How 'Bout Those. . . Orphans? - Chicago Tribune

How 'Bout Those. . . Orphans?

There Hasn't Been Much To Cheer About In Centralia Lately, As Industries And Jobs Left Town, So For Many Residents Their Team's Best-in-the-nation Record Is The Whole Ballgame

January 25, 2004|By Robert Bittner. Robert Bittner is a freelance writer who grew up in Centralia and says that, for the good of local athletics, he was not allowed near a basketball.

If natural selection applied to small towns, it is hard to imagine the community of Centralia remaining on the map much past its 150th birthday in 2003. During the last 80 years, this once-thriving town in the southern Illinois triangle known as Little Egypt has watched much of its good fortune slowly drain away.
Once a regional and state leader in rail transportation, coal mining and oil drilling, Centralia has seen each of these booming industries rise and fall in turn. Now they are all played out, and no major new industries have arrived. Worse, Centralia sits primarily in Marion County (with a western sliver in Clinton County), where unemployment is close to 12 percent, the highest in the state. Despite efforts at economic development, the town of 14,000 is in a tailspin.

So the residents of Centralia have learned to invest their hopes elsewhere: in the hardwood floorboards of Centralia High School's Trout Gym and the gymnasiums of rival schools. The enterprise that really drives this town, that has captured its imagination for almost a century, is basketball. Specifically, basketball as played by the Centralia Orphans. Before you scoff at the name, know this: For nearly 70 years, the Orphans have been the winningest high school boys basketball team in the nation, achieving a lifetime record of 1,937 wins and 814 losses by the close of the 2002-03 season.
That record has played a crucial role in shaping the town's identity. Mike McManus, a 1987 graduate of Centralia High School and now a sportswriter for the daily Centralia Sentinel newspaper, says: "Centralia is a town that's been hit with one setback after another. . . . [Basketball] is the one thing that always brings us together, the one common thread between black and white, different groups, whatever."
McManus mentions hearing a school board member refer to coaching basketball as being like leading any other extracurricular activity. The comment was made months earlier, but McManus is still fuming. "Basketball is not an 'extracurricular activity' in this town," he says emphatically.
Some residents are even convinced that the team's winning legacy is helping to keep their town alive. Former Orphan Jordan Queen, a 2002 graduate, plans to settle in the area after college despite the faltering economy. "Hopefully, my kids'll grow up to be Orphans," he says.
Of course, winning basketball teams don't turn around failing economies, and the city council has adopted a new plan for growth that includes loans for businesses to improve their facades, plans for improved access to the city's south side, and an overhaul of the waterworks system.
Nonetheless, it's a far different town than the one that existed when Centralia High School launched its first boys basketball team in 1906. Outfitted in red-and-white uniforms, they were known either as Cardinals or Redbirds. They were winners from the very start, but it wasn't until Coach Arthur L. Trout arrived in 1914 that the team truly flourished. He was such an important influence that, for a couple of seasons, the team was known as the Troutmen.
The origin of the Orphans name has become the stuff of local legend. Trout said he renamed the team after his favorite movie, the 1922 silent classic "Orphans of the Storm." But in his book "Trout: The Old Man and the Orphans," author Don Schnake suggests that the team's fans played a role in the new name: Some thought the players looked "as sad as a band of unwanted orphans" when they hit the boards. Others point to Trout's well-known frugality and the fact that he often had his players pick their game-day uniforms from a stack of previous years' leftovers.

"When two players arrived on the floor at the same time in matching uniforms, it was by accident, not design," Schnake writes. The fans, yet again, were reminded of poor, neglected orphans. Whatever the inspiration, the moniker stuck.
Although some opponents may have snickered when they heard Centralia's cheerleaders shout, "O-R-P-H-A-N-S! Orphans are the very best," players today continue to take pride in the team's name and in Trout's legacy. He led his teams to 801 victories during his remarkable 36-year coaching career in Centralia.
"Mr. Trout was one brilliant man," remembers Bill Castleman, who played for the Orphans during their peak years of 1940-41 and who has lived in Centralia nearly all his life. "He was well-known all over southern Illinois--all over Illinois--at that time. They used to call him 'King Arthur' Trout."
Bill "Pops" Taylor is known around town as the archetypal Orphans fanatic. Sitting in his neighborhood McDonald's, he looks strong and solid, younger than his 59 years. He's wearing a brilliant red Orphans sweatshirt and a tan Orphans cap. "I've been an Orphan fan since I saw my first game in 1954," he tells me. "Orphans basketball is life." I think maybe he's kidding. Or exaggerating.
 Then he adds, his voice steady, "You ask anybody in here what the Orphans mean to Centralia and they'll give you the same answer. Our unemployment is really bad, people are leaving town. But we can still fill Trout Gym. We still have more requests for season tickets than we have tickets available. This is our pride."

