Bear Grease - Ep. 66: Basketball and Coonhunting - The "Hicks From the Sticks” Story

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, we’ll be crossing the streams of sports, rural life, and hunting as we learn about the 1960’s championship Bradleyville Eagles basketball dynasty in Missouri. We’ll talk with author, Leon Combs who wrote the book on them and we’ll meet one of the players – Leon Boyd – the teams ball handling point guard and coonhunter extraordinaire who still hunts and loves basketball to this day. In a world of increasing specialization, we’ll explore if the idea of having diversity can make us better at everything we do – like being a coonhunting basketball player… but it’s a toss up. The drama of this sports story will have you on the edge of the bleacher as you hear the actual broadcast of their 1968 state championship game and we’ll go on a hunt with Leon Boyd. I doubt you’re going to want to miss this one… Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. You know, most stories need a protagonist and an antagonist to tell a good story. And telling this story, the protagonist, the good is the community. It's the team. It's the boys.

The antagonist is the world that pushes against us. On this episode of the Bear Greas podcast, we'll be crossing the streams of sports, rural life, and hunting as we learned about the Bradleyville. Eagles basketball dynasty in Missouri, lasting from 1962 to 1968, which includes a still standing state record, 64 game winning streak, and three state championships. We'll talk with author Leon Combs, who wrote a book about the dynasty, and we'll meet one of the players, Mr. Leon Boyd, the team's ball handling point guard and Coon Hunter extraordinaire, who still hunts and loves basketball to this day.

In today's world, extreme specialization is often seen as the key to success in sports and life. But is that true? I want to explore the idea of how having diversity can make us better at everything we do, like being a coon hunting basketball player. But it's a toss-up. The drama of this sports story will have you on the edge of your bleacher as we hear the actual broadcast of the Bradleyville Eagles 1968 state. championship game, and we're going to go on a coon hunt with Leon Boyd. I doubt you're going to

want to miss this one, boys. It's all fun. Only other thing I've done this about was Coon Hunt, so, you know, that ball plan was fun to me. I really enjoyed it. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Great pass by Eli Shepard Newcomb with the two. I want to let you in on a little known secret.

The Newcoms are ballers. We love some basketball. But let me qualify this. I wish I could say that I had been a great basketball player, but I can't. Though I had the potential to be a decent small town point guard, and I did play through my high school years, I was not a star. I had one night of glory when I knocked down five three-pointers against Clarksville and won the player of the game award. But I pretty much squandered my high school years away in an identity struggle of whether I was an athlete. or a coon hunter. I'm being quite serious. It's the truth. In my youth, the two worlds couldn't

coexist. I couldn't resolve their conflicts. My dad always wanted me to be well-rounded, and he'd say you need to be able to play a round of golf and kill a deer with a bow. Much to his chagrin, I wasn't very well-rounded, and let's just say, I didn't play much golf. The older I've gotten, however, the more I've realized his general idea was correct if his intent was to make me more successful in life. But would it have? A common narrative in America is that early starting extreme specialization in sports and life is key to success.

Stories like Tiger Woods, whose father intensely trained him when he was five years old as a compelling story. All the way to the Bobby Fisher Child Chess Prodigy Stories of the 1970s, all these stories spurred on this ideology. And it's a compelling idea when our society has been on a pathway of increasing specialization in our careers and general skill sets since the industrial revolution. Before that, we had to be a jack of all trades just to survive. But have we lost something in specialization? I'm in search of the answer, and of all places that I'm going to look for how about a basketball team in Bradleyville, Missouri? I love the audacity of it. My wife,

Misty, and I are at our 14-year-old son, Shepard Newcomb's AAU basketball game. The AAU is a summer league for up-and-coming ball players. Ninety-nine percent of the top players in the country played some type of AAU ball, and the vast majority of NBA players played AAU ball when they were young. In this gym, everyone's focus is on the kids on the court, but I find myself watching and listening to the parents. I'm often amazed at their intensity and the wild things that they say to the referees and the wild stuff they say to their kids. But I'm right there with them. I'm one of them. And I'll be it a biased assessment. Shepard Newcomb is a baller with the capital B. The boy tries to shoot a thousand three-pointers every day, and he would literally eat basketballs if they were

a little bit smaller. But here's another question I'd like to understand in order to understand Bradleyville's basketball phenomena. Wow, this is intense. He broke his ankles. So, Misty, basketball is a great sport for smaller rural schools. In America, basketball, You don't need 11 players. You don't need a huge football field. You really only need five players. You can practice at your house with just a single hoop or rim, a basketball goal. Why do you think rural schools loves basketball some of it?

Well, basketball is a great sport in rural communities because you don't have the population base to secure a full-on football team. I mean, you go to a football game and they've got 36, 40 kids out there. At basketball, you need five main players. players, eight, you know, eight kids will give you a good backup. It doesn't require a lot of money. You know, you need a gym. Most schools have that.

But individual kids, though, can put hoops up outside their house. They don't need a lot of fancy contraptions. I mean, it's not like... How many kids that we're looking at? So Shepard is not in the game right now. How many of these boys do you think have killed bears and have coon dogs? I can't answer that question. But what I'm really asking is, are these elite young,

athletes growing into diverse people that can be successful in life. I know that's the question Misty and I are asking about our own children. Are we setting them up for success? The draw to extreme specialization is enticing to a kid and to parents. But let's get back to our conversation about why rural areas like basketball. Obviously, it's not just rural places that love hoops. It's probably more known as an urban sport. But when all you have is basketball and all your eggs are in one basket, you have the opportunity for a blaze of glory or utter failure.

