By Jonathan Brown

The ex-footballers barely had a long weekend off before we had our first workouts in Converse sneakers. Four of the six returning lettermen from the 1960 basketball team made the quick transformation. They were forwards Jack Nussbaum, Al Esther, Bud Aspatore, and Jon Brown. At guard, we had experienced lettermen in Chuck Brunau and Ken Wilderman.

The team had no big man—no one to guard the remaining 6-foot, 5-inch players from other teams, like Paul Meany of Manitowoc. Paul was coming back for his senior year with the Shipbuilders. Who was going to stand up to to him and the big brutes in the paint? Was it Jack Nussbaum or Al Esther at 6-2 180 pounds each? Or Jon Brown at 6-1 and 160 pounds? How was I supposed to muscle the big men in the paint

Somehow, I got the job. The reasons are still lost to me even to this day, more than 60 years later. Knowledgeable fans may have remembered me as Mr. Mobility, constantly dribbling through and around the defenders and looking to pass or make the reverse layup. Neither Jack nor Al had been photographed “on the move,” as the news captions put it. Moreover, I had performed as the enforcer—the guy who guarded the top scorer on the opposing team. Nonetheless, I accepted my starting position at center—if it meant we would win.

The valley’s sportswriters underestimated us Cardinals last year when they prognosticated that we would come in second to last. Instead, the Cinderella Cardinals finished with a conference record of 8-6. For underestimating us in the previous year, the sports journalists attempted to make amends. They pegged Fondy High to finish second in the Fox River Valley to the Manitowoc Ships. The presence of the 1960 All-Conference transfer, Al Esther, accounted for their prediction. Moreover, we gave false notice to the sportswriters by having tremendous preseason success on the hardwood.

THE FAST START

The first opposing center that I faced in our home opener against the visiting Neenah Rockets—you guessed it—he stood at 6-foot, 5-inches. He only scored 7 points, but I was on fire. So was our second-string center, the 6-2 junior Steve McConahey. I scored a team high 18 points, and Steve added 8 points. The photo in the Commonwealth Reporter showed me jumping high and softly dropping the ball into the hoop as five Rocket players and Ken Wilderman stared up at me. The caption mentioned how I was playing center “at a distinct height disadvantage.”

We returned to our beloved Pit for the pre-season match-up with our cross-town rivals, the Ledgers of St. Mary’s Springs Academy. Two thousand fans showed up representing both schools. St Mary’s won the first three games, despite having a height disadvantage. This year, they had only one player taller than six-foot, Center Rick Nuss at 6-3. None of the other four starters were taller than 5-11. This height disadvantage had always been the case for the Ledgers, yet the Ledgers still defeated Goodrich High in each of our first three meetings.

Finally, Fondy High beat St. Mary’s, and decisively so, 69-37. I scored 25 points—the highest single-game production of my career. It was not that I hogged the ball, for both Al Esther with 16 attempts and Jack Nussbaum with 14 shots took more scoring opportunities than I did. I made 8 field goals in just 12 attempts. But the Ledgers fouled me a lot. I completed 9 free throws too. Dave Pawsat scored 10 points for the Ledgers, and Rick Nuss added 8 points.

That St. Mary’s started an exchange student from the Philippines, Jose Catala, added a unique feature to the game.. He scored 5 points. However, the top-heavy score subdued the previously rambunctious St. Mary’s fans. Having lost by 32 points, the Ledger faithful filed quietly out of the stands, as had Cardinal fans in previous occasions.

We played an away game in Antigo on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, 1960. My brother Frank Brown came over from his home in Eui Claire to watch us play. Fondy- 51 Antigo- 43. Our new head coach, Fritz Lautenschlager, lite into us at half time for our lethargic attitude about this game. I must be honest, I was having girl troubles. Anyway, we won without much effort, 51-43. Already it was clear that all us players resented the new coach. He just did not measure up to Swede Smedberg.

Both Al Esther and Jack Nussbaum were nursing injuries in our final preseason contest on the road in Kaukauna. I also cooled down considerably from my peak performance against St. Mary’s. “Brown contributed eight points from his pivot post and set up key baskets with several passes,” as the hometown newspaper reported. This game marked the basketball emergence of my fellow defensive halfback on the gridiron, Charlie Bloedorn. “Standout for the Cards this time was fast moving Charley [sic] Bloedorn, the junior guard.” He tallied 15 points on 6 of 9 shooting and 3 free-throws. Senior Bud Aspatore got 8 points, as did junior Forward Tony Meade.

