Historic Hood River
HRHS Basketball Team, 1917
Notes
A bunch of fun things in this image of the 1917 Hood River High School boys basketball team. First, the names (not very legible so spelling may not be correct):
L-R:Â Carl Von Lenake, Seb Gassoway, Bob Henderson, Jack Slavens, Floyd Wright, Jing Johnson, Beans Blowers, Coach Calhoun.
Coach Calhoun must have played at Washington State because he is still wearing his WSU sweater. I wonder if “Beans” Blowers nickname was sarcastic, or because of his diet? He sure doesn’t seem tall and thin like a string bean. And check out the size difference between Carl and Beans.
Other interesting details: note the padded shorts and the laces on the basketball. Apparently this was the norm until 1932. You can read about why the balls were built this way here. Apparently you would open the laces to inflate the rubber bladder and tighten them for play. Did you dribble the ball with the laces up? I’ll bet the invention of the lace-less basketball made coaches very happy.
Jeffrey Bryant
Likely alternate names:
Karl Leslie VonderAhe, Class of 1917
William Selman Gassaway, Class of 1919
Robert Lynn Henderson, Class of 1919
Charles Clinton Clark Slavens, Class of 1919
Floyd Lewis Wright, Class of 1917
Charles Frederick Johnson, Class of 1917
Lloyd Mifflin Blowers, Class of 1919
Jeffrey Bryant
Also Coach William Cohoon, basketball and baseball coach
Arthur Babitz
Thanks for looking up the names!
kmb
But why the need for padded (quilted) shorts? Was basketball more of a contact sport back then? If there were only 7 players on the team, they would have each had a lot of playing time.