I want to introduce you to one of the best basketball stories I've ever heard, and it touches home deeply with me because it involves some incredible ballers, some coon hunters, and the building of a Missouri basketball dynasty with records that have stood for over 60 years. Leon Combs is 87 years old, but I would have believed him if he said he was 67. He's spry with the ten of eyes and a sharp mind and a voice fit for radio. I'm sitting in his home in Bradleyville overlooking a stunning view of the Ozarks. In 1999, he wrote a book called The Hicks from the Sticks. It's about the Bradleyville basketball era. Bradleyville is in Taney County in southwestern. Missouri, and today has a population of 80 people. It's located about 30 miles east of the famed

music show town of Branson, Missouri in the rural Ozarks. Mr. Combs didn't play basketball during the dynasty years. He played 10 years prior, but he's going to introduce us to Bradleyville basketball before their meteoric rise. I went to school here and played basketball here, but Braddiviel in those days, was the tiny school. We did have a gymnasium. We played outdoors. We had an outdoor.

We had board, backboards. We had rims with no nets on them. I think the rents were made by a local blacksmith. And we would play out there in the mud and the rain and the snow. We tried to play.

We did. And then we got a coach who, when I was a sophomore, I think, interested in the sub-regional tournament in Branson, as it calls those days. Well, we were,

you know, seated last. And we played Branson the first night. Which was a big school compared to Bradleyville. They won the state championship the year of war. They beat us 64 to 6. I was in that game. Then I think we won two. I played four years on a basketball team.

We lost every game we played except two. We want two games. What years was that? 49 to 53. I graduated in 1953. You know, we just, we didn't expect to win, but we left to go to other schools to play because we got to play on a gym.

You know, the ball would bounce straight, you know, we could dribble the ball. Halfway during my senior year, they decided to build a gymnasium. They appropriated, I think, $1,500 to build a gym. But they got a lot of volunteer labor and materials and so forth. They built a gymnasium and put a tile floor in it. I helped out.

They had us boys going up with sand rock and smooth out the concrete so the tile would stick. Finally got it down. And the very first game we played, We played Spokane. First game, Bradleyville ever played indoors at home. The concrete had been poured directly on the ground, and it started sweating. And so that tile got as slick as ice.

It's like we were playing on an ice rink. We had to call the game at halfway because guys were just, you know, busting their head, just sliding on that thing and really dangerous. So the story is that Bradleyville was not a good athletic school at the time. We were at the bottom of heap. Everybody just beat the heck out. I mean, I wouldn't even, I hate to admit you from Bradleyville. So this was rural Ozarks.

Real, real. I think the school in those days was not even accredited by the state. Winning two games in four years, building a gymnasium that was almost unusable, you can feel the humiliation hovering over this community like a thick fog. Sadly, this community had given all they had, but it didn't stand up to the standards of the time. The entire school, 1st through 12, had about 60 students. The people in the community lived in what the times called poverty and primarily worked as loggers and subsistence farmers.

These people worked hard and sports success was a luxury. But after the gym was built, a glint of hope arose. Rounderville was getting better once they got the gymnasium in a 1953. and they've always had good strong boys, a lot of a big tall kid, the typical hillbilly, I guess. And they just had some good talent, but they never had any chance to develop it, never have a good coach. They started getting some coaches toward the end of the 50s. And then in 1961, they didn't have a coach, they didn't have a superintendent. And Bert Horner was on the school board, and he'd heard about a couple of brothers over in Blue Eye.

Blue-I, Missouri and Blue-I-Rin-Arkinson. So he went over and talked to Omar Gibson about the possibility of being superintendent and to his brother, Ray Gibson, about being a coach. They talked and negotiated and ended up signing a deal,

a package deal for $10,000 a year that Omar, as a superintendent, would get $6,000, and Ray, as coach, we'd get $4,000. So they agreed that. And Ray Gibson was a great coach. He was a young coach. He didn't have a high.

good he was he told me he came over here he said i never saw raw talent i never saw such strong boys i never saw a young man who were so eager to learn they listened to what i told them they were so easy to coach he said i could run them to death and they would never complain and so he said they were in great condition and all they needed was some basics and fundamentals some of them were doing pretty well so they they started playing games in in 1961 62 and ray coached He emphasized sportsmanship. He said, I don't ever want to see any attitude problems. I don't want to ever see an argue with a referee.

I don't want to see argue with a call, no matter how bad the call it is. He said that they won their first tournament that year. The first tournament that ever had never won a tournament before and they won the sportsmanship award. And from then on through the 60s, Braddiville won a sportsmanship award at every tournament they played in. There are three things that just happened, and I'll list them numerically for your listening ease. Number one, the beginning of hope for the team began with a coach who believed in the boys, despite their historical record. Number two, it's inferred, but the difficulty of the life of these boys and the Ozarks made them coachable, tough, and extremely hard workers.

