Jimmie Carr- I Was So Excited I Couldn't Sleep

Jimmie Carr as a senior

 The 1959 Streaks basketball team was ranked #1 for much of the year, and went onto take Third in State. When veteran Streaks fans talk about the ’59 team, it always turns to the story about the transfer of Bumpy Nixon from Quincy to Galesburg.

Very few Streaks fans realize the story about the “other transfer” that made the ’59 team. Something big happened at Mary Allen West School on one day in December of 1950. Early in the day, a young African-American boy from Texas walked into enroll in fourth grade. Shortly after, another African-American boy from Arkansas walked into enroll in fourth grade. Jimmie Carr was coming from Texas, and Otis Cowan was coming from Arkansas. That day, their fourth grade teacher, Miss Witherspoon recognized the unusual event. She instructed the boys that since they were both new and both lived in the same neighborhood, they should plan to become friends. As wise as Miss Witherspoon was, she didn’t realize that she was greeting one of the greatest guard tandems who would ever play for Galesburg High School.  

Otis Cowan

Living only blocks from the old Steele Gym, Jimmie was able to go watch workouts when in junior high. As a junior high fan, John Thiel took the time to talk with him when he went to watch. And Jimmie’s first official role with the Streaks was to take some stats for Coach Thiel.

As a sophomore, he got to practice with the great ’57 team of the Kimbrough’s and Al Williams. As a senior, he and Otis Cowan were joined by Bumpy Nixon. After going to college, when Jimmie came back to Galesburg, Roger Coleman hired him to work in advertising and then broadcasting the Streaks basketball games. And as he got older, he became close friends with John Thiel. For over 60 years, Jimmie has followed Streaks basketball.

While Galesburg has many good fans, there is only one other person who knows Streaks basketball as well as Jimmie- and that is Pete Thierry. There are fans who went to a lot of Streaks games in the ‘60’s, ‘70’s, and ‘80’s- they can talk to those eras. And a lot of fans have gone regularly for the last twenty years- they can talk about those years. But there are very few fans who can honestly talk about all sixty years.

Massey- Where did you grow up in Galesburg?

Jimmy- On Ferris Street, Otie (Cowans) and I grew up one block from each other. I was two blocks from the old high school. I started school at Mary Allen West School, then Churchill, and downtown at GHS.

1959 basketball team- 29-2- Third in State

Massey- When you were growing up, there was not as much TV sports to follow, but did you have sports heroes?

Jimmy- Actually the only heroes I had were in baseball until I got a lot older. Growing up it was of course Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella. Then when I got to Galesburg from Texas at 9 years old, Ernie Banks was an idol and why I was a Cub fan. He was from Dallas area too.

Massey- Did you have an awareness of high school players when you were growing up?

Jimmy- Yes, I was only two blocks away from the high school. I would go and watch Pete Thierry and Phil Johnson, they were two small guards. I watched those guys play. Coach Menke was their coach and I was only ten years old. I didn’t really start watching a lot of basketball until I got to junior high. Then people like Mike Owens and Russ Lind, and that whole group. It was just so much fun.

That is when I got to know John Thiel. I was just a little boy watching and he would come up and talk to me. And he would have me keep some stats at the old Steele Gym.

Massey- Did you play in Steele Gym or in Thiel Gym?

Jimmy- I played at Steele Gym. I never got to play at Thiel. We were supposed to play at Thiel my senior year in 1959 but they delayed the opening because of some water issues.

Massey- Describe Steele Gym.

Jimmy- Ironically enough, it was ahead of its time. It had two swimming pools, three basketball courts, and of course the big court for games. It only seated about 2,000 but it was bigger than most gyms of the time. It was packed every night. The fans were really right up on you. You really felt close to the fans and we had some rabid fans.

Streaks heading to Champaign

Massey- Wasn’t it constructed like the Rock Island girls gym? Wasn’t it with the balcony permanent with a wall around the main court.

Jimmy- Yes. It was much bigger than the Rock Island gym. There was just a balcony on each side and not at the end. There were bleachers at one end on the main floor.

Massey- There was no Western Big Six at that time. Obviously Wharton Field House was great but Rocky and East Moline did not have as impressive of gyms as Steele Gym.

Jimmy- No, they did not have as nice a gym as Steele. At UT, we played on a stage with bleachers on one side and theater seats on the other side. Alleman and Rock Island were small, so that made Wharton Field House so great.

Massey- When I first started coaching girls, we played on the stage at East Moline.

Jimmy- Oh, really. I didn’t know it still existed then.

