Friday, February 18, the Galesburg Silver Streaks defeated Canton 70-59 to wrap up both the championship of the Illini Conference and the Northwest Conference. On this night, Galesburg’s superstar, Dale Kelley scored only 7 points and took only 5 shots on the night. The next night would be a much different night.
In front of the usual 3500+ fans packing into the Galesburg gym, the Streaks were to take on the Rock Island Rocks. While Galesburg was ranked in the top ten, this was seen as going to be a challenging game. It probably would have been a challenging game if not for Dale Kelley.
The Game
Dale Kelley scored and scored, and scored some more.
1st Q- 6:42- Kelley scores first points
2nd Q- 3:28- Kelley has 27 points
Half- Kelly with 34 points (RI with 25)
4th Q- 6:40- Kelley breaks school record of 45
4th Q- 1:45- Kelley leaves game to standing ovation with 52 points
The Streaks led the entire game but blew it open in the 4th quarter to win 84-57. The opposing coach, Bob Riley described the scene when Kelley left the game, “I would have stood up myself and applauded except that it would have looked kind of silly.”
While the 52 points was an explosion, it was not like it was a total surprise. Dale Kelley had already scored 36 points on four other occasions. And after this game, he was averaging 27.3ppg.
Galesburg Register-Mail Sports Editor wrote the game up and described Kelley’s scoring this way,”Most of the senior guard’s field goals wee scored on 20-25 foot jump shots, many times while closely guarded by a visiting defender.”
On this night, Kelley went 16-26 from the field, and a spectacular 20-20 from the free throw line. He was in the midst of making 32 straight free throws.
It is not difficult to imagine that at least half of his 16 field goals would be considered three pointers today. So it is possible in this era, he would have had over 60 points on the night. The game writeup claims Rocky’s game plan was to force Kelley to shoot farther out because they put a 6’4” defender on him. The RI coach felt he was not effective from 20 feet or more, but the paper noted, “However Kelley proved otherwise.”
The Reaction
Rock Island coach, Bob Riley- “The greatest performance I have ever seen. I have seen some great individual efforts but this tops them all. The way to stop him is to foul the man setting the screen before Kelley gets a chance to shoot.”
Galesburg coach, John Thiel- “The performance was phenomenal but it didn’t surprise me because I consider Dale the finest outside shooter we’ve ever had. And as you know, we’ve had some outstanding guards in the past.”
The Records Broken
GHS Most Points in Game- 52 (Previous 45 by Bumpy Nixon, 1959 vs Richwoods)
Most Points in the Gym- 52 (Previous 50 by Jeff Falk-Galva, in 1960)
Most FT’s Made in Game- 20 (Previous 18 by Doug Mills, in 1958 vs Kewanee)
Most Consecutive FT’s Made- 32 (Previous 28 by Al Williams in 1957)
Most Points in Quarter- 21 in 2nd Q (Previous 18 by Kelley vs Pekin in 1966)
Thoughts and Questions
Dale Kelley finished with 813 points on the season, which is still a Streaks boys basketball record.
If the three point shot was in, it would be conservative estimate to think that he would have at least made 5 threes per game. This would have upped his scoring average to 32.3ppg, and his total to 963 points on the season.
Galesburg played 22 regular season games at this time, today most years high school teams play 31 regular season games. Playing those extra nine games would have meant about 300 more points. The combination of the three point arc and the 9 extra games could have meant a season with over 1,200 points.
It is all speculation and we will never know, but what we do know is that Dale Kelley had a great season in 1966 and a fabulous night vs Rock Island!!
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