You guys are coming at it from a different perspective than me. Sounds like you were all in big towns with lots of talent. I grew up in a town of 1200 in the middle of farm fields. There probably weren't 20,000 people in the whole county. Our school had no real success in bball, maybe 5 or 6 winning seasons in the previous 50 years, usually got curb stomped a game or 2 into the state tournament. It's easy to show up in numbers and scream and cheer when your team has a long history of success, not so easy when you have continual failure, but we still travelled well. When I was in junior high, our high school varsity team had 4 seniors (and a sophomore) that had played together since 2nd grade. Won the first couple of games, then proceeded to go farther than any previous team when they stunned a couple of state powers to advance to the supersectional, where they beat another Cinderella to make the Elite 8 and go down to Assembly Hall in Champaign. First time in school history. There, you could tell that our guys were shook by the bright lights and tv cameras, and they got beat badly by the team that ended up finishing 4th. The next day, our town's fire engines drove down to the county line to meet the team bus coming back from Champaign, and the convoy drove through the cornfields back to town, horns blaring, lights flashing, to have a big assembly at the high school to celebrate a team that had basically finished in 8th place. That was over 50 years ago, and they still talk about that team in that town. I guess that's why teams like Hebron and Cobden are more meaningful to me. Love of the game, even if you don't have a lot of success. It's more my experience growing up to be the little guy continually getting your brains beat out. It's nice to think that one day, just maybe, you will have your day in the sun.