Number three, a core philosophy of the team was. sportsmanship. Leon Combs moved away from Bradleyville after he graduated high school and assumed he'd never come back. Now he's going to tell us about his extreme shock when he saw his old alma mater, Bradleyville, having a winning season. And I was living in Columbia. Then that was 1962. I started reading about Bradleyville. So you'd moved away from your hometown of Bradleyville? I've been gone since 53. I've been in Marine Corps. I've been in other places. I'd come back to visit my parents, but for just a weekend, overnight and go up. Yeah.

I lost all attached. So I started seeing the newspapers stories of basketball in the springtime, there are basketball tournaments, and Bradleyville was winning games and winning games. Wow, this is unusual. I had a brother who was a Jerry Combs was a center on the team, and Lonnie Combs and David Combs were my first cousins. Anyhow, I kept watching, and the next thing I know, they were coming to Columbia. They were in the final four.

this. So I went down to Old Brewer Fieldhouse at the University of Missouri there, and I watched him play the semifinal game, and they won it, and I watched the final game, and they won that. State championship. State championship, yeah, state championship. In the course of 10 years, Bradleyville went from the humiliation of Southwest Missouri to the 1962 Class S Missouri State Champions, and S stands for small. This was absolutely incredible for this community. Here's Mr. Leon Combs telling us why he named his book, The Hicks from the Sticks.

One of the games when Bradley was playing in the Blueville Tournament, they were playing Partview, they called the Jolly Green Giants, they're called for Green. They had won the state championship before. That's where the name of the book came from. The day the game was going to be played, people were calling into KWTO Radio in Springfield talking about the game tonight.

Between undefeated Bradleyville and Undefeated Partview. And one guy called and he said, well, you know, Bradleville may be good down there. They play those little schools down there in South Missouri. But he said, I can tell you one thing, those hicks from a sticks are going to meet their match tonight. They went up there and Gary Keltler played on the Parkview team. I've interviewed him 50 years later. Gary said, we couldn't believe the struggle were having those teams. And he said, they called timeout.

and he said they were huddling close to our bench there. He said, Dwayne Maggard had curly black hair. Dwayne always had a comb in his sock. He carried a combed. He combed his hair during the game. And they were sitting there and calling time out in front of the bench. He was combed in his hair. And one of the players said, are you primping, comb your hair during the game all the time?

He said, only when I know we're going to win to get our pictures took. I would have beat them by 10 points and beat part of you and the coach told me our jealousy said that that win was more gratifying to me than the state championship I want to now introduce you

to the court general of that team Leon Boyd he was a senior in 1962 and today he's 78 years old he still looks like he could beat me in one-on-one. I'm standing in his home nine miles north of Bradleyville on the land he was born on and still lives on to this day. In his living room, there are three white-tail racks, a wooden clock with the image of a raccoon behind the hands of the clock, uncountable photos of

his family, and lots of pictures of dogs, coon dogs. He's showing a newspaper to my son's Shepard. So this is the Branson Sports Tri Lakes newspaper. This is April 9th, 2022, and there's a picture of the 1962 Bradleyville Eagles celebrate 60 years. So this was your 60-year class reunion? Yes, 60 years. And they put a picture of the basketball team that won the state championship. Where are you at, Mr. Leon? That's me right there, 21. Number 21. He doesn't look a day older than they did in that picture, does he show? Nope. See, the year we took state there, Branson played for state the same place we was playing,

and they got beat. They took second. We took, we won. Did you beat Branson? No. They was a large school, and it was small, you know, and they got beat, and they had ballroom all set up for their celebration, you know, but they got beat that night. But they're a deal at Branson.

Johnson anyway had us down there for a meal or two you know you guys were the heroes and the big the bigger school got beat We're all friends you know and things back then and She ever read read that byline for me all right members of the 1962 state class s basketball champions Our front row Bill Roberts and Jerry Combs and back row coach Ray Gibson Leon Boyd's Roy Combs Daryl Paul Eddie Huns and Matt Wakely. How's the little guy? But you were the ball handler.

When they needed to get through a press, they passed it to you. Is that right? That seemed to be the way it happened, you know. Yeah. That kind of sounds like the way I would describe you. Ball handler, is that right? Yeah. I don't always get to bring my kids along when I travel,

but I really wanted my son Shepard to meet Leon Boyd. I think they might have a lot in common. I think you can hear it, but Mr. Boyd is an unusually humble man, which is an honorable trait. I want to ask him specifically about the state championship. So what would you say is your most significant memory of winning that state championship? And that being the first one that Bradleyville had won. We won an ever sportsmanship trophy that there was that year. I'd say that was my best memory.

We had a coach that he was just always smiling when you'd look at the bench. He wasn't ever mean, and he was a good coach. Really? So he didn't get intense with you guys? How did he motivate you? Well, he just let us play ball, and he'd tell us what to do, and we'd just pay attention to him. Now, I assume he really worked you guys hard, though.

I mean, he worked you hard and practiced. That's just part of it. We enjoyed the practice as much as a game, you know. all fun. Only other thing I'd done this about was coon hunt, so, you know, that's, that bowl plan was fun to me. I really enjoyed it. When did you start coon hunting? Probably when I was 11 when they started letting me carry a gun by myself. And where'd you get your first dog? Well, we had an old hound, half-hound that would tree a coon or squirrel either one. And then Burrow Maher gave me my first hand. He was your school bus driver. He was my bus driver.

Does that first town any good would it tree a coon? It triacoon, it liked a lot being perfect, kind of like me, you know, but it triacoon. And so you've had dogs and coon hunted ever since then? Yeah. Yeah. All my life, I have. Yeah. And still enjoy it.

