My father was one of five brothers born in outside of Hollandale, Wisconsin. The boys in order of oldest to youngest were- Glenn (farmer), Wendell (farmer), Wright Ford (teacher), Oswald (teacher, business), and Dwayne (farmer). My dad in Wisconsin went by Ford, and as a teacher/coach most often by “Mass.”
All five boys went to a one room school in grade school at Adamsville, and then I believe to Hollendale High School. My dad and his brother Oswald went to the University of Wisconsin- Platteville. My dad played football and trained to be a teacher. Initially out of college, my dad tried banking in Hollendale, but that was short lived. He took a teaching job at New Lisbon, Wisconsin where he also was hired to be a basketball coach in the newly developing high school sport.
After two years, he moved to Fulton, Il to teach and to become their first basketball coach. At Fulton, his teams won back to back to back Regionals in 1936, 1937, 1938. His 1936 team made it to the Elite 8. In the “one-class era” of Illinois HS basketball, Fulton was the only small school in NW Illinois that ever made it to State.
Freeport HS had an older coach who was close to retirement, and they had approached my dad about the possibility of going to Freeport when the coach retired. Freeport was a coaching job my father wanted because it had much success a decade before with Adolf Rupp as their coach (later at Kentucky the coach), it was a bigger school, and it was move closer to his family in Wisconsin.
The opening never occurred, so my dad took at job at Savanna. In the late 1930’s, Savanna was one of the biggest town in NW Illinois with a hub for the railroad. It was a move up in school size. The year after he took the Savanna job, the Freeport job became open but he chose to stay in Savanna.
Although bigger, Savanna had not enjoyed much success in basketball. During his 12 years coaching at Savanna, the “Indians” won two Regional titles. During the entire other 91 years of Savanna basketball, they only won two other Regional titles.
Dad remained at Savanna teaching U.S. History and Physics, while being the Athletic Director and sponsor of the Letterman’s Club and the Student Council. He continued at Savanna until his death in 1964. Upon his death, Savanna named the football field “Massey Field.” Until the school consolidated, each year they presented the Massey Award to the outstanding athlete who had played 3 sports, all 4 years at SCHS.
In 1988 the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association inducted him into the IBCA Hall of Fame. When Fulton HS started an athletic hall of fame, my dad’s 1936 team and then my dad were in the first classes to be inducted into the Fulton HOF. My father had finished his 25 years of coaching with a record of 361-214.
Fulton has had a very rich tradition in basketball. Oldtime Galesburg fans may remember it was the Fulton Steamers who beat Galesburg in the 1958 Sectional. When my brother, Amy, and I went to the Fulton induction ceremony, we were seated at a table with a player from the 1970’s who was being inducted. When we introduced ourselves, the player said,”Massey? I assume your dad is one who starts all this.”
It became obvious to us that Fulton is very proud of their basketball tradition. And some 80+ years after he left Fulton, the community and the players acknowledge his contribution to Fulton basketball. Upon his death in 1964, Fulton established the Massey Award to be given annually to the basketball player who thru their hard work and selflessness gave the most to their team and their teammates. My brother living across the river in Clinton has had the honor to present it several years.
How did a guy raised on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin, who never played basketball and had not seen much basketball, become one of the best coach in Illinois during that era? The answer is Wisconsin, that is the University of Wisconsin. Wisconsin was the dominant team in the Big Ten during this era (kind of like today). From notes of my Dad’s, he went to numerous clinics of the coach, Bud Foster. The life lesson- you can’t go wrong in life by following the Wisconsin Badgers.
My dad did not marry until 1948 when he was 48 years old. Until he married, his grandmother had kept “his room” at the Massey farmhouse. His youngest brother and his family lived, and farmed that farm with Grandma Massey staying with Dwayne’s family. Many weekends and all summers, Dad went up to Wisconsin.
His entire teaching career, he wore a white shirt, tie, and sport coat to school. In the 1930’s-1940’s he had boxes that he would use to ship his white shirts to his grandma to wash and iron. While he sent them to his mother, actually his sister in law Aunt Genevieve did the laundry and mailed it back.
