Waynetown Gladiators: Waynetown Basketball History 1903-1971

Waynetown Basketball History

Waynetown High School must have started playing basketball around the turn of the century, but the first picture we have found so far is a picture of the 1909 team. In that year, Waynetown played baseball, basketball and football. The 1909 yearbook, The Aceria, referred to the basketball team as “The Old Gold and Black,” and called the baseball team the Waynetown Tigers. By the middle 20’s, Waynetown had adopted the nickname “Gladiators,” and changed the colors to red and white. Waynetown didn’t play Crawfordsville until the 1913-14 season, so given the closeness of the two schools, the Waynetown schedule must have been pretty limited in the early days.

The most successful teams of the early days were the 1924-25 team which had a record of 20-3 under Coach Ralph Powell, the 1923-24 team which had a record of 18-5 under Coach J.W. Hogg and the 1921-22 team which recorded a 16-9 record under Coach W.M. Boyd. WHS also had girls’ basketball teams in the 20’s and were 5-3 in 1921-22 and 4-4 in 1924-25. In the later years, the best record was recorded in 1947-48 as Vern Piety led the Gladiators to a 17-1 regular season record only to lose to Linden 47-42 in the final game of the County tourney and to Crawfordsville 57-39 in the final game of the sectional. Piety’s charges ended the season with a 21-3 record.

The glory days of Waynetown basketball were in the early 40’s. Ralph Capehart had taken over the reins of the athletic program in the 1930-31 season and quietly began developing a powerhouse on the hardwood. It all came together for Capehart and the Waynetown Gladiators early in the 1942-43 season. After losing to New Market in the second game of the season on November 13^th, the Gladiators reeled off 15 straight victories. (They lost a game to Ladoga in December, but the Canners had to forfeit that game because it was revealed that they had used an overage player.) In 1943-44, WHS was 16-0 in the regular season and won the County, Sectional and Regional. The Gladiators beat Bridgeton in the afternoon game of the Regional 54-33 and Bainbridge in two overtimes 46-45 in the night game. They were defeated by Whiteland in the Semi-state 46-37. They were undefeated during the regular season in 1944-45 and were ranked as high as 16^th in the state. They won the County and Sectional before losing in the Regional at Attica to a very tough Covington team 32-28. They had beaten Clinton in the afternoon game 36-33. From 1942 to 1945, during the course of three seasons, the Gladiators won 51 straight regular season games. It was generally accepted that the best player in the County in those years was Howard (Howie) Williams, but he had the misfortune to arrive on the scene at the same time as the best team, the Waynetown Gladiators.

After Ralph Capehart retired from coaching (He continued to teach until 1953), the Gladiators went through some lean years. Cliff Davis returned to coaching and coached at Waynetown for five years. The Gladiators ended up at 36-61 under Davis. After several other coaches tried to turn the Waynetown fortunes around, Tom Bowerman, the dean of Montgomery County coaches moved from Alamo to Waynetown and coached for five years. Bowerman coached the Glads for five years, going 12-8 in 1961-62, 10-9 in 1962-63 and 11-7 in 1963-64 before tailing off to 7-12 in 1964-65 and 4-16 in 1965-66. They won their third and last Sectional championship in 1969-70 under former Linden great, Fred Johnson. Johnson guided the Gladiators to an 8-12 record that year as the Glads defeated Crawfordsville 74-69 to take the sectional.

When the firing was all over for the Waynetown Gladiators and the County schools consolidated in 1971 with Waynetown becoming a part of the North unit known as the North Montgomery Chargers, the old gold and black Tigers which had become the red and white Gladiators had added much to the history of Montgomery County basketball. Their leading scorer was Steve Pierce who scored 1063 points in his career culminating with 478 points in his senior year for a 22.8 average. He had blistered the nets for a single game high of 39 points against Kingman his senior year and had topped 30 three other times as he scored 36 against Alamo, 33 against New Market and 31 against Newport. The second leading scorer was Jim Harpel who put up 809 points in his three year career for a 13.5 average and Kinnard White who had 779 in a three year career. White scored 395 points his senior year to lead the Gladiators. He had a single game high of 37 points against Roachdale that year. In the final year of basketball for Waynetown, Don Pittman lit up the scoreboard for 38 points against Darlington and ended the year with 338 points for a 16.9 average. In the glory days of 1942-1945 Bob Powell played 88 games and scored 701 points while his teammate Junior Barker played in 80 games and scored 685 points. Another outstanding player in the glory days was “Pete” Moore who was a rugged rebounder and defender for the 1943-44 team that went undefeated and won the County, Sectional, and Regional. In 1971, he was named one by the Crawfordsville Journal Review as to Old Timers All-Time Players Team along with County greats Howie Williams, Homer Stonebraker, Ray Greve, and Bill Melvin. Pete became the first of three generation players to play on a Sectional championship team as son Brad played on the 1969-70 sectional winner at Waynetown and grandson Doug played on the North Montgomery team which won a sectional in 1999.

Bob Rosen, Charles Wilkinson, and Bob Keeling drove the school buses for many years. Charles Wilkinson drove for 20 years and his Dad drove for 30 years.