It was something I could do when I wasn't working, you know, I could hunt at night. And other things, you know, I needed to work in daytime, so I could coon hunt at night. I could work in the night. daytime and I could coon hunt at night. Now that's some functional rationale. Here's Mr. Leon Combs giving us some insight into how the upbringing and lifestyle of these boys plays into the story. But don't get too nostalgic about winning one state championship because that's just the beginning. They won some more. It feels like the work ethic and kind of the fabric of the character of these boys was form.

by hardships inside of their life that would have come from poverty, would have come from living in a rural area, would have come from not having any extras inside of their life. And it feels like that played into their success. And a lot of them later in their success and life. Can you talk to me about that? Well, Leon Boyd here, who are you going to talk to? He comes from a very poor family.

And when it came time to buy a letter jacket, basketball letter jacket, he couldn't afford it. He didn't have money. So the boys took up a collection and bought. him a little jay he he still wears it today he's 78 years old and he still fits in it there were a lot of poor people i think i wrote in the book about how they would run along the highway and pick pop bottles up the glass pop bottles they could get two cents for them and get to get the money and they would buy cart and to milk windows they didn't have free lunches in those days if you didn't

have any money you didn't eat so they had a little cartons of milk you get for 10 cents i think so they have that so literally a lot of these boys came from family before they barely had enough to eat. And they worked hard. They had to milk cows and feed hogs. So the boys grew up in very poor families, but they were taught the morality, the right things to do. They would never think about those days.

I mean, a thought of smoking a marijuana cigarette was just out of the crowd. I mean, you wouldn't even touch it. Nobody would. Or any other kind of dope. And a lot of guys didn't even drink. It was a work ethic, I think, is in the community. Everybody expected to work. If someone was on welfare, they were almost disgraced in the community.

A lot of people would almost starve before they were going on welfare because of the disgrace attached to it. But I don't know what made the community what it was, but it was a beautiful community from a standpoint of humanity and loving each other and helping each other. You know, farmers would help each other. You come over and work for me and putting on my hay. I don't even talk about paying you. They're not come to help you. And people were just good neighbors, and they were very proud of this community. As we tell this story, it's a story.

You know, most stories need a protagonist and an antagonist to tell a good story. And telling this story, the protagonist, the good, is the community. It's the team. It's the boys. The antagonist is the world that pushes against us. This is an insightful statement from Leon Combs. When we look back in history, it seems that things were more simple. And in many ways, this is true.

but they still had complicated lives. Roy and Jerry Combs were cousins and played with Leon Boyd in that 1962 state championship team. Their grandfather was named John Riley Combs and he was the sheriff of Taney County, Missouri during prohibition. His sons, who would have been Roy and Jerry's father and uncle, were caught making and selling moonshine. And rather than letting his sons go to prison, Sheriff John Riley, Combs claimed that the stills were his and he served six months in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. He took the heat for his sons. There's another story of one of the families selling a cow so they could afford to travel to

Columbia to go to the state championship game. Life was simple, but it was also hard. Here's Leon Combs talking to us about how good Leon Boyd's team was in 1962. You'll hear them mention one of the players. Darrell Paul. He was a real ringer. Here's what the coach Ray Gibson said about this team. He said that the boys were great. They were easy to coach. And he said, I wasn't surprised when we went to state. Ray, it wasn't not surprised because they said they lost a couple of games out here. But he said, we shouldn't have lost those. Yeah, the couple they lost Leon Boyd was sick. Yes. Is that what they said? Yeah, it was. And there was another one, something like that.

And they were playing big schools. They were playing on it. They'd be Joplin. Which was a school of... Oh, which I had 2,000 students. Yeah. Rather than had 60 or 70 students in the whole school. Yeah, that's...

At the blue and gold tournament in Springfield, Daryl Paul had the record for the most points scored. And that stood from 62 to 1995. Really? And finally, it was broken. And, you know, they started three-pointers. So in the tournament, it was a record for that tournament or for the season? For that tournament?

It was before the three-point line, so he was hitting what would have been counted his threes. And the people who beat him, of course, they had most of the three-pointers. Right. So, I mean, if they had done Daryl Paul, three-partners, he still hold the record. Well, and a lot of guys said that were in the know and new basketball at that time, that he was potentially one of the best spot shooters ever in the state of Missouri. I heard that from Charlie Spoon. I interviewed Charlie.

He said, I watched his kid play. I've never seen anybody could catch the ball and release it almost instantly. I mean, it reminded me when I see Steph Curry play now. Yeah. He probably wasn't good of Steph Curry young because in those days, boys didn't have AEU camps in the summertime.

We weren't allowed to play in the summertime. Right. I think the real thermometer for how good this team was was in that they were beating schools that were 20 times their size. As a side note, this great shooter, Darrell Paul, who played with Leon Bull, on this team. He sadly passed away at the age of 27 in the 1970s from cancer.

