Flying Dutchmen Enjoy 50-Year Victory Lap
EDGERTON’S 50th ANNIVERSARY YEAR
On a bitterly cold weekend in southwest Minnesota, Edgerton residents converged on J.H. Brovold Gymnasium in December of 2008, eager to extend a warm welcome to 10 members of the 1960 state championship Flying Dutchmen basketball team.
The occasion was the release of “Edgerton: A Basketball Legend,” a 277-page hardcover book chronicling the improbable journey of the community’s 1960 state champions, athletes who let nothing or no one interfere with their incredible run. It was one of the team’s largest reunions since a 27-0 season in which Edgerton, population 1,019, became the smallest community ever to produce a state basketball title when the Minnesota State High School League sponsored only one classification.
Center stage were Dean Verdoes, Bob Wiarda, Dean Veenhof, Darrell Kreun, and LeRoy Graphenteen – a starting lineup that 50 years later some Minnesotans still can recite with little or no hesitation – along with top reserves Daryl Stevens, Larry Schoolmeester, Bob Dykstra, Tom Warren, and team manager Doug Vander Beek. Larry Schoolmeester, the lone Edgerton resident, was one of nine team members living within less than a day’s drive of Edgerton, but Veenhof – the team’s all-state center and all-time scoring leader – drove more than 1,400 miles from up-state New York to participate.
“I can’t say how many times [his wife] Judy and I have commented on how thankful we are that we made the trip,” Veenhof said several days after returning home. “It was so good to see most of the team members and many friends. Despite having been away from home for almost 45 years, it was surprising to me how many people I still recognized and remembered.”
“As a result of the Edgerton event, I am looking forward to the reunions that are being planned for the 50th Anniversary…. that will be extra special.”
Yes, this rural reunion of Edgerton Public’s basketball team was in reality a prelude to the 50th Anniversary of the Flying Dutchmen’s feat, a celebration of one of the state’s all-time athletic achievements . . . a celebration that will officially commence on December 8 when the 2009-10 Flying Dutchmen open their season at Adrian and will culminate March 27 in the Target Center, where the MSHSL will honor a team that 50 years earlier defeated perennial Minnesota basketball power Austin 72-61 before a record turnout of 19,018 specatators in Williams Arena.
“It was great fun getting together with most of my former teammates, and Edgerton residents were so gracious to give us such a warm welcome home,” Verdoes said of the December celebration. “We were fortunate to share a special time in 1960 and we certainly enjoyed the two days in Edgerton. What will be equally special is the coming season, culminating in the Target Center where we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of our championship season.
“One of the nicest things that has happened to me through the years has been to have met so many basketball fans who remain interested in the Edgerton story. Hopefully, the entire team will be able to attend . . . it will be exciting to spend more time together.”
“As we get older, the state championship becomes even more special to each of us in many ways.”
Absent from the Edgerton celebration were Coach Rich Olson, already in Texas for the winter; Norm Muilenburg, living in Oregon; Jim Roos, a St. Louis resident; and Darwin Fey, now in Phoenix, and assistant coach John Rath, the lone deceased individual from the Edgerton contingent. No official headcount is available for the state tournament ceremony, but those who were in Edgerton and Olson, who splits time from his home in Virginia, Minnesota and Texas, have insisted they’ll be in Minneapolis on March 27.
Dave Stead, the MSHSL executive director, said that his organization tries to honor special teams or celebrate milestone events when it can, but those occasions have been highlighted through program features, public address announcements, and scoreboard messages. The MSHSL leader said that court-side ceremonies have never been held during his tenure, but cited several reasons for this season’s exception, one being the Edgerton’s legend.
“As the media and tournament attendees discuss the current multiple-class system, the [1960] Edgerton team is nearly always mentioned as Minnesota’s version of Indiana’s ‘Hoosiers,’ and the legacy continues.
“We felt that recognizing the teams that played in the championship game 50 years ago would be a special way to celebrate a unique time in basketball history.”
What “Edgerton: A Basketball Legend,” written by retired sports reporter Tom Tomashek and former Flying Dutchmen coach Ken Kielty, have done since its release late in 2008 is to provide a historical overview of basketball history in Edgerton, southwest Minnesota, and to a lesser extent throughout the state.
In addition to Edgerton’s championship season, from the opening game through the town’s tumultuous post-tournament celebration – the book traces the town’s basketball history from the inaugural team, coached by school superintendent E.O. Nickerson, through the triumphant Olson era of the 1960s. The reader is introduced to the individuals who played an integral role in Edgerton basketball, including some of the standouts from Southwest Christian, which today continues to share the community’s basketball talent pool with Edgerton Public and produced four divisional championship teams beginning in the late 1990s.
The subject isn’t broached, but one can’t avoid speculation of what Edgerton’s all-time basketball history could have been before and after the championship season if the two schools were consolidated.
Small-town basketball in southwest Minnesota and to some degree basketball throughout the state is addressed, particularly the years of one-class play that ran from 1913 through 1970 when Sherburn, as Edgerton a southern Minnesota mite, closed the book on the era with a 78-62 victory over South St. Paul.
Nationally, only Kentucky (its Sweet 16 format legendary) and tiny Delaware still have just one basketball class, but in Minnesota – where the MSHSL was among the last state athletic associations to adopt a multiple-class system – some fans still yearn for the days of a one-class system, rather than the present four-tier system.
Perhaps, Ed Otto, former Pipestone High coach who coached against the legendary Dutchmen contingent, said it best.
“I’m all for the one-class system. So many tournaments are played that you don’t even know who’s playing [for the championships],” Otto said. “How many people remember who last year’s champions are?”