Massey- They didn’t have anyone sit on the theater side.

Jimmy- It was different.

Massey- When you first got to the high school, Thiel had only been here a short time.

Jimmy- Yes, he came in 1956 and I started at GHS in 1957. We still went to junior high as 9^th graders.

Massey- As a player, what were your impressions of Thiel?

Jimmy- When I first met John, we were all excited. Our coaches were good guys and good coaches but a little older. John was in his twenties and he could still play. He was a real good player. We were excited about him. I can still remember when I was a sophomore and he came and asked Dave Cox and I to come workout with the varsity players. It was such an honor in those days. It was such an honor. I can remember I couldn’t go to sleep because I was so excited. I was going to be able to workout against the varsity, which included the great ’57 team which included the Kimbrough’s and Al Williams. I was so excited!

Massey- What is your perspective on what Thiel did for African-Americans in basketball and what impact it had on the community?

Jimmy- John had been around the game and new that there were African-Americans who could play the game. He knew we could play, and he was going to play anyone who could play. He had been assistant football coach, he was familiar with the Kimbroughs. When he started in 1956, there was only one African-American on the team, Otie Young.

Thiel worked out against the Kimbrough’s, Range, and Al Williams. He knew how good they were. He always said that after working out with them, he knew they were the guys who were never going to quit. During the season, he had a close relationship with the African-American players. He was a player’s coach. He had a big interest in what was going on with the African-American kids.

Massey- What was the community’s reaction?

1959 team celebrating Sectional title. 

Jimmy- Not good. The first year with only one African-American player and the very successful team of 1956, the community rallied around John. He was a young guy and dynamic- people loved him. But when he started the second year, he told me, the letters he received were just terrible when the fans saw he was going to play four African-Americans, and Bobby Hoffman. John told me about that in the later years when we became close. He said that just made him more determined and that he just didn’t give a  ____. It made him more determined to play who he wanted to play. And he knew he could win with that 1957 team and he was going to lay them.

Massey- I have heard other players, who played for him talk about his toughness and how competitive he was.

Jimmy- When I played, he used to play us one on one all the time. And he would not let us beat him one on one. He would always pick one of us and play one on one. He would never play Al Williams or Bumpy Nixon, the big guys, but he would say he could have beaten them. He couldn’t have, they were just too big. Anybody else would go after him but none of us could ever beat him. Physically he could dominate us. Boy, he would come at you.

Massey- Despite the success, there is the story of being hung in effigy. That had to affect him.

Jimmy- It did. They started questioning who he was playing and his moves. That really got him. When he got back and saw that, he came up with some jokes but it hurt. He felt like he had taken teams to State and now they didn’t appreciate it. He was adamant that nobody was going to tell him who to play.

I really think it changed John. There were certain people who thought they should be able to dictate who should play. With his pride and the way he coached, he was not going to allow that. When he got back and was hung in effigy, it took Marilyn (his wife) to keep him from going off. She was a great influence.

Massey- Who was on your team in 1959?

Jimmy- We started Otie Cowens and I at the guards, Bumpy Nixon at center, and Dick Nichols and Dave Cox at forwards. We went 29-2, were rated #1 in the State for much of the year, and finished Third in State. Ralph Cannon was a super sixth man. John seldom substituted at that time.

Massey- Who did you lose to?

Jimmy- We had been rated #1 and lost to Pekin in the regular season. We dropped to #3. By the time of the tourney, we were back to #1 in State. We beat Herrin who was #2 in the quarterfinals before losing to Aurora West in the semis.

Massey- People talk about who they think were the best teams in Galesburg history. You have seen most of them, who do you see as the best teams?

Jimmy- Until 1998, I thought our ball club was the best team ever at GHS. I thought we were the best ball club that John ever had, and John concurred with that. We weren’t his favorite team to coach. His favorite team to coach, I am not sure why, maybe a psychologist could explain it, it was his 1957 team with the Kimbroughs. He really related to the toughness of those guys.

1959 scores

Our 1959 team had the best player to play for GHS until 1998. I think in 1998, you put the best player Galesburg ever had in Joey Range along with Rod Thompson, and they were the best team Galesburg’s ever had. They played a different game than we did.

Massey- Bumpy Nixon and Joey Range, how do they compare?

Jimmy- Evan, people have asked me that and I really think it is tough to compare players from the 60’s and ‘70’s with players today. It is a different game. Players have improved their games so much. Bumpy was just not as good as Joey. Joey could do so many things- he could jump and run faster. Bumpy could maybe shoot better from short range. Everything else, Joey could do better. Joey played so much more basketball than we did then. Good players today just play more basketball than we did. You know how your kids play, you have to play in the off-season.