I want to get some more from this Coon hunting point guard, Mr. Boyd. I want to hear his story. You look like you're in great shape right now. You look like you could outrun me right now. Looks are probably deceiving. So you were kind of on the team that brought an upswing that kind of started. this Bradleyville streak of about six or seven years where y'all were really good kind of let people know where bradley bill was we had a lot of fun so you were a you were a point guard and as i understand it you've you played basketball up into your adult life just just for fun played till i seven and then i hurt my shoulder throwing a coon up my tree for the dogs so i had a quick play did you really

really so you played basketball till you were 70 yeah i played at st john I worked up there 25 years and played on the league up there, and then I played town team ball, you know, with guys. I like the longevity and passion of Mr. Boyd playing organized basketball until he was 70 years old. And if you're going to go down in an injury, why not go down doing the other thing that you loved, coon hunting? I think there's a plausible connection in the diversity in Mr. Boyd's life.

The physical fitness gained by playing ball his whole life and enabled him to stay active as a coon hunter. or maybe it was the other way around. And it's possible that his coon hunting might have balanced out his passion for the game of basketball, allowing him to excel. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the same. sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut,

and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. I want to have a conversation about extreme specialization

and the benefits of being a jack-of-all-trades, or a generalist. My wife, Misty Newcomb, has run a high school sports program for many years. She's a PhD candidate at the University of Arkansas, and most of all, she's a die-hard B-ball fan. We're going to talk about a book titled Range by David Epstein that makes the case that generalists often succeed in a world that is demanding increasingly specialization. We'll also talk about the youth sports world. I want to see what she has to say. The example that I most identify in this book is the example of Tiger Woods, which was a narrative that was kind of put on us in a pretty significant way because his day.

Dad really pushed him as a child. He was playing golf by the time he was three or four. And there was this extreme specialization that pushed him to become the greatest golfer in the world. And the idea was that that's what you should do in life. So we took this, you know, golf is like the game of life. The other example that the author uses is chess. Well, what Epstein says is that those were pretty much false narratives for most. most of life. He said that in super predictable situations like on a golf course, there's always a

T-box, there's always a hole, it's just slightly different. In those situations, extreme specialization is beneficial. But in most of life, extreme specialization isn't as beneficial. And the whole book is about how generalists, people that didn't specialize in one thing, but ended up becoming experts in something else that they were never even trained in. And his whole thing is, is that by being a generalist, we learn how to respond to the irregularities that life throws at us. Yeah, I think that that narrative of you should really focus in on one thing, it probably comes from, you know, parents getting a certain level of identity from their kids' performance and wanting them to be really good.

It probably comes from just, in general, a focus on happiness and what makes our, you know, wanting our kids to be good at things. What question I think you're asking is, is that good? Is it good to have that sort of extreme focus? focus in one area. And we're seeing this more in children's sports and use sports. And we've seen it with our own son. We experienced personally, like a real push to he did have some native talent. And so people wanted us to make schooling decisions around that, like where we lived, life decisions around that. And then how our family operated. And we kind of put some boundaries

around that saying no. And there's a lot of arguments about this. Like our athletes better if they just play one sport. And I'm obviously a little bit more towards the general area, not just in sports, but in life. I think that we're better people if we're more well-rounded. So when I was in high school, pretty much if you were a good basketball player and you went to play college basketball, it was just a much more simple process. Today, they are prepping these kids from the time they're young. If you're not in the world, you'd be shocked. I mean, you would be shocked to find out the amount of money that's going into getting kids trained, personal trainers, we're talking elementary school. And flying kids in to play on teams.

It's pretty wild. And again, I think that there's an elite group of kids who might be able to do that in high school and that might actually be beneficial for them or even in college. But to start all kids at elementary, I think that's pretty narrow focus to put on a seven-year-old. Don't get me wrong. We love sports. We love the discipline and work ethic that it builds. But we try to deal with sports on our terms and make sure our kids are balanced.

I have another question for Misty. What do you think about my connection with Leon Boyd and a lot of these guys were coon hunters and had this rural diverse experience of life? Basketball wasn't their main focus. We're kind of using this story just to look into this big question of specialization versus being a generalist. But what do you think? I think what you're really highlighting is that there were some character traits that were built in their lifestyle at home, in their lifestyle when they went coon hunting that were also evident in their lifestyle at basketball. And we're being pushed right now to push our kids towards these skills

and these very specific niches of development when the reality is what kids need are these developmental, more internal character-based things, and then those can be applied to a whole number of areas. But it's not just about should you be a hunter or should you be a baller, it's what should we really be developing in young people? Is it should we really be so focused on myopic functionality inside of one thing versus building a holistic person and then allowing them to apply those skills

in lots of different areas. Good point, Ms. Newcomb, and she has some more to say. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book like 20 years ago and it talked about and it popularized this view of the 10,000 hour rule that to be an expert at something you have to vote 10,000 hours to it. And so a lot of people started, you know, talking about like real targeted practice for 10,000 hours and doing a lot of different things to make yourself an expert. But the reality is, most of us are experts at one to five things in our whole life, if even that meant. I mean, I remember when I was trying to learn the banjo, the 10,000 hour rule was kind of overwhelming to me. And then I watched this TED talk and it was like, wait a second, the 10,000 hour rule is what made the Beatles, the Beatles.