The preseason came to an end on a high note. Compared to the previous year, when the Cardinals lost three of its four preseason games, this team appeared to live up to expectations. We swept all four games by comfortable margins. What better way to demonstrate the resolve of the new Cardinals than to defeat the Oshkosh Indians in their home arena. Their preseason record was just 2 wins and 2 losses. We had a team full of veterans and they had fewer returning lettermen.

THE FOX RIVER VALLEY SEASON BEGINS

I had led the team in scoring during the preseason. But scoring only counted during the Fox River Valley season, and I could not keep up. Also, as a team Fondy started slowly against Oshkosh. We turned over the ball on double-dribbles and errant passes. The Indians outrebounded us. Jack and Al in the front court were still ailing and shot poorly, Jack made only 3 of 14 attempts from the field, and Al canned just two field goals out of 10 shots. Only I was shooting well, making 21 points on 9 of 14 shots. Nevertheless, in the final 30 seconds of the game, we trailed by just two points, 59 to 57. Yet we had possession of the ball, meaning that we could force an overtime period if we made the last shot.

This is how Stan Gores described those last seconds of regulation play: “Nobody seemed anxious to take the ‘pressure’ shot that could have tied the game as the Cards flipped the ball around in the back court before Brown took the responsibility and tried a hooker from the free throw arc. . . .”

Memory can be such an unreliable function of the brain. Once graduated and off to college, I had forgotten that I was the high scorer in that game against Oshkosh. My remembrance was that we were playing the last game of the Fox River Valley season, not the first. However, I recall correctly that I caught the pass on the free throw line, turned around, squared up, and launched a jump shot—not a hooker—only to see the ball clang off the front rim of the basket and fall to the floor. I missed the shot!

From that time onwards, whenever I had a basketball in my hands—be in Madison, Tucson, Fort Amador in the Canal Zone, Austin, or Colorado Springs—I would go to the free throw line, square up, and shoot the jumper. That one failed attempt at a field goal in Oshkosh has haunted me during my entire adult life. Haunted me. But it never defined me.

Sports editor Stan Gores noticed that, compared to previous year’s team, the 1960-61 Cardinals lacked teamwork. “Against Oshkosh, nobody could do anything, the lone exception being Jon Brown. The slim Goodrich High veteran, operating at the center spot, faked his man out of position several times and rang up nine baskets and three free throws for 21 points. Brown also has been an excellent clutch performer for the Cards, just as he was in football.” The sportswriter of the Commonwealth Reporter was not fooled by the 4 wins and 1 loss we cagers had amassed so far in the season. We would not be a dominant team, he said.

Sure enough, Appleton High school came to the Pit and put us in our place. They were led by their center, who stood at 6 foot 4 inches. I did not look forward to the opening tip-off with him. The Fondy front line came alive. Al Esther scored 22 points, Jack Nussbaum got 18, and I had 16. Now it was Jack’s turn to attempt the last shot that would have won the game. He missed too, and we lost to the Appleton Terrors by one point, 75-74.

We thanked the Great Spirit that our next opponent was Green Bay East. Just before Christmas break, we beat them by five points at home. When play resumed in January, I went into depression. Esther and Nussbaum took up the slack on the front line. They far outstripped me in taking shots. In the home game against Sheboygan South, Al took 23 shots and scored 25 points. We needed every one of them, for we beat the Red Raiders 63-62 in overtime.

At the next game at Manitowoc, Ester took 19 shots and Nussbaum attempted another 13, while I tried to score only three times. On the one hand, I had gotten into a funk and secondly, one of the five best players in Wisconsin, the now 6-6 center Paul Meany, was guarding me. He had grown another inch since our last meeting the year before—or maybe I shrank. The Ships beat us by six points.

The trend continued as Green Bay West came to the Pit. Esther took 24 shots on basket to come away with 28 points against his old team. Nussbaum took 13 and I put the ball up 9 times. West was no longer the basketball power it had been the year before when the Wildcats finished with a share of first place in the conference. They had lost their twin towers. Fondy prevailed at home, 59-51.

