By 1976 Galesburg HS had built up a rich basketball tradition. Going back to the 1912 team that took 2nd in State and the 1913 team that came home as State Champs, the GHS Silver Streaks boys basketball teams were the pride of Galesburg. Every decade there from the ‘20’s thru the ‘60’s there were great Streaks teams for Galesburg to get excited about.
By 1976 there were younger fans arguing whether the ‘66 or ‘68 Streaks were the all-time best team. Old-timers tended to talk about the ‘31 team that took 2nd, or the ‘45 team that lost to Decatur in OT at State. And still others thought the best all-time Streaks teams were the ‘56 Streaks and Mike Owens, the ‘57 Streaks with the Kimbroughs, or the ‘59 Streaks with Bumpy and Jimmie. The point is that Galesburg basketball had a rich tradition with many great teams over the last 60 plus years.
The 1970’s brought changes to Galesburg. GHS was still one of the big schools in the area. Although it was a three year school, for IHSA purposes the 9th grade enrollment was added in. According to the IHSA, GHS had an enrollment of 2521. While this had been a nice advantage in the old IHSA 1-class system, in 1972 the IHSA went to 2-classes. In the first four years of 2-class basketball Galesburg had not won a Sectional Tourney Championship.
John Thiel had been the coach at GHS for 18 years. The success of his teams had made him a legend. He resigned from the position after the 1972 season. The new coach was Mike Owens, a formers Silver Streaks who played for Thiel on one of Galesburg’s great teams in 1956.
Owen’s had gone onto play at Bradley and was the star point guard on their great teams of the late ‘50’s. While there, they had legendary wins vs. Oscar Robertson and Cincinnati. Owens went onto coach at Limestone and Wheeling with great success before becoming an assistant at Northwestern University. Galesburg fans were excited to have Mike Owens come back to coach their Streaks.
Like any coach would do, when Owens came into Galesburg, he had his own ideas of what he wanted to do offensively and defensively, as well as how he wanted the team to warmup and be outfitted for games. Change can be tough for some to deal with.
Owens second year in the 1975 season, the Streaks struggled to a 12-11 season. They were a young team with only one senior on the entire roster.
1975 was a tough season for the Streaks. The top player on the ‘75 team was 6’9” Mike Campbell. As many 6’9” teenagers tend to be, he had not grown into his body yet, so he sometimes struggled. Some impatient Streaks fans responded by booing Mike when he was introduced to start games. The booing was strong enough that the Register-Mail had a writer produce an op-ed on the topic. And other players reports being stopped by fans while in a store, and being told how bad they had played the night before.
The season finished in the Regional Championship at Richwoods, where the Streaks lost 103-51. That game left a mark on the players. Almost 50 years later when I interviewed some of the players, the majority of them could still tell me the exact score of that game.
Almost all the ‘75 roster returned, and all of the regulars from the ‘75 season returned. Everybody was coming back, but so were all of the Richwoods players.
Mike Campbell and Scott Kelley worked out the entire summer playing 2 on 2 vs Ian Davies and Joe Swedlund. Mike and Scott credit those workouts for not only improving their skill levels but also helping develop a more competitive nature.
Many of the players went to Craig Johnson’s and played against alumni in the evenings.
When you mention the ‘76 Silver Streaks to someone in Galesburg, their most likely response, “Campbell and Kelley.” The two are linked together and were the stars of the ‘76 team. Scott Kelley went to Iowa after graduating and then transferred to Evansvillle. Mike Campbell went to Northwestern. Both had very good college careers.
While many would see the ‘76 Streaks as just being Campbell and Kelley, Coach Mike Owens looking back doesn’t see it that way, “We had a good balanced team with players who were quick and could guard. We had players capable of playing different roles when we needed them to. We were competitive with everyone we played.”
The Streaks didn’t just have twin towers, they had Bill Dwyer and Mark Brown, who were also over 6’6”. While they didn’t get the limelight, Carl Finley, Rance Berry, Jay Stone, and Rollie Williams were players had the ability to guard a variety of different players, and athletically presented challenges to other teams trying to guard them. Mike Wilder and Eric Doss rotated as the point guards. The roster included Jim Pogue, Andy Hendricks, Mark Mendez, and Barry Cheesman- all of them had started at some point in their HS careers. This team was one of the deepest teams that you would find on a high school level.
In the Regional at Galesburg, the Streaks had to beat Macomb before being matched up again with Richwoods. In one of the all-time thrilling games in Thiel Gym, the Streaks beat Richwoods in OT.
A present day Richwoods coach told me, “Playing at Galesburg is the only place in the world those guys could have beaten Richwoods that year.”
When I shared that with Scott Kelley, his reply was, “Tell him- and we did beat them.”
Here is an entire series on the Richwoods game…
Galesburg was not done, they advanced to the Peoria Sectional at Robertson Fieldhouse. At Peoria in the first game, Galesburg beat Peoria Manual 46-45. In the Championship game, the Streaks defeated Peoria Woodruff 66-63 to advance to the Sweet 16.
In the Super-Sectional, also at Peoria’s Robertson FH, the Streaks met conference foe, Moline for the third time. In another close game, Galesburg beat the Maroons 52-47 to advance to the Elite 8.
At State, the Streaks were tied at half. In a see-saw second half, Morgan Park broke the game open in the fourth quarter to win 53-48. Morgan Park and Levi Cobb would go onto to win the Illinois State Championship.
Jimmie Carr shortly after this tough loss expressed the feelings of many in Galesburg when he said, “We were the best team down there.”
The 1976 Silver Streaks were the first GHS team to advance to the Elite 8 in the IHSA 2-class system. It would be 22 years before another Streaks boys basketball team would again advance to the Elite 8.
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