then known as "The Monsters of the Midway," and featured NFL Hall of Famers Harold "Red" Grange and Bronko Nagurski. Both wins for the Tanks occurred at the old Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Tanks folded after the 1930 campaign.
None of the accounts of the Giants or Bears games mention Phoney Smith, so it is unclear to me if he stayed in the area after his run to the Class B finals earlier that year. In a book about Mercer College philanthropist Lamar Rich Plunkett, Mr. Plunkett recalled, "Phoney got beat up in pro ball because he didn't want to wear a helmet." But he is remembered in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton among the memorabilia of the leather helmet era of the game, according to the Miami Sun-Sentinel.
This fall, when you are scanning the college football scores in your Sunday morning newspaper, check out the Mercer score. You see, Mercer has decided to re-institute its football program in 2013 for the first time since 1941, and will play in a league with Morehead State and Dayton. Good luck to the Bears as they try to rekindle the excitement of that magical 1927 season led by Phoney Smith.
So that is Phoney Smith. He would have been just 24 years old and still wet behind the coaching ears when he took the boys from Proctorville-Rome all the way to the 1930 Class B State Championship game in Columbus, no small feat for a young man that did not like to play football with a helmet. And while his boys didn't win, let me give Coach Smith and his team a tip of my cap for a job well done.
Most of the information for this post was taken from a 1985 article in the Miami Sun-Sentinel, from a book entitled "Gridiron Glory Days: Football at Mercer, 1892-1942," by Robert E. Wilder, and from a book entitled "The Gift for Giving: The Story of Lamar Rich Plunkett," by James C. Bryant.
If that statement sounded flip or disrespectful, let me now apologize to Mr. Smith. Tonight, through the power of Google, I found out who Phoney Smith was. And he was a giant.
Mr. Smith was a high school football star from Fayetteville, Tennessee, where he was nicknamed "Fawny" for his speed and grace. He matriculated first to the University of Alabama to play football, but stayed only a few days. He then left for Mercer College in Georgia to join his brother, Crook Smith, and it was at Mercer that his chums altered his nickname to "Phoney." It stuck for the rest of his life. Together, the Smith brothers and their teammates spearheaded a renaissance of Mercer football under then Head Coach Bernie Moore, who later coached LSU into 5 bowls and became a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Phoney Smith went on to become an All-League and All-American halfback for the Mercer Bears from 1925-1927. He still stands as Mercer's all-time leading scorer with 176 points. Sportswriters from the day referred to Mr. Smith as a "fleet-footed and bareheaded" ball carrier of enormous talent. The small school Bears stepped up to the big-time during Smith's senior season in 1927, playing larger schools and before bigger crowds than at any time in Mercer's history. A season ticket cost a whopping $8! The team finished the season at 5-4, including a 34-0 rout of Wake Forest. Mercer lost to unbeaten and powerful Georgia 26-7, but team-captain Smith ran a kickoff back 95 yards for a touchdown, a feat he later recalled as the "greatest thrill" of his football career. That same season, Georgia yielded only 3 points to Auburn and only 6 points to Alabama. Mercer also lost that year to Florida 32-6, but the Bears' lone touchdown was a 65-yard scamper by Phoney Smith.
The 1928 Mercer College Yearbook, The Cauldren, was dedicated to Phoney Smith. It referred to him as an individual not only with athletic talent, but with "charisma" as well. It said that Phoney Smith "...sent the name and fame of Mercer College all over America." In addition to football, Phoney Smith starred in basketball and baseball at Mercer. He was eventually named a member of the Mercer College Athletic Hall of Fame, as well as to the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Phoney Smith spent the latter part of his life in the Miami area, where he worked over 20 years as an educator, a coach, and an athletic director at South Broward High School, a Class 7A school. Harold Phares, a former South Broward principal, said, "Back in the early years he had to coach just about everything. It was just us, Fort Lauderdale High, and Pompano High way back then, and I recall we did quite well with Phoney as coach. He was the kind that could really get the boys up." Clarence Noe, also a North Broward administrator, recalled, "He was a great athlete, a helluva athlete. And a great coach."
During his waning years, Phoney Smith could be found relaxing and playing golf under the Florida sun. Not surprisingly, he was remembered as a "great golfer," and he used to teach golf at the old Dania County Club. Joseph Farrar "Phoney" Smith died in 1985 at age 80.
So how did this "giant" of sport end up coaching the Proctorville-Rome boys basketball team to the Ohio Class B State Finals in 1930? Well, that happened when Phoney Smith left Mercer for the bright lights of Ironton, where he had a short-lived pro football career as a member of the Tanks. It was common at the time for the Tanks to recruit high-profile college stars and find them teaching jobs to supplement their meager football pay. That would have meant that Phoney Smith may have played on the last Ironton Tanks team in 1930. That's the same one that defeated the New York Giants 13-12 and the Chicago Bears 26-13. The Bears were then known as "The Monsters of the Midway," and featured NFL Hall of Famers Harold "Red" Grange and Bronko Nagurski. Both wins for the Tanks occurred at the old Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Tanks folded after the 1930 campaign.
None of the accounts of the Giants or Bears games mention Phoney Smith, so it is unclear to me if he stayed in the area after his run to the Class B finals earlier that year. In a book about Mercer College philanthropist Lamar Rich Plunkett, Mr. Plunkett recalled, "Phoney got beat up in pro ball because he didn't want to wear a helmet." But he is remembered in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton among the memorabilia of the leather helmet era of the game, according to the Miami Sun-Sentinel.
This fall, when you are scanning the college football scores in your Sunday morning newspaper, check out the Mercer score. You see, Mercer has decided to re-institute its football program in 2013 for the first time since 1941, and will play in a league with Morehead State and Dayton. Good luck to the Bears as they try to rekindle the excitement of that magical 1927 season led by Phoney Smith.
So that is Phoney Smith. He would have been just 24 years old and still wet behind the coaching ears when he took the boys from Proctorville-Rome all the way to the 1930 Class B State Championship game in Columbus, no small feat for a young man that did not like to play football with a helmet. And while his boys didn't win, let me give Coach Smith and his team a tip of my cap for a job well done.
Most of the information for this post was taken from a 1985 article in the Miami Sun-Sentinel, from a book entitled "Gridiron Glory Days: Football at Mercer, 1892-1942," by Robert E. Wilder, and from a book entitled "The Gift for Giving: The Story of Lamar Rich Plunkett," by James C. Bryant.
Last edited by pembrook burrows III on Tue Mar 05, 2013 9:59 am, edited 5 times in total.