Massey- Bumpy coming to Galesburg caused a lot of controversy. What is your spin on what happened to get him in Galesburg?

Jimmy- Otie (Cowans) and I went to a teen club up in the Quad Cities. We would go up there, and our junior year Bumpy would come all the way up there from Quincy. He would come up to Galesburg and stay with relatives overnight then go up to the Quad Cities to the teen club. We didn’t know him from Adam. We had played against him when he was a soph at Quincy, and we just knew “big Bumpy Nixon” and figured we would never see him again.

So one night at the teen club, Bumpy came over to Otie and I, and said, “I think I am coming to Galesburg.” In those days it was like Rod Thompson coming. As players, you just kind of said,”Ok.” And the rest was history, we didn’t realize what the ramifications would be.

Going into my senior year, we were glad to have him, but we really didn’t know what a big deal it was for him to transfer. It wasn’t until years later talking to John, I became aware of all the stories told about it.

We had seen Bumpy and we knew he could play. John loved coaching him. John had a lot to do with Bumpy’s progess. He improved so much that year. When he came to Galesburg, he couldn’t dunk the basketball and by the time he left, he certainly could. People didn’t dunk in those days but he sure could. John refined Bumpy’s skills so much.

Massey- During your time as an announcer, they put in the three point line. You have seen a lot of shooters at Galesburg in your time. Who were some shooters before the arc who would have really benefited with the three point arc?

Jimmy- Russ Lind, Dale Kelley, and Otie Cowans would have benefited greatly. Otie could hit that shot from outside. Doug Mills could certainly could shoot.

Massey- How about Eric Johnson?

Jimmy- Eric would be the #1 guy in Galesburg to shoot the outside shot. Eric was in a class by himself when it came to shooting the ball. He was a pure shooter. That’s because that is all he did in his back yard was to shoot the ball. He worked at it.

Massey- You interviewed lots of coaches, who were some of your favorites?

Jimmy- Dick VanSyoc, of course, I like him a lot. He’s in his 90’s today, and I just like him a lot. Don Morris and Jerry Leggett were fun to talk to. Jerry had a great basketball mind. Luther Bedford out of Chicago Marshall was someone I respected very much. A coach I really enjoyed but I only interviewed twice was Virgil Fletcher from Collinsville. He left a lasting impression on me.

Massey- Last ten seconds of a game, who would you have wanted on the bench.

Jimmy- Jerry Leggett would be one. Chuck Westendorf won so many last second games. Quentin Sullins who coached Scheyer knew what he was doing.

Massey- If you were hiring someone to build a program, who would you want?

Jimmy- This is where John Thiel would come in. John would always get out into the community to know who the kids were. That means so much. And the man who emulates him even though he never knew John, is Mike Reynolds. It does the same things today that Thiel did. Mike gets out into the community, people don’t realize the work he does in this area. People don’t know this because Mike is really a little more introverted or quiet about some of those things. Mike knows kids and he knows how to build relationships. You’ve done that, you know that is how you build a program. You build from the ground up.

If I was going to build a program, I would want John Thiel, Mike Reynolds, Don Morris, and Dick VanSyoc. Dick did it at Peoria and then everyone tried to copy him. Dick didn’t have a problem of people stealing kids because he had built relationships.

Massey- You went into radio. I am guessing it wasn’t something you had planned on in school. You had not trained for it. Yet, you are so polished and so professional. But what has always struck me is that you never try to let people know how much you know, it is never about you. It always about the kids and you seem to remember they are just high school kids. Who helped you and what advice did they give you?

Jimmy- Roger Coleman put me in the business and hired me as a salesman. Russ Lind was doing the radio, and Roger asked me to jump in with them. And then we would sit down and talk about how I had done. He told me that he noticed I didn’t talk a lot about my playing days. I told him that I wanted to make sure I didn’t talk about myself because it should be about the kids. It is the kids that I love talking about. And Roger made sure I stayed true to that.

I really loved broadcasting so I listened to lots of sports on radio to learn. I always thought it you knew the game, and I wanted to know the game. And still today I watch teams like the Warriors and tape them to replay plays to see what they are doing. I want to know the game to be able to relay it to the fans.

It’s not about the guys bringing you the games, it is about the players. You can criticize a pro but not a high school kid. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to get close to the boys and then the girls when I started doing that. I wanted to know the kids. It is just so much fun. You can always find something good in these kids, no matter who it is or how they play the game.