Hebron’s heroes

Ask anyone in Illinois about Hebron, and they will likely say, “Isn’t that the town with a basketball on its water tower?” Or, “Didn’t their high school team win a state championship of some sort?” Or, “Is that the town where the Judson brothers came from?”

This writer came to Illinois in 1965 at 29 years old. Right away, I started to hear about Hebron and its legendary high school basketball team. The stories and reminders have just kept coming year after year.

For newcomers or those who for some reason don’t know about Hebron, let’s recite the basic facts of this feel-good, incredible sports story. In the 1951-52 basketball season, Hebron-Alden’s Giants, a school of 98 students, fielded a basketball team that went 35-1 and won the Illinois high school state basketball championship. (Back then, there was only one championship; today, there are eight handed out annually, to four boys’ teams and four girls’ teams.)

Today, 60 years later, Hebron remains the smallest school ever to win this coveted prize. The Giants won 10 straight post-season games that year and defeated Quincy, 64-59, in a dramatic overtime game, for the title. The game was played in the former Huff Gym in Champaign, home of University of Illinois basketball for many years.

Since then, the Giants’ achievement has taken on a life of its own. It is one of the most talked-about events in the state’s sports history. With due respect to the nearly 100 boys’ hoops championships that have been won, Hebron’s is the one most folks remember.

Four members of that historic Hebron team are still alive. One of them, Kenley (Ken) Spooner, has been a resident of Sun City since 2000. From March 16-18, he and his three surviving teammates went up to Woodstock and Hebron and celebrated the 60th anniversary of the championship. Part of it was held in the old school’s gym, which is now used as the school’s cafeteria. Their celebration took place on the same weekend the 2012 boys’ state Class 4A championship was played in the Peoria Civic Center.

“We’ve been celebrating the anniversary of that game every few years all of our lives,” Spooner said this week, as he showed off his personal “museum” of Hebron basketball memories. It also doubles as the exercise and fitness room in his Neighborhood 13 home on Riverview Court. All four walls of the room are covered with pictures of the team in 1952 and the many reunions since, newspaper articles written about the team throughout the last 60 years, and dozens of articles of memorabilia that Spooner and his teammates have collected over the years.

Spooner is now 76, but he looks, acts, and speaks like he’s 20 years younger. A retired teacher and businessman, he remains active and energetic and is an excellent example of how exercise, activity, and fitness leads to a long, healthy life. And he dearly loves to talk “Hebron basketball.”

“Alden and Hebron high schools merged in 1948, and this big, tall guy, Jack Schulz, almost 6’ 10”, came to our school,” he recalled. “He had only started playing basketball in the 8th grade, and he was kind of raw, but big and strong. His coming put us over the top for a championship. Our coach, Russ Ahern, persuaded him to come out for the team, and he improved with Ahern’s coaching.

“In the 1949-50 season, we went 23-5; we were 26-2 the next season, and in 1951-52, we went 35-1. Our only loss that year was to Crystal Lake, now Crystal Lake Central. They played a great game in mid-season and beat us.”

In the title year, Schulz and Phil and Paul Judson were the stars and scoring leaders.

Spooner recalls, “I scored five points in the championship game, and Schulz put in 24 and Paul scored 13 and Phil 12,” Spooner said. “But in most games, we were pretty balanced in scoring. We had played together for many years, starting in fifth grade. We had great team chemistry. We knew each other’s talents and habits on the court very well.”

“We would change our defenses, going from a half-court, man-to-man to a pressure-defense all over the court at times [in order] to confuse opponents. We were all very fast, and we used an up-tempo offense to outrun opponents,” Spooner said. “At the championship tournament, fans loved us because of our school’s small size. I guess it was a Cinderella atmosphere. That same year was Ahern’s first season as our coach, and a lot of folks thought he was a genius for how well we played.”

Asked about his early years in the sport, Spooner smiled and said, “Let me tell you about cottage cheese containers. My dad was an athlete, and he encouraged me to play sports. He attached cottage cheese containers to poles and buildings at home, and we started throwing tennis balls at them. We had no interest in tennis; it was just little boys basketball. Phil and Paul put up coffee cans at their house. We started playing on 5th grade teams at school, and right away, we started winning most games.”

Spooner attended Northwestern University for three years on a basketball scholarship.

“I played basketball the first two years there but then quit to concentrate on my education studies to become a teacher,” he said.

He taught biology, health, and physical education at Richmond High School (now Richmond-Burton) for 10 years, then returned to Hebron to teach four more years. He spent about a decade in the real estate business and later worked in retail sales for Carson Pirie Scott Co.

The Judson brothers went on to college basketball fame at the University of Illinois, but Schulz did not play beyond high school. Paul now lives in Florida, Phil in Gurnee, and Schulz resides in Northbrook.

“It was real special in 1986, when they built the new water tower with the tank shaped and decorated like a basketball,” Spooner said. “The whole town came out to watch our games and supported us, and that’s still true for the school and town today.”

Hebron over Quincy, 1952 – an exciting sports memory for all of Illinois.

---