‘College team that season—a
team that won 25 of 27 games
and swept the Southern Califor-
nia and Metropolitan Conference
championships. :

BOYS MAKE A PLEDGE

After the defeat in the Mo-
desto tournament the boys who
would return next season, made
a pledge to Coach Mel Griffin:
| “We'll be back next year and
we'll show ’em. more basketball
than they ever saw before.”

It’s January 1942, and: Modesto
again. The state junior college
jchampionship tournament is over
land Long Beach has won. It has
jset a new one-game scoring rec-
lord of 82 points and a tourna-
iment total-game scoring record.
| Fans and coaches are still talk-
ing with awe and - admiration
‘about the greatest display of in-
dividual and team play that the
tourney has ever seen. The
Vikes had won more fancy cups
than used to be displayed in an
old barber shop mug case. Bob
Howard, Don Cecil and Grant
‘Denmark were unanimous choices
for all-state and Denmark was
declared the tournament’s most
‘valuable player. Some coaches
on the committee to select the
lall-state team, said: “Just name

jthe whole Long Beach team.”
|ALL FINE SPORTSMEN
There’s another tale untold

labout this basketball team of
modest American lads = Dick

West, Dave Cohee, Denmark,
Cecil and Captain Howard.

Southern California jaysee
champions and now state champs,
the time came for the Modesto
sportsmanship award. Another
team received the award, not be-
jcause the Vikes didn’t deserve
jit, but because the coaches
‘laughingly decided that Long
Beach ‘had taken enough tro-
phies for one tournament al-
though they were unanimous in
their acclaim of the Vikes’ sports-
|manship. .

Many little incidents could be
|told about this team, but some
|stand out more than others.

It was on the way back from
Santa Monica. The Vikes had
just scored 69 points with a typi-
jcal display of power for them.
|They had already won the state
|junior college championship.
|They had outclassed all opposi-
|tion in the Southern California
|Junior college tournament and
‘were well on their way to a de-
|cisive triumph in the Metropoli-
tan Conference with the loss of
only one game.

 

 

COACHES BECOME IRKED

The coaches who sent teams
against the Vikes got pretty
irked at. Mel sometimes. The
ones, at least, who thought Mel
was trying to “turn it on.” Mel
couldn’t help it unless he jerked
them: all off the floor.
« There wasn’t a game that one,
two or even three of the boys
didn’t hit baskets with the per-
sistency of an adding machine
and even when Mel put in Ed)
Gillian, his No. 1 reserve, big,
lumbering but speedy Ed could
do a spectacular job of scoring.

As Mel remarked time after
time: “It’s the boys’ game. I’ve
got no right to take away their
glories by putting in reserves
who might lose for them.”

It was the last game of the)
season. With Santa Monica
again.

The Vikes had cleaned up ev-
erything—the Southern Califor-
nia, the state and the conferende
championship.

The little Poly gym was
packed, not because the fans ex-
pected to see a close game, but
because they came to see a great
team perform.

When Mel was reluctant to
play the first team the entire
game the fans yelled protests so
the Vike coach turned them
loose and they scored 82 points
again in a great display of shot-
making and teamwork to climax |
the greatest season of basketball |
Long Beach ever has seen.
SCHOOL RECORDS GO

Four of the five members of
that team broke school scoring
records. They shattered the game
scoring mark of the school three
times, hitting 82 points twice in
one season. In 57 consecutive
games, starting in 1941, the club
averaged 52 points a game and
they broke the Metropolitan Con-
ference scoring record by hitting
713 points in 12 games for an
average of 59 points per game.

Needless to say,’*the man who
coached that team in 1941-42 will
never forget it.

Mel Griffin bids good-bye to
Long Beach basketball in a little
while until after the war. He’s
now a lieutenant in the Marine,
Corps Reserves after coaching
for 13 years at jaysee. oe |

‘He refuses to name his five
greatest players because “it
wouldn’t be fair to the players,”
but he doesn’t hesitate to say
that his combination of West,
Cohee, Denmark, Cecil and How-
ard was his greatest.