In an effort to promote educationalathletics by showcasing some of the greatteams of past years, the Michigan HighSchool Athletic Association instituted aprogram called “Legends Of The Games”in 1997. This year, the 1954, 1956 and1957 Muskegon Heights teams will behonored halftime of the Class B Final.

The times, they were a-changin'.America in the 1950s moved for-ward in fits and spurts. Television

and Rock and Roll took the country bystorm. Jonas Salk won science's race toconquer Polio. The successful launch of theSoviet Union satellite, Sputnik, shockedAmericans and launched the Space Race.In the courts, the war to end racial discrim-ination was fought. In 1954, the SupremeCourt handed down its landmark decisionknown as Brown vs. the Board ofEducation, outlawing racial segregation inpublic schools.

On the basketball court, the movetoward what was then called “race-horsebasketball” had begun. In Michigan, theshift away from two-handed set shotsbegan with Coach Floyd Eby and the 1949

Coldwater champs.At Muskegon Heights, Coach Oscar E.

“Okie” Johnson had seen it all. A native ofCadillac, the veteran mentor had attendedWestern State Normal College (WesternMichigan University) in the early 1920s,where he emerged as a star in football,basketball and track. Cut from the old cloth,when the term “coach” meant master ofevery sport, Johnson accepted the headcoaching position at Mt Pleasant HighSchool upon graduation. Fresh out of col-lege, he led Mt. Pleasant to back-to-backSemifinal appearances in the MHSAA bas-ketball tournament.

When Muskegon Heights went lookingfor an accomplished young leader to headthe athletic programs at the high school, itselected the proven Johnson. It would bedecades before they would need to con-duct another search. Johnson guidedHeights athletics from the fall of 1927 untilthe end of the 1963 school year.

At “The Heights,” Johnson's teamsfound incredible success. Under his watch-ful eye, the Tigers earned at least a shareof six mythical state football crowns in the1930s and 1940s. On the basketball court,

his teams excelled as well, earning trips tothe final rounds of the tournament in 1933,1934, 1936, 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1944.His track and baseball teams turned outoutstanding athletes, and Johnson's pupilsdotted college rosters throughout theMidwest.

Despite seven trips to the final roundsof the basketball tournament, only oneHeights team, the 1939 squad, had everadvanced to the championship game.Johnson's Tigers fell to Flint Northern, 37-27, in the Class A contest that season.

Heights remained very competitive.With an array of talented athletes, Johnsonwas an early advocate of the fast break andwhile his 1953 cagers ended the seasonwith a 9-7 campaign, he expected a strongshowing from the team in the coming year.

Unfortunately, just prior to the seasonopener, it was reported that Johnson wouldmiss the season to repair a ruptured disk inthe spinal column. As the cage seasonbegan, the team was placed in the capablehands of Johnson's assistant, C.P. Ziegler.Yet, in a surprising turn of events, Johnsonsuddenly announced that he had rejectedthe hospital stay to return to the helm. He

Muskegon Heights rolled with the changes en route to three titles in the mid-’50s, and in the process changed

athletic priorities in its own community

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missed only the first four games of the sea-son.

The team rolled through those openinggames with ease. Seniors Mert Johnson,Jim French, Otto Smith and Lee Howellwere joined by junior M.C. Burton on thestarting five in the early going. FollowingJohnson's return, the Tigers upped theirwin streak to nine-straight, as Burton andJohnson quickly emerged as the big guns.

Heading into their game with longtimeSouthwestern Conference archrival BentonHarbor, the Tigers lost Howell to mid-yeargraduation. Searching for a replacement,Coach Johnson rotated Don Haan, LenHartman and Jim McMurray into the vacantspot. Benton Harbor took advantage of thedeparture, and, using a zone defense,upset the Heights, 53-49, the lone loss onthe Tigers regular-season slate.

Johnson's squad avenged the defeat inthe season finale, as Burton established anew Heights single-game scoring recordwith 36 points in a 70-54 win.

The path to a Class A title, however,was far more challenging.

After downing Muskegon and GrandRapids Central in the opening round, theTigers squared offagainst Grand RapidsChristian for the secondtime during the season inthe Regional final. Thegame was spectacular byall accounts, with thescore tied on nine occa-sions, including five timesin the final quarter beforethe Tigers escaped with a42-40 win.

Next up wasKalamazoo Central, theMHSAA Class A champin 1949, 1950 and 1951.The Maroon Giantsjumped out to an early17-9 lead in the earlygoing, and remained incontrol, 20-15, at theintermission. The Tigersrebounded with a strongsecond-half to win, 44-39,before 6,500 fans.