My dad bought two farms while he was teaching. He had a dairy farm on Long Valley Road that he rented out on a 50/50 basis. And he had a farm with his brother Dwayne that he rented out. My mother claimed he bought the farms for three reasons: make some money to support the low income of a teacher, relieve stress of coaching to have something to fall back on if he ever was fired, and to try connected to his brothers who farmed and maybe reduce their teasing about being soft as a teacher.
By the time, Mark and I were born, we always went to Wisconsin for the entire summer. We stayed at “cottage” on Orval and Betty Massey’s farm. It something we always looked forward to. Jane, Jean, and Kenny were Orval’s children and cousin David just lived up the road. We were the “city kids” who got to live the summer life on the farm that was like a “camp” experience. We got to ride hay racks, play in hay loft, have hired hands scare us by pretending to throw us down the chute, and play pick up baseball games.
We spent a lot of time “helping” our dad on the Long Valley Road. Dad did fencing, cutting thistles, and white washing in the barn. Six days a week, he got up and headed over to do work on the farm. I don’t remember the rotation. While we had some “days off”, most times one or the other of us would go, and sometimes both would go with dad to help.
I am not sure how much help we were, my guess is that Dad just wanted to be with us. He shared life lessons and wisdom, most often centered around the virtue of work ethic. We would take breaks to go talk with one of his brothers, and that usually ended up with us listening to stories about them growing up. The highlights of our “work days” included during June Dairy Month going to the bank in Barneveld. They had a dispenser with chocolate milk. Not only did we drink 2-3 glasses of chocolate milk ourselves but Dad had us fill up our gallon jug to have the rest of the day.
When we both went along and we went to the “40” at the south end of Long Valley Road, we took golf clubs and while Dad fenced, we set up a golf course. And a couple times each summer, Dad brought a grill and we cooked hot dogs and baked beans for lunch. We always did it sitting up on the ridge and it was so much fun.
During the school year back in Savanna, we had our own “full court” in the basement. While we had some great neighborhood games, the highlight was when after supper Dad would come down and we would have a practice and then play one on two with Mark and I against him. The game would usually end up with Mark and I just hanging on him to try to stop him from scoring.
It didn’t matter what the sport was at the high school, we got to tag along. It was things like- watching them put the new gym floor in, going to football practice to watch Allen Cottral back from college, taking the game ball and shooting baskets before the teams arrived, or getting a free pop from the Student Council pop machine.
I didn’t know it at the time but in some ways it was like a little coaching clinic. Being in the wrestling lockeroom after a tough loss and watching an unhappy coach chew out the team. Being with Dad after a game when he and Stan Bergman talked. Dad saying to Bergman- “When it is something important the refs listen to you because they haven’t had to listen to you about a bunch of little things all night.”
The greatest thing was on Sunday afternoons. Dad was going to go to the high school to work. And when that happened, Mark and I along with Pat Davis got to go along. The first thing was Dad would work with us on basketball. Maybe our practice sessions were just 20-30 minutes, never longer. But Dad’s message was that you have to work before you play. After we had our “practice”, Dad would go to his classroom and work, and we did whatever we wanted. We had basketball games on the HS court complete with our pretend starting lineups. We played kickball, whiffle ball, and we played dodgeball. And if we got tired in the gym, we went and got a couple teachers chairs that wheels on them, and had races pushing each other down the hall.
I was 12 years old when my father passed away. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my brother and I were so fortunate to be able to spend so much time with Dad- whether on the farm or at school. Being around Dad, I think the two lessons that I always think about-
1- Everyday he demonstrated the importance of hard work. He never did anything on the farm or at school where he looked at a watch. You worked until the job was done and then you quit. There was not such as overtime in his world.
2- He demonstrated that the greatest gift you have is to give your time. He took time to listen and talk with his brothers, he took time to listen and talk to coaches and teachers. And he always made time for Mark and I, in fact he quit coaching when we were born so he could spend more time with us. But when there was any opportunity, he would take us with him on the farm or at school.
Our Dad was an inspiration to Mark and i, so much so that both of us went into the family business- teaching and coaching!
The following is a Blog that has some letters written to my dad and some outlines he wrote. Just click on this.
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