Ron Haun, 1960
Basketball
This story involves a really great guy with a good sense of humor who is no longer with us, unfortunately. I am speaking of Dave Alldritt. He was a good basketball player on a great high school team. Dave made a play that he was able to laugh about a lot after that game and far into his life.
The play happened in the regionals at the Wichita State field house, I believe. The referee handed Dave the ball for an inbound play. Dave was really anxious. The ref blew his whistle for Dave to throw the ball to one of his teammates. But Dave was so excited he just dribbled the ball inbounds instead of passing it. All the referees went crazy blowing their whistles and I think most of the fans laughed really hard. Poor Dave got a lot of trash talk over the years about his famous dribble.
Football
Friday, November 13, 1959, was one of the coldest days we had experienced during the season. West High played an afternoon game, and one of their players got frostbite on his fingers and doctors reportedly had to amputate one of them.
That night we played Topeka. It was just above zero and the wind was really blowing hard if my memory serves me correctly. Our punter was Mike Grier, a really great guy and player who, also unfortunately, is no longer with us. But I don’t know about his punting ability. Mike took his position. He was kicking into the wind. He caught the long snap perfectly. He got great blocking from his line. He wound up his giant leg with great energy. I think his leg was about the size of a very large oak tree trunk. His foot struck the ball perfectly. It went up into the wind. We all looked down field for the ball. It wasn’t there. Then someone saw it land behind us. Mike got a minus 16 yards on the kick. We won the game any way.