I'm not trying to be a performance artist. I just want to pick on my porch. And it takes about 30 hours to learn how to pick on your porch. And I was like, oh, I could give 30 hours to something. And I think that, you know, playing the banjo has added a lot of dimension to our life. I think that's a great example. I find that people are massively intimidated by the experts. And who are the people that we see in media talking about all these things? Experts. My example is trimming mule feet. I'm not a ferrier. I'm not an expert at trimming mule feet. But guess what? It's not right. It's not right. rocket science. But there are people who have literally devoted their lives to trimming and shoeing horses and mules. I refuse to be intimidated by the experts. And I dabble in a lot of stuff. And I absolutely love it. And it makes you think about you interviewed Robert Morgan, who is a New York Times bestselling author, wrote the book Boone. Tell about that conversation. I said, we weren't recording. We were eating lunch. We were eating a ham sandwich that his wife had made us at his house in rural New York. And I said, Mr. Morgan, what would you say is the one thing

that's made you most successful in your career as a writer? He said, I'm a good historical writer because I'm first a poet. And that's what stands out about Robert Morgan's writing. He could learn the discipline and skill of being an academic historian, but he had developed over a lifetime, the art of being a poet. And so when he got the history and he had the writing, skills and creative artistic skills of being a poet. And when those came together, it created my favorite books. We've put quotes that Robert Morgan wrote in his biographies about people on our wall. Very interesting. The overall point I'm taking home is that having broader interest helps us be successful in all areas of life. And being a generalist may actually

help you become a highly functional expert in an area unconnected to the expertise. But hey, we got to talk some Bradleyville B-B-ball. I now want to move past the first state championship of 1962 and hear the wild story of the next six years on the court. Here's Mr. Leon Combs. So they started really doing good in the early 1960s. 62 was this team with Daryl Paul, Leon Boyd, Jerry Combs. Tell me what happened from there. The Ray Gibson won. That state championship and he got to offered a big job he went to wanesville missouri and a much better job this was the coach yeah because he'd been there one year and won state championship took a team that never wanted a tournament at all and took him to win the state championship so he got a

better job and they hired a guy from lead hill arkansas named argyl ellison never had to coached at all he was brand new went to telequa Oklahoma to college and he came up here and he started coaching in 62 the fall of 62 had good teams. So 62, 63, every year they won, they were always just a notch or two from going to state championship. They lost their coach

Ray Gibson, but it seemed the momentum of the state championship in 62 spurred the younger kids watching to dedicate themselves to basketball. So coming along about that time where it was another group of boys who played grade school ball

when the 62 team won the state championship. And that was David Combs and Lonnie Combs and Dwayne Maggard and a couple of other guys. This great school team, Arjo Ellison said, I could see we had some, they're really good of these. And they were in high school in 64. And they started winning games. They almost went to state in 64 and 66 from my brother Joe, who runs a store at Bradleyville

over here, five miles away, the only store there. He was a senior in 66, and they were down, they were playing Greenwood High School out of Springfield. And if they won this game, they were going to go to state. And the game was tied at the end of the regulation. But one of the guys is foul. A best foul shooter on the team. So he had two shots coming. And the game was tied, time was out.

The game depended on the friendship. Brother Joe was always a Joker, Roger Elstad said, was Joe any good? He said, well, he kept the team lose because he's a lot of the Joker. They got in a huddle, and Gary, it's a guy's name who's Gary. Joe Kassaddle him on the butt. Gary, you know you're going to miss these. He said Gary was her best free throw shooter on the team. And he was just joking.

Sure as heck, Gary missed both free throws. They went in overtime and lost the game. And the team that beat him won the state championship. Oh, no. So in 1966, Bradleyville made it to the state semifinals and lost in overtime. So now we'll fast forward to the season opener of 1967. This is when the incredible winning streak starts. In 1967, they started the season, and they lost a game to Florida.

And because David Combs had the flu, he was out, and Lonnie Combs was the other great player, he would compromise in some way, so they lost that game. They didn't lose another game. They went all through the season and won every game. every game, went to state, won the state championship. They started the next year, 67, 68. They won every game all year long and fall in the 67, the spring of 68. They went to Columbia and won the state championship in that famous four overtime game.

Wow. And so they won three state championships. Yes. Went on a 64 game. 64 game straight, which is still a record unbroken today. Glasgow High School in Glasgow, Missouri has tied it, but still hasn't been broken. The 64-game winning streak was in 1967 and 68, and it still stands as a record in Missouri high school basketball by this very unlikely team. When it comes to winning streaks, this should put it into perspective.

The longest winning streak in NBA history is 33 games won by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1971-72 season. In college basketball, the second longest winning streak was the UCLA men's state. team who won 88 consecutive games between 1971 and 74, and they won seven consecutive championships. However, the longest winning streak in NCAA basketball history was the Yukon Women's Basketball Team that had a 145 game winning streak between 1955 and 57. That's incredible. But I want to hear more about this famous 1968 game against the Howardville Hawks. Some have said it was the greatest game in Missouri basketball history, and it had some interesting dynamics.

Howardville, it was an all-of-black school. It was their last year before they were going to be integrated into a white school there. They had a great coach named Mr. Jackson. Howardville, by the way, is named after the family of Elston Howard. the great New York Yankee. And so Mr. Jackson was a coach. He was an older black man, and they had two big six-foot-six guys,

and two little guys were about five-five. And the big guys were good, and the little guys were great. I mean, they could dribble that ball. They were just as fast as lightning, and they had a great team, and they were favored to win the state championship against Brownieville. So they went up there, and Browningville knew they were getting into it, And they were highly favored.