Heavily favoredHighland Park was next.Class A champs in 1952, the Polar Bearshad advanced to the Semifinals in 1953.Led by George Lee, a future NBA player,and standout senior George Duncan, whowould later rewrite the record books atWayne State, Highland Park entered thecontest undefeated.

The Heights rallied back from an earlydeficit and knotted the score at 20-20 at thehalf. The Tigers opened up a 10-point leadfollowing the break, and still held a 38-30advantage as the game entered the finalframe. A furious fourth-quarter rally allowedthe Parkers to knot the score at 47-47.Fouled twice in the waning seconds,Hartman, substituting for the injured Smith,hit two of four shots from the charity stripe

for a 49-47 Muskegon Heights victory andthe school's second title shot.

“Our team was supposed to lose in theSemifinals,” recalled M.C. Burton, “andwhen we upset the top-seeded HighlandPark, with their two consensus all-staters, itwas hailed as a fluke. Likewise, the sportswriters predicted that we would surely loseto No. 2 seed Flint Northern in the Final onSaturday.”

Instead, the Tigers capped a 20-1 sea-son with a thrilling 43-41 overtime victoryover the Vikings – ironically, their opponentin the Class A Final back in 1939. Burton,solidifying his status as one of the state'spremier players, scored 22 points. MertJohnson scored nine, including the game-tying field goal from the right of the freethrow circle in regulation.Tied 41-41, as theteams entered the extra frame, a pair ofmissed shots by the Tigers gave FlintNorthern the ball with 2:22 remaining.Electing to stall for the final shot, all-stateguard Bob Failing finally drove to the bas-ket for the game-winning shot with four sec-onds left. However, Failing was called for acharge, sending Johnson to the foul line.After a Heights timeout, Johnson calmly

stepped up and drilled both shots to propelthe Tigers and their long-time coach to theschool's first-ever basketball crown.

With 423 points, Burton eclipsed MertJohnson's single-season scoring mark seta year earlier, while Johnson ended hissenior season with 315 points. Bothreceived all-state accolades and, thanks totheir play in the state tournament, eachwere given a berth on the AssociatedPress all-tourney team.

Still, perhaps most amazing was thescene that awaited the team upon theirreturn home. A police escort, with sirensscreaming, met the team bus at the citylimits, and guided the team to the centralbusiness district. There, a throng of 5,000

people of all races, colors and creedsjammed the downtown intersection ofBroadway and Peck on Sunday afternoonto welcome home their champions.

“That's when it happened,” said MertJohnson. “It was like someone hit the lightswitch. When we won the state title in '54,the focus in the Heights changed from foot-ball to basketball.”

The city-owned Baker Street courtsserved as the laboratory for the transition.Day-in and day-out on these asphalt slabs,alumni and underclassmen, many of whomhad known each other since grade schooland junior high, would practice the game.Large crowds began to assemble andcheer the action and the athletic abilities ofthe young men: M.C. and his “little” brother,'Big Ed' Burton; Ossie and Willie McCarty;Lee Howell's brother, Kenny, the last of thelong line of Howell siblings; Ron Robinson;Pete Peliotes; and many others honed theirskills and basketball knowledge.

While the team lost Johnson, Smith,French and the Haan twins, Don and Tom,to graduation, the Tigers were still a favoriteto repeat in 1955. Burton, McMurray andHartman were joined by M.C.'s brother Ed

and a number of otherunderclassmen, but theteam was upset in theQuarterfinals by BentonHarbor. The elder Burtonended his three-year highschool career as theTigers' all-time leadingscorer, with 1,141 points.An all-state selectionagain, he would excel onthe court and in the class-room at the University ofMichigan. In 1977, DetroitFree Press writer HalSchram named M.C. to hislist of Michigan's top 20prep basketball playersfrom the previous 25 years.

While the emergenceof the blackphoto courtesy Percy Richards

The 1954 team (above) got the ball rolling, but it wouldnot be long until the 1956 and 57 squads (right) hadetched images into the school trophy case as well.

athlete played a huge role in the success ofHeights on the court, it meant little toCoach Johnson.

“Okie wanted to win,” Ed Burtonemphasized. “Outside the gym, of coursethere was discrimination. But not on theteam. The high school was probably 80percent white, with 20 percent all otherminorities back then. Yet when I was look-ing at the team photo the other day, Inoticed the mix was exactly 50-50. Okie'smain concern was having five guys on thefloor who could win.”

“The color of your skin was never anissue,” recalled Ron Zimmer, a member ofboth the '56 and '57 squads.

