BLAST FROM THE PAST: 1970 Mountaineers undefeated until they faced a 7-foot-4 giant
Fifty years ago Kings Mountain High School put one of its best teams ever on the basketball floor.
The first full five-year period after school integration proved to be one of, if not the best, in Mountaineer basketball history.
The 1966-67 and 1967-68 teams that featured All-American George Adams posted back-to-back seasons of 20-1 and 25-1, the first being upset by Marion in the first round of the WNCHSAA playoffs and the latter losing only to A.L. Brown of Kannapolis in the Western North Carolina High School Activities Association championship game.
Coached by the late Bob Hussey, the 1968-69 team featured a mostly young group of players but still managed to finish 18-5 overall and second place in the Southwestern 3A Conference behind Cherryville.
But players like Otis Cole, Charles Barnes and Phillip Francis polished their skills during that season, and in 1969-70 they and their teammates reeled off 23 straight victories before facing a giant in the WNCHSAA semi-finals.
That giant was 7-foot-4 Tommy Burleson and Avery County, who came into the KMHS gym and scored the last seven points of the game to stun the Mountaineers 63-61.
Kings Mountain led 61-56 with 1:59 remaining in the game before Burleson, who finished with 38 points, scored the last seven on an old-fashioned three-point play (a field goal and free throw, there were no three-point goals back then), a tipped-in missed shot and a 23-foot jumper at the buzzer for the game winner.
Otis Cole, who finished his senior season with 550 points and a 23.4 points per game average, went on to a great career with the Florida State Seminoles. Cole was on the FSU team that lost the NCAA national championship to John Wooden’s UCLA powerhouse in 1973.
Cole still lives in Kings Mountain and is seen regularly at Donald L. Parker Gymnasium, cheering on the Mountaineers. Barnes, who went on to become a starting guard at Appalachian State and later coached basketball in Georgia and North Carolina, averaged 18.2 points per game and had a season’s total of 436 points.
Francis, who was the #3 scorer with 238 points, joined Cole and Barnes on the All-Southwestern Conference team. Cole played in the East-West All-Star game and also made the All-American team.
The 1970 team’s toughest games in the SWC were against the Crest Chargers and their superstar, David Thompson, who would later join Burleson to lead NC State to the national championship. Both of those games went down to the wire.
Other members of the ’70 team were Steve Gladden, Roger Smith, Jewel Watson, Geeper Howard, Ben Brown, Bobby Ethridge, M. White, Chuck Carpenter, Randolph Ross, Wilson Ledford, Chuck Easley and Andy Neisler.
— KM Herald
The first full five-year period after school integration proved to be one of, if not the best, in Mountaineer basketball history.
The 1966-67 and 1967-68 teams that featured All-American George Adams posted back-to-back seasons of 20-1 and 25-1, the first being upset by Marion in the first round of the WNCHSAA playoffs and the latter losing only to A.L. Brown of Kannapolis in the Western North Carolina High School Activities Association championship game.
Coached by the late Bob Hussey, the 1968-69 team featured a mostly young group of players but still managed to finish 18-5 overall and second place in the Southwestern 3A Conference behind Cherryville.
But players like Otis Cole, Charles Barnes and Phillip Francis polished their skills during that season, and in 1969-70 they and their teammates reeled off 23 straight victories before facing a giant in the WNCHSAA semi-finals.
That giant was 7-foot-4 Tommy Burleson and Avery County, who came into the KMHS gym and scored the last seven points of the game to stun the Mountaineers 63-61.
Kings Mountain led 61-56 with 1:59 remaining in the game before Burleson, who finished with 38 points, scored the last seven on an old-fashioned three-point play (a field goal and free throw, there were no three-point goals back then), a tipped-in missed shot and a 23-foot jumper at the buzzer for the game winner.
Otis Cole, who finished his senior season with 550 points and a 23.4 points per game average, went on to a great career with the Florida State Seminoles. Cole was on the FSU team that lost the NCAA national championship to John Wooden’s UCLA powerhouse in 1973.
Cole still lives in Kings Mountain and is seen regularly at Donald L. Parker Gymnasium, cheering on the Mountaineers. Barnes, who went on to become a starting guard at Appalachian State and later coached basketball in Georgia and North Carolina, averaged 18.2 points per game and had a season’s total of 436 points.
Francis, who was the #3 scorer with 238 points, joined Cole and Barnes on the All-Southwestern Conference team. Cole played in the East-West All-Star game and also made the All-American team.
The 1970 team’s toughest games in the SWC were against the Crest Chargers and their superstar, David Thompson, who would later join Burleson to lead NC State to the national championship. Both of those games went down to the wire.
Other members of the ’70 team were Steve Gladden, Roger Smith, Jewel Watson, Geeper Howard, Ben Brown, Bobby Ethridge, M. White, Chuck Carpenter, Randolph Ross, Wilson Ledford, Chuck Easley and Andy Neisler.
— KM Herald
