Gary Ownbey, substitute teacher, part-time lawncare specialist, full-time Bradley basketball booster, is on schedule to have his book on Bear and Bearette basketball over the years published in December or January.
photo by Larry Fleming
For anyone with a question pertaining to Bradley Central basketball, Gary Ownbey has an answer.
Football? That, too.
Ownbey is a Bradley Central graduate, class of 1968.
He’s worked at Kodak, Staples and passionately at Life Bridges in Cleveland from which he recently retired. Ownbey’s sister was a client at Life Bridges, a facility that helps clients with intellectual/developmental disabilities, before passing away in 1992.
His interest in Life Bridges, through his sister’s time at the facility, spurred his working there.
“Now,” the 65-year-old Ownbey said, “I’m a substitute teacher (at Bradley, of course), help mow lawns and do radio.”
A lot of radio.
Ownbey was a long-time sidekick of legendary radio announcer Cordell “Corky” Whitlock, who was “The Voice of Bradley Central” for 50-plus years, broadcast more than 10,000 games and arrived at WBAC-AM 1930 in 1961 and from which he recently retired due to health issues.
Ownbey, who spent a quarter century with the role of Ed McMahan to Johnny Carson, took over the microphone to handle the station’s play-by-play duties after Whitlock’s retirement. Now, Ownbey, who said he’s helped broadcast more than 2,000 games, has a sidekick, Steve Wills.
Yet, serving as a substitute teacher, doing yard work and “calling” Bradley basketball, football and some baseball games, just wasn’t enough for the likeable, well-respected Ownbey.
What started as a decades-long hobby researching for scores, stories and tidbits, turning that material into a wealth of information to be shared by his listeners in radio land and inquiries of sports writers around the region, within the past year became his mission -- a book on the history of Bradley basketball.
It’s something fans and friends have suggested to Ownbey for years.
Ownbey always felt too busy to take that challenge; not enough time.
“I’m retired now,” he said, “so not having enough time was no longer an excuse.”
So, Ownbey decided to go knee-deep into his research and finish what he started. At times, it was drudgery. Monotonous. But, never without a singular purpose.
“It has taken me almost a full year, hundreds and hundreds of hours looking at microfilm at the library, looking in annuals, the TSSAA web site, newspaper, just about everywhere,” he said. “People have given me things. It has been a year of dedication to get this far.”
Honestly, though, there’s no way Ownbey could have gone so deep into the archives to do what he’s come up with had he still be gainfully employed in the every-day work world.
Without that restriction research became his post-retirement world.
“I’ve been at the library so much they think I work there,” Ownbey said. “After hours at the microfilm, there were times I just had to walk away. There were days at home that I spent so much time on my computer I had to stop and walk away from that, too.
“Then I’d go back for more.”
To his credit, Ownbey said out of almost 5,400 games he was able to get scores of all but about 15 games.
“That’s what challenged me,” he said. “It became my white whale. But the bigger the challenge the harder I worked. It wasn’t going to beat me.”
Today, after all those endless, mind-bending hours gathering stories about what happened, some of them really crazy stories, Ownbey is nearing the destination – a finished product. About midway through his extraordinary impersonation of Sherlock Holmes digging for all the facts, the idea of publishing a book became a serious endeavor.
“I just had so much information and I kept showing it with folks and they kept saying they would love to see someone write the history of Bradley basketball,” Ownbey said. “I thought what better opportunity than now.
“I was already so deep into it, so why not go ahead and do some more research and put a book out. That’s what I’m doing now.”
Ownbey’s said this will be a first-edition book, with the potential for updates in two or three years. He’s confident the book, expected to be 400 pages of narrative and records that exemplify the lengths at which Ownbey went to document Bradley basketball, will be published by Dockins Graphics/Pathway Press in Cleveland.
Within the book’s pages is a Himalaya mountain-sized documentation of Bradley basketball history, much that will be new to some, a lot that will jog the memory of old-timers that actually helped create these accounts in bygone playing days.
Ownbey will turn over proceeds from the book – which begins with a dedication page Whitlock – to Bradley Central High School for exclusive use by the boys and girls basketball programs.
Ownbey anticipates the book to go be on sale -- $15 apiece with a potential discount for people who buys multiple books – in December or early January.
“It’s got to be out during basketball season,” he said. “We’ll sell them at the school bookstore, at ballgames and by e-mail.”
And, for all the Bradley football fanatics out there, just be patient.
“I’ve already started working on a football book as well,” Ownbey said. “People have been coming up to me, saying, ‘You’ve got to do a football book.’ I tell them, ‘Well, I’m working on one.’ And they’ll say, ‘Hey, let me show you this.’ ”
Ownbey has obtained a reel tape of the Bears’ 1976 football season, all 13 games. Bradley last won a state football championship 39 years ago by beating Jackson Central-Merry, 50-48.
If you want to know the details about that game, just ask Gary. Knowing him, he’s got them all.
Here is just a sampling of what’s in Ownbey’s history of Bradley basketball book:
*** Terry Scott was the first black basketball player at Bradley, enrolling in 1964-65. His brother, Levi, came along a year later. Alvin, the youngest of the Scott boys, arrived in the early 1970s. Alvin later played at Oral Roberts and was a seventh-round draft choice of the NBA Phoenix Suns and in each of his eight years the Suns reached the playoffs. Alvin was among the first ex-Bears inducted into the inaugural Bradley Basketball Hall of Fame class, along with Steve Sloan, Dennis Botts and Chad Copeland. And don’t forget Gloria, the Scott boys’ sister, who was the first black Bearettes player in 1967-68. Her number was retired.
*** In 1939, 42 teams competed in the district tournament at Bradley. Games were played on the hour, every hour. Two officials worked the entire tournament.
*** Legendary coach Jim Smiddy won all five of his state tournament under the old 6-on-6 rules for the girls’ game. The United States Supreme court ruled that 6-on-6 play was unconstitutional and told high school girls’ basketball to adopt the current 5-on-5 style of play, just like the boys. Smiddy continued coaching until his retirement in 1993 as the all-time winningest basketball coach (1,216-65). Smiddy, a Hall of Fame coach, died in July 1995 of a heart attack.
*** The Bearettes had five all-state players on the 1975-76 state championship team that posted the school’s second straight 36-0 record with a national title as well. The winning streak eventually reached 90 consecutive games, but was ended on Feb. 3, 1977, by Hutch Lewis’ Red Bank Lionettes on Liz Atchley’s layup with four seconds left in overtime.
*** Bradley owns winning records against a lot of teams, but the Bearettes’ domination of Ooltewah is monumental – 119-3 – going into this season.
*** In 1961-62, Bradley won state titles in football and boys and girls basketball. No school has ever matched that feat.
*** The Bearettes lost a game to Kirkman, 112-101, in February 1989 and Jody Adams scored 57 points for Bradley. The game point total still stands as a TSSAA state record.
*** In 1965-66, the Bearettes routed rival Cleveland, 114-38, and Jane Brock smashed the school record with 93 points. By quarters, Brock scored 23, 29, 27 and 14 points. Smiddy was upset by pre-game remarks by the Cleveland coach and wanted Brock to score at least 100 points. She almost did.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)