One week later, we traveled to Sheboygan North only to be crushed by a score of 60 to 43, I took a mere 5 shots and fouled out with an equal number of fouls. Al Esther attempted 21 goals, making 17 points, and Jack Nussbaum sent 10 shots on goal that yielded just two points. By this time, Stan Gores had had enough. “The Cards reacted like a collection of befuddled grade schoolers, bouncing passes off each other’s knees, stepping over the court lines, muffing layups and winding up with 11 misses of 16 free throw attempts,” he wrote.

Sorry, Stan. Beg pardon, fans. We had yet to reach bottom. The Fond du Lac Cardinals traveled to Appleton, a team which in December had squeezed by with a one point victory against us. Now on the first day of February, they beat us by 22 points. My understudy at center, the junior Steve McConahey, came in for the old vet (that’s me) and topped all Fondy scorers with 12 points. Esther and Nussbaum tallied just 16 points between them on a total of 28 shots.

The Great Spirit again took pity on his hapless Cardinals by sending us the sacrificial lambs of the conference, Green Bay East. We Fondy cagers did our best to let them win by giving them the opportunity to put up 66 shots at the basket. We ourselves threw 37 attempts toward the basket. I missed 2 attempted field goals and two free throws, and my team still won by four points. The cynics might say that my mere 3 points sealed the victory.

Suddenly, without warning, Fondy’s skinny, 6-1 center wakes up fully refreshed from a long slumber. On an away game against Sheboygan South, our hero makes 6 of 9 shots and scores a team high 17 points. It was almost enough to escape with a win for Fondy. Except that, in the last seconds, a Sheboygan player heaved a desperation shot from mid-court that miraculously went in. In the snap of a finger, Sheboygan South snatched the 1-point victory away from us.

Next up, Manitowoc at home. The photo in following day’s Commonwealth Reporter told a convincing story. It showed the “lean” 6-1 Cardinal center, Jon Brown, pivoting with the basketball beneath the long arm overhead of Manitowoc’s 6-6 center George Meany. Two of his teammates hemmed me in on right and left.

Was I helpless? Good gracious, no. Every time I was closely guarded near the basket, I simply passed the ball outside to the guards, Chuck Brunau, Ken Wilderman, and Charlie Bloedorn. I was completing my return from oblivion. I was leading my beloved Cardinal team in scoring for the second game in a row. As Esther was sending 20 throws toward the basket and Jack Nussbaum adding 14 more attempts, I converted my customary 9 shots into 17 points. Guard Chuck Brunau contributed 14 points from long range jump shots. He and I were the models of efficiency.

Of course, it was not enough. Our opponents, the Manitowoc Ships, were rated as the number four best high school team in the state. Paul Meany himself garnered a game high 27 points, adding to his lead in Fox River Valley conference scoring. Fondy lost 70 to 57, even though Brown and Brunau fought until the end.

Our last game against Green Bay West belonged to Al Esther and Jack Nussbaum. The Wildcat basketball team was not very good, especially compared to the champion Wildcat football team. In our road trip to Green Bay, Al Esther and Jack Nussbaum came out blazing, throwing up 38 shots between them. Al connected for 20 points and Jack added 16. Ken Wilderman also contributed 16 points while attempting only 8 shots. We beat Green Bay West handily, 70 to 56.

Brown and Brunau continued the one-two punch into the last game of the season, which was Moms Night. My mother, Cynthia Ingalls Brown, sat among her peers in front row center of the mezzanine looking straight down on all the action, The cheerleaders made her a badge designed as a white paper basketball labeled “Jon Brown’s Mom.” She and other mothers of team members wore labels on their lapels during the game and at their post-game reception for tea and dessert.

Good golly, the Cardinal cagers could not even come up with a victory for their own mothers! We lost the game by a last minute score by Sheboygan North. I converted 8 attempted baskets into another team high production of 13 points. Chuck Brunau and Al Esther each contributed 12 points.

THE USUAL TOURNAMENT ENDING FOR FONDY

The state high school tournament belongs to the hungrest, most upbeat teams. The worst feature of the state high school tournament is that every team in the tourney but the chap finishes their seasons with a loss.

Fortunately, I measure my schooldays only partly by sports. Music, academics, friendships, and flirting with the girls provided much greater satisfaction.