Prior to the 1956 season, MuskegonHeights had played its home games at thejunior high, with seating for only a few hun-dred fans. After a season-opening roadwin over Grand Rapids Central, the Tigerschristened their spacious new home, C.F.Bolt Gymnasium, with a 56-44 victory overGrand Rapids Union before a packedhouse of 1,700. Ed Burton, now a junior, litup the scoreboard with 35 points in theteam's home debut.

In game nine against Holland, Burtonshattered the school's single-game mark

with a 45 pointsin a 76-59 victory.

Once again,however, theTigers saw theirdream of anundefeated sea-son crushed. Intheir conferencerematch withBenton Harbor,sophomore ChetWalker drilled ashot from the topof the key in thefinal seconds tobeat Heights, 52-50, at Bolt gym. Itended a Tigerhome winningstreak or three-plus years, and itwould be theteam's only lossat Bolt in morethan five years tocome.

Johnson's crew cruised through thepreliminary rounds of the tournament withease. A 40-33 victory over Grand RapidsCreston, coached by Okie's son, BobJohnson, sent the team to theQuarterfinals for the third straight season.

This time a 70-61 win over SaginawArthur Hill, followed by a 61-54 triumphover Detroit Catholic Central set the stagefor a championship showdown withHamtramck. Trailing the Heights, 55-45,late in the final quarter, the Cosmos man-aged to rally within 57-54 with 45 secondsto play. But free throws by junior KennyHowell and sophomore Ron Robinsonsealed a 63-53 win for the Tigers. Burton,who was later named all-state, led theteam with 23 points, but Howell, Robinsonand Willie McCarty also finished in doublefigures. Sophomore Ossie McCarty, Willie'syounger brother, chipped in with eight. Thesquad's lone graduating senior, playmakerLeon Smith, ended with six for the Tigers(20-1).

“On the bus trip back home after wewon the state championship, we all made avow that the next year we would not lose agame,” remembered Peliotes, then a junior.“And we didn't.”

Indeed, in 1957, the Tigers were themedia’s preseason No. 1, and they rolled toa perfect 20-0 mark. McCarty missed theopening games due to a football injury, butreturned in time to replace Howell in thestarting lineup when Howell was lost tomid-year graduation. This time, the teamnever missed a beat, vanquishing BentonHarbor, 67-44, at home in early February,and again a month later by 14 points on theroad before 3,200 fans, 63-49. It was theclosest anyone would come to knocking offthe Tigers in the regular season.

Peliotes, the team's starting guard,went down with a leg injury in the finalBenton Harbor game but was ably replacedby Lloyd Swelnis as the team headed forthe tournament.

Eager to witness the Quarterfinal show-down with Traverse City, at least 1,500 fanshad to be turned away at the gates of thefieldhouse at Central Michigan College.Inside, an overflow crowd of 5,200 packedthe facility to watch as Burton destroyedthe Trojans' hopes for a Semifinal berth,posting an amazing 44-point, 31-reboundperformance in the Tiger's 79-52 win.

In their third meeting of the year,Muskegon Heights again thumped BentonHarbor and future NBA great Chet Walkerin the Semifinals, 74-52.

One night later, Johnson's machine dis-posed of Detroit Austin, led by anotherfuture NBA star, Dave DeBusschere, 61-49. Burton crowned his prep career with 25points, while the sharp-shooting junior,Robinson, added 21. Both earned selec-tion to the annual all-tournament team andall-state recognition. Burton ended his prepcareer with 1,143 points, breaking hisbrother's career record by two points. Hewould go on to play pro ball with theHarlem Globetrotters and later, in the NBA.

With the win, the Tigers extended theirwin streak to 27 in a row. With their thirdchampionship trophy in four years in tow,they again returned home to a huge wel-come in the central business district.

The die was cast, as the Tigers remaina constant threat come tournament time.

— Ron Pesch

Pesch is the historian for the MHSAA. To submitstory ideas and statistical records, write him at1317 Lakeshore Drive, Muskegon, MI 49441.

Heights’ M.C. Burton(inset) was named asone of the DetroitFree Press’ 25 besthigh school playersby prep guru HalSchram, a.k.a., “TheSwami.”

WELCOME BACKExpected to be in attendance today are the following members of the 1954, 1956 and 1957 MuskegonHeights teams:

Dan Barberini Roland Bingham Ed Burton M.C. Burton Floyd Cook Jr. Dean Danigelis David Fox Richard Hansen Leonard Hartman Nate Hunter Steve Jackson Mert Johnson Ossie McCarty Pete Peliotes Percy Richards Ron Robinson Don Sanborn James Schottey Bob Slezak Otto Smith Paul VanOveren Dan Wright Ron Zimmer Gordon Johnson (Representing Coach Oscar "Okie" Johnson)Cleo McCarty (Representing Willie McCarty) Fred Myles (Representing Lieutenant Myles)