All the coaches, experts said Bradleville will have a meet through a match tonight. And they met them. And it was a seesaw game all the way through. And David Combs played the whole game. And he played down under. And he worked on, Arch Elson told him, David knew how to get filed. And he said, you got to work on this big guy and get them fouled out. Because we can't deal with that.

So it sure enough, one of the guys filed out and then the other guy fell out. And David stood in the game. And they were, I think at one point, largely outside, I'm pretty sure that we've lost this game. They were like 10 points behind. The crowd was all for Howardville. No, they were playing in Columbia. Of course, we had a big contingent there from Bradleyville, but there were like 7,000 people in this gym.

It was wall to wall standing with Long Island. And Bradleyville is a town of 50s. 60, where it's a school of 50, 60 students. We probably had 100 people from Bradleyville there. I was there. You were there at the game? I was there, oh, yeah. And all basketball people in Bradleyville, if you'll ask them,

they'll tell you they saw that game. I don't think they did. Because it could have been that main view, but it was such a famous game. And then I told you that they came down to the wire and Bradleyville tied it in the last few seconds. They tied the game in regulation. then they went into overtime, and it was tied in the first overtime,

and it was tied in the second overtime, and it was tied in a third overtime, and then Braddivale pulled it out finally, barely, and the fourth overtime, and won their 64th consecutive game in the third state championship. Spoonhauer, Charlie Spoonhauer, was a great coach. He said that was the best game I ever saw him alive, college or pro, whatever. Incredible, and lucky for us, Mr. Leon Combs,

has a treat for us. That game was broadcast by KRES Radio in Mobile in Missouri. And years later, when I wrote the book, I went up there and got a reel-reel tape from them of the last minute of regulation time because they were there to broadcast a game for another school that would follow.

This was a Class S championship. They were there to broadcast a game from Booneville, Missouri, which was Class M. So all they were waiting to do the Boone. Moonville game, Bradleyville's playing. They said, we tuned in about a minute with a regulation left. They tuned in to do that game. Here is the actual broadcast of the Class S state championship Bradleyville versus

Howardville game of 1968. Howardville and Bradleyville. Bradleyville, the defending state champions. Coach by Argyle Ellison, who played his basketball at Arkansas Tech. ball will come in on the side Howardville is coached by William Jackson from Lane College they come outside with a ball

bounce pass over to tape at long range he hands the ball to William Gray Gray dribbling outside now 39 seconds to go Williams Thomas with the ball rather Thomas with the ball outside dribbling all over he's 5, 5

he's all over the floor he comes in front of the circle who fans are applauding 25, 23 seconds. Tate with a ball. He's putting on a dribbling exhibition. Gives the ball. He's a man open.

He's shoot. He's going. He's going behind. Bradleyville calls time out with 13 seconds to go. And the fans are going wild. 13 seconds to go. Howardville by 2. 59, 57.

Ball comes in to Magger to Pellum. Pelham gives the ball to Combs. Combs with eight seconds, with seven. Here's a turnaround jefford. Go! Tides it up! Three seconds, two seconds, tie it up with two seconds to go. Dave Combs shot it in with four seconds left to tie it up. And it may go into overtime.

Dave Combs, Mr. Leon Combs' cousin, tied the game with two seconds left in regulation, and it sends the game into overtime. It's interesting that these radio guys weren't even here to announce. this game. They only came in at the last minute of regulation. They were here for the next game, which was a bigger school. Here's the last few seconds of the first overtime. Ball comes in to Combs. Combs with five seconds, four seconds. Three, two, one. The ball, it did not go in. It's double overtime. Still tied. Three more minutes in the second overtime. Here's the last 10 seconds.

Tom's moving. Not to wait, going. Here's a man in. Ways it up. Go on. Three, two, one, long job at the buzzer not good. Listen at this round. Mr. Collins, what do you think about that? This is terrific, Kermann. I've never seen such a display of ball handling in my life. There's the Towersville ballplayers have put on here tonight. It's great. And they look real good against the ball club like Bradleyville that has such a record and really plays tremendous. basketball but Howardville is a great team to come back like they have many times tonight. Third overtime, you can fill the energy of the crowd. There's something primal and wild about a roaring crowd and it's hard to deny its emotional power. Here's the last three seconds of the third overtime. Howardville had scored with a few seconds left to tie the game. And they have gone into three overtimes, three seconds to go. Colmes fires at the length of the court, hit the fight, Four overtimes. We're going to another overtime. Have you ever seen anything like this?

This is the fourth overtime, and by the last few seconds, Bradleyville is up by two points and they're at the foul line. The announcers seem a little bit spent. Margaret at the foul line and Dave Combs in the number two rebound position of the left. All others have been dropped by. First one up, it is good. Bradleyville looks like they have deployed. It looks like they have to be. suspended their crown here tonight. It is up, it is no good. The ball is brought out of there to gray. He comes up with two seconds.

He shoots a jump shot. It is no good at the budget. The final score. Gladlyville wins it. 76 to 73. Bradleyville defends their crown. And Bradleyville, coached by Arjole Ellison

of Arkansas Tech. wins the Class S championship for the second consecutive year, and wins a sixth third ballgame in a row in Missouri High School competition. Incredible win for Bradleyville. What more can be said? Except that Dave Combs, Mr. Leon's first cousin, was also a big coonter. And he would go on to play college basketball at Arkansas Tech. and one of the driving influences of why he chose that school was the ATU coach was also a coon hunter,

and he said that he'd coon hunt with him if he went to college there. Coon hunters and basketball seem to go hand and hand. I'm at Leon Boyd's house nine miles north of Bradleyville. The old point guard has a yard full of English and blue-tick hounds. It's a beautiful sight to a coon hunter, and it's a beautiful site. to hear the dogs barking just before dark. They know what's about to happen. We're going coon hunting.