Ironically, the moment that hooked Taylor for life came not from a spectacular win but from a shocking loss in the 1963 state championship game. "That game in '63," he shakes his head, "we had it. We had the lead and the ball, with 12 seconds to go. For some reason, we called a timeout. After the timeout, the opposing team got the ball and made a dramatic shot and won the game by one point. We went from utopia to absolute disaster.

"Thirty minutes after the game, I was still sitting in the stands. An usher came by and told me it was time to leave. I was so devastated, I couldn't move, couldn't think. Ever since, I've dreamed of the day when we could win one."
They came close last year. "When these kids came home with their third-place trophy--the first state trophy they'd won since they placed second in 1963--I literally saw grown men crying," says McManus. "Now, these people don't know these kids. They wouldn't recognize them at all if they weren't wearing their jerseys. But for four months out of the year, they'll do anything for them."
One of the first recipients of the town's largesse was Trout-era player Dwight "Dike" Eddleman, the team's all-time leading scorer and the subject of a two-page spread in Life magazine in the 1940s. After hanging up his Orphans jersey, he lettered in three sports at the University of Illinois, competed in the 1948 Paris Olympics as a high jumper and played in the NBA in the 1950s.
Today, a corner of the downtown Centralia Area Historical Society Museum features a veritable shrine to Eddleman and his accomplishments. Centralia also has sent five players to the Harlem Globetrotters, including Bobby Joe Mason, and two others to the NBA, Dickie Garrett and Ken McBride.
For most Orphans, though, basketball is not a career goal. Most are not tall enough or powerful enough to succeed at the professional level. "Basketball is a way to get them to college," says McManus, who believes the current crop of Orphans are well-prepared to excel at the college level.
One of those players is Matt Shaw, a 6-foot-7-inch senior and, in Pops Taylor's opinion, the best center the Orphans have ever had. Other observers of Illinois high school basketball have pegged him as one of the state's top 12 college prospects for 2004. "I definitely grew up wanting to play for the Orphans," Shaw says. "Centralia's really a basketball town."
It hasn't been particularly easy to play for the Orphans lately, though. In November 2002, the school board suddenly and without public explanation fired winning coach Rick Moss, who had led the team to 210 victories in nine seasons. It was a devastating blow to the players, whose initial response was to discuss boycotting the season.
When the dust settled, Moss' friend Chuck Lane, a business teacher at the high school, stepped in as interim coach to keep the team together, finishing the 2002-03 season with a 17-12 record. New head coach Gus Gillespie has continued the winning tradition with a record of 10-4 by early January, bringing the team's lifetime record to 1,947 wins and 818 losses.

Last year's winning season in the midst of turmoil--Moss' unexplained ouster is still a source of frustration and speculation--underscores the fact that the Orphans are not a one-coach team. Neither are they somehow gliding on the successes of past generations of players. The Orphans seem motivated more by their shared "Orphan-age," the adrenaline rush that comes simply from putting on the uniform. It's hometown pride, pumped into them by a town that has few other outlets for its passions.
That tradition was one of the main draws for Gillespie, who was hired away from Robinson (Ill.) High School. Although a newcomer to Centralia, Gillespie already has glimpsed what Orphans basketball means to this town. "Every time you turn a street, there's a basketball goal," he says. "The feeder schools all have teams, and there's a tremendous amount of youth involvement."
"There's just a real special, small-town bond here," McManus explains. No matter what events shape the town for better or worse, "They'll always love their Orphans here."