“It’s like Darrell Remay [former Willmar High coach] once said, ‘A trophy ought to be given every school at the beginning of the season and if they don’t believe they earned it, they can send it back.’”
Edgerton isn’t the only small-town to have attained big-time status by outlasting all high school teams. In Wisconsin, Reedsville did it in 1946. Manning dominated Iowa basketball in 1948. In 1952, Hebron reigned in Illinois, Cuba in Kentucky, and Linden in Tennessee. The most publicized small-town mite was Milan, the 1954 Indiana champion who inspired the movie, “Hoosiers,” deemed by many to be one of the best sports movies of all-time.
While not the lone small-town success story, Edgerton’s has a special resonance and a message for even those with no Minnesota ties and certainly no knowledge of Edgerton’s feat until they’ve read “Edgerton: A Basketball Legend.” Nina Van Erk, executive director of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, Inc., and president-elect of the National Federation of High School Associations board of directors is one such reader.
In the fall issue of Scholastic Athletics, the NYSPHSAA’s magazine, she devoted a segment of her quarterly message to her fascination of the Flying Dutchmen tale.
“The team had a season that movies are made of. In front of over 19,000 spectators they beat all the odds, capturing the Minnesota High School League State Championship title in the 1960s,” she wrote. “. . . I read with a sense of wonder what the experience must have been like for the members of the team and citizens of their community,” she wrote. “I felt a tinge of jealousy. Is this level of interest and support lost in today’s sports culture? Has time diminished home town pride and strong community involvement?
“Has a false sense of importance clouded our ability to recognize success and celebrate the accomplishments of a group of student athletes? I hope not.”
In light of her response, one can assume Ms. Van Erk certainly would have been profoundly moved by Edgerton’s holiday celebration of its athletic past. In a program orchestrated by Marilyn Schoolmeester, an Edgerton teacher and wife of former Flying Dutchman forward Larry Schoolmeester, the Brovold Gym was festively decorated, the book signing was enthusiastically promoted throughout the community, and the 1960 state champions were introduced during halftime of the Friday night girls’ season opener between Edgerton High School and Southwest Christian.
“Having been part of the 1960 team experience through scrapbooks and old movies that my husband, Larry, has collected, I appreciated the opportunity to actually meet many of the team members and their families,” Marilyn Schoolmeester said. “It was a fun and memorable weekend. The community support for the team was very visible [Friday night] and throughout the weekend.”
The homecoming wasn’t as animated and diverse as that chilly March afternoon in 1960 when the team was greeted on Main Street two days after winning the title, but it was a festive affair in which the special guests signed books and enthusiastically reminisced with former classmates, relatives, long-time residents and out-of-town family and friends. Many of those present shared in the Flying Dutchmen’s championship ride, while others became aware of the legend through their elders.
Just as team members delighted in the warm welcome, the community appeared equally appreciative that the 10 guests took time from a busy holiday season to return home. When the halftime introductions were made, spectators on both sides gave them a standing ovation.
“The ceremony was so respectful,” Daryl Stevens, the team’s top reserve, said. “It said a great deal about the town of Edgerton . . . it showed pride. My wife, Pam, says she believes this town has “something special” that other communities don’t have.”
Making the Edgerton legend that much more special . . . more compelling is what each has accomplished beyond high school. Role models come in all varieties and from all levels and these athletes, who demonstrated remarkable humility during their championship season, have gone on to lead productive lives in education and coaching, in public service, in business, in the military, and in their communities.
Kreun, Veenhof, Verdoes, and Warren spent more than 30 years in education, many of those years also in coaching. Kreun, Veenhof, and Verdoes played college basketball and Kreun, still one of Edgerton’s scoring leaders earned hall of fame status as a player at Northwestern College in Iowa and as a coach at Gaylord and Sibley East high schools in Minnesota. His teams at Gaylord and Sibley East were a combined 587-203 record and claimed 15 conference titles and three state tournament bids.
Veenhof and Verdoes were successful coaches, but their major contributions came in regional and state athletic administration, Veenhof in New York State and Verdoes in Minnesota. Verdoes still is active at the scoring table at state tournament time.
Daryl Stevens, Bob Wiarda, and Jim Roos each spent most of their careers in public service. Roos – the hard-luck forward who broke his arm shortly before the 1960 tournament series – spending his life helping to provide housing for low-income families, while Stevens remains a part-time counselor in alcohol rehabilitation. Stevens and his wife, Pam, have become national-caliber ironman and ironwoman competitors.
Bob Dykstra, a registered pilot, spent nearly 40 years in the Air National Guard and is a certified pilot instructor. Schoolmeester served three years in the U.S. Army before returning home to Edgerton and went into business, while Veenhof’s college graduation was interrupted by a military tour in which he served in Vietnam.
Muilenburg (pharmacy), Fey (developer, advertising), VanderBeek ( lumber company owner), Graphenteen (management) and Schoolmeester are or were long-time businessmen.
Verdoes, captain of the 1960 champions, takes great pride in the achievements of his former teammates, however, he has a particularly keen appreciation for Roos’ selfless contributions to those in need.
“I am very hopeful that Jim can attend our March reunion and share some of his life experiences with us,” Verdoes said.
“Edgerton: A Basketball Legend” hopefully reflects the pride and the respect of those who fondly remember Edgerton’s magical season. The writers were delighted by the public’s initial response to the book, which received kudos for its thoroughness and accuracy, and they will continue to sell “Edgerton: A Basketball Legend” through the 2010 high school basketball season in which the book will be available again at the Target Center.Anyone interested in a signing and/or lecture during the 2009-10 basketball season, please contact Ken Kielty or Tom Tomashek through their e-mail addresses in the web-site.