What's this dog's name? Kay, this plane, Kay. Nice looking blue tip. We jump in Mr. Boyd's Ford Ranger and head off behind his house. Shepard Newcomb, my basketball player, is riding in the back with two hounds. Watch out for this limb, Shep.

We drive about a half mile and we can still hear the dogs at the house. But the old dogs we've got in the truck begin to bark, and they act like they're winding a coon from the truck. We're in luck. We stop and let them out. Well, they act like they're smelling one, don't they? Yeah.

Yeah, I'd say they do. Yeah, they sure do. Well, let's cut them loose. Get you guys here for and get you loose. There they go. Yeah, they act like they're smelling one. Now that one dog will rig from the truck and she was barking. Yeah.

Oh, that's her. That's him. Listen to him. Pretty warm track, I'd think. Yep. Well, that was a big shooting star. Did you see that? No, I wasn't looking.

Yeah, a huge shooting star just went across the sky. The dogs take the track about a quarter mile down the creek and begin to bark tree. That means they think they've found the tree that the raccoon ran up. We're now walking in to... seat. These dogs, there's a, they're treed on a leaning tree. It looks like you may have fooled them. I figured that it just fooled them, but that one limb grows down into this tree. It could have used that for a bird. So went up a tree on this side of the bank, crossed over in the canopy to the other side, and the dogs pretty much stayed on this side tree. I'd say that's what happened, yeah. Old Ricky raccoon,

and fooled him again. I'd say it, did. Mr. Boyd elaborates on his stage of life. Shepherd and I listen intently. Glasses and false teeth and old age is kind of rough on a feller. I would say at 78 years old for you to just walk down that mountain like he did and come retrieve these dogs, you're doing real good. I still enjoy it, but this can't enjoy as much of it.

You know, I bet you being physical playing basketball until you were 70 has really helped you, though, to stay fit, you know? Yeah, I'd say it did. And I enjoyed it every bit of it, you know, it just, well, got too old finally, I reckon. But, and I guess probably Lord willing, I'll get too old to coon hunt, but I hope not. I'd rather leave this old world right here out here of coon hunting is in the best hospital. in the world. Just enjoy these woods. And I'd like to see young ones like Shepardare getting to enjoy hunting.

Yeah. There's an awful lot of things going on, and that's old world that ain't near as clean as sport as coon hunting is. As we head back to the house and then load the dogs, we're finished for the evening. But I wanted to ask Mr. Boyd one more thing. Tell me what advice. What advice you'd give Shepard with this basketball? Do your best and enjoy it, and probably 60 years from now,

they'll be talking about it. I mean, you can't beat a deal like that, hardly. Yeah, it's pretty amazing that here you are, 78 years old, and everybody's still talking about your senior year of basketball. That doesn't happen to a lot of people, does it? No, it really don't, you know. I mean, and I don't know why that my class would be that special, but they was. I got to be part of it.

As we left Mr. Boyd's house, I was most impacted by his humility. It wasn't something that was put on for show. It was just who he was, and it protruded from him with great force. I love the people of the Ozarks, and I'm not saying that all of them are humble, but the ones who live their lives close to the land usually are. As we pull away from the old house, Shepard says, Dad, is Mr. Boyd going to be one of your friends like James Lawrence? James is a dear friend of our family.

I told him that I just met Mr. Boyd, and he lives a long way from us, and that I hope to see him again, but I didn't have plans to. And Shepard said, Dad, it seems like if he's going to be on your podcast, You shouldn't just never see him again. And I say, well, do you want to come back over here and hunt sometime? And he said, yes, I do. I think Shepard was impacted by being around Mr. Boyd, knowing that he was an accomplished baller and coon hunter.

At this stage in his life, Shepard really isn't that interested in coon hunting. Though he goes with me and he's been to more tree dogs than either one of us can count, His primary focus is basketball. But my hope is that the exposure to something so radically different than sports will have expanded his horizon, increased his real-life ability to solve problems, and to give him empathy for people in all walks of life. Don't get me wrong, ship loves to hunt. But I really don't care what he does.

I just want him to be a successful human. And mostly, I want him to value character above everything. And I do hope that that humility like Mr. Boyd has is a key definer for his life. The Bradleyville Basketball Dynasty story is incredible. We've used it to explore the ideas around benefits of specialization versus being a generalist. I know there can be great benefits, but the modern narrative of extreme specialization isn't always the best option. I was never a golfer like Gary Newcomb wanted me to be, but, Later in life, I have diversified, and it's paid off for me big.

Maybe this conversation will make you think about yourself and your kids. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. You can buy Leon Combs book, The Hicks from the Sticks, Online, and it comes with a CD of the entire four overtimes of that state championship game. Secondly, I'd like to thank Dr. Brooks Blevins of Missouri State for giving us a hot tip on this story. Please leave us a review on iTunes and share our podcast with somebody this week. Thanks, and I look forward to talking more with all the Render crew next week. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a pool of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce,

and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. because out here there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.