It's a long shot, but I'm hoping the Hounds make to the end

As a friend told me how her young son would narrate the backyard ball games he played by himself, I could relate.

It’s called imagination and it was an innate ability that we used back before the internet, social media, video gaming and unlimited television choices. I used my imagination to do the same thing, even after I was much older than he is now.

In the late 1960s, Greyhound men’s basketball was the hottest ticket in eastern New Mexico. Greyhound Arena was packed to the rafters for nearly every home game. Packed to the rafters were a lot of people cheering the Hounds and jeering the referees.

In early 1969 I was 9 and a card-carrying member of the Kennel Club, a group of kids who went to basketball camp with the Greyhounds and received a “Kennel Club” t-shirt and a membership card. We all sat together in the upper deck on the northwest side of the Arena every home game.

I bet I didn’t miss a home game that year. If I wasn’t at the game I was glued to the AM radio listening to the play-by-play on KENM. I knew all the players’ names because of the radio announcer and the public address at the Arena. Names like brothers Greg and Jerry Hyder, Jim Guymon, Larry Vanzant, Pete Norris, Dale Severson, John Irwin and Gary Coffman (who I’d known all my life from church).

Those guys worked well as a team, partly because that’s the way Coach Harry Miller said it was going to be but mostly because no one was selfish. They didn’t care who got the points as long as the ball was going in the hoop and turnovers were happening on defense.

The team chemistry was phenomenal and they went on to the Cinderella victory of the decade, winning the NAIA National Championship in Kansas City. Teachers brought radios into the classroom so we could listen to the tournament games played during the day and we were all glued to our radios that Saturday as ENMU took down Maryland State 99-76 for the championship.

The Greyhound team this year feels a lot like that 1969 team. Through the miracle of internet broadcasting I fortunately didn’t have to use my imagination last Sunday as Tre’von Love’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer gave the Hounds the Lone Star Conference Championship for the first time in 31 years.

Schedules haven’t permitted me to attend every home game this year, but I’ve only missed a couple. I even made the trip out to the old PE Complex (Greyhound Arena) parking lot last Sunday night to greet the team as they arrived home.

As of this writing I planned to be in Canyon as the Hounds went up against Colorado Mesa in the first round of the NCAA Div. II South Central Region tournament on Saturday.

There are a lot of teams and a lot of basketball between the Hounds and another national championship but we’ve spawned Cinderella teams before and I’m hoping by the time you read this our Hounds are still in line to try on the slipper.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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