By Mike Richard
Exactly 70 years ago today, (April 5, 1926) a squadron of Fitchburg police officers was dispatched to the high school assembly hall to quell a near-riotous crowd.
Was it the appearance of then-President Calvin Coolidge that was causing such a bubbub? Was it perhaps the arrival of a Hollywood silent screen star? Or was it a visit by some member of royalty?
Actually, it was a royal welcome all right, but one for a group of high school teen-agers whose crown was an athletic championship. The assembly was in honor of a group of Fitchburg High School baskeball players who were victoriously returning home from Chicago with the National High SChool Basketball Championship of 1926.
There are few people around today who can say they actually saw that patchwork quilt of players, who made up Fitchburg's culturally diverse champions, in action on the basketball court some 70 years ago.
However, residents of this city still point with pride to the trophy case outside the famed Fitchburg High bridkyard. There are housed the commemorative basketballs and the antiquated photograph of the team that earned the mantle of national champs. In the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Ma a clipping with the headline "Fitchburg Goes Mad Over Team" appears near a plaque paying homage to the squad.
"(Fitchburg) reflected the melting pot that high school basketball had become," the attached story reads. "According to the program, their starting five consisted of a Finn, two Italians, a Greek and a Nova Scotian. The substitutes included two more Finns, an Austrian, another Italian, two Yanks and an Irishman. The coach was French."
To attach names to the cultural affiliation, the Finn was high-scoring junior captain Lauri Myllykangas. The two Italians were Alfred Maffeo and Johnny Oliva, while Greek Anastos Faros and Nova Scotian David Allan rounded out the starting five. In reserve were Finns Tauno Puhakka, and Unto Pottala, Austrian Ivan Abbott, Italian Usko Kontio, Yanks John Marcey and Kenneth Davis and Irishman Daniel Quinn.
Heading up the squad was the lengendary Clarenc Noah Amiott, a 36 year old former four letterman at Fitchburg High School. He had returned in 1913 to head up the athletic department at his alma mater.
Amiott was an innovator in team play and taught the team that it was by far most important to be a good sport on the court. "He bent over backward to be friends with opposing teams and coaches, as an example for his boys as to what good sportsmanship was all about," noted Phil Congdon of Ashburnham, who has penned an unofficial biography of Amiott's life.
Three years earlier, Amoitt had piloted another Fitchburg team to a national tournament after the 1923 squad beat Northampton to win the New England champioship. They received a bid to travel to Chicago, where they lost in the second game of the tourney.
Even so, Amoitt was awarded a new Dodge coupe by his Fitchburg friends and fans. In addition, according to Congdon's bio-sketch, John Heisman (for whom the college football trophy is named) came to Fitchburg that fall to encourage some of Amiott's athletes to attend Rice University.
Basketball in 1926 was a game quite different from the sport as we know it today. Jump balls followed every basket, which eliminated any type of fast breaking. The two-hand set shot or drives to the hoop were the normal offensive fare, and games were often low-scoring affairs in dark and cramped gymnasiums.
Interestingly, the Fitchburg squad almost didn't even make it to the tournament because the Athletic Advisory Committee voted against sending the team to Chicago.
Coach Amiott had been ill with what was initially termed a touch of the grippe, but later it was revealed that it was blood poisoning that landed the coach in his sickbed. A similar illness had claimed the life of President Coolidge's son David two years earlier.
Because of the illness, Amiott was unable to accompany the Fitchburg team to the New England Tournament held at Tufts University. Initially the team had voted to go to the Chicago Tourney instead of Tufts, but the invitation to Chicago never arrived until after Fitchburg had accepted the Tufts bid.
Fitchburg moved through the regular season undefeated with a 19-0 record, including impressive wins over powerhouse Brockton (41-14) Lowell (30-18), and (13-6), Manchester West, N.H. (43-20), Waltham (60-12) and (38-15)and Leominster (57-19). In addition, FHS swept through the Worcester Tech Tourney over Oxford (42-11), Worcester North (20-13) and Northbridge (32-21), to run its record to 22-0.
The win total reached 24 without a loss in the Tufts Tourney as New Haven, Conn. (32-9) and New Bedford (46-15) fell, before the steak finally ended in the semifinals at the hands of Brockton, 15-10. Fitchburg later defeated Medford, 11-9, in the consolation game to garner third place in the New England tourney.
Although Brockton had captured the New England tourney title, its athletic director, F. Marion Roberts, a former teammate of Amiott's in football at Fitchburg High, felt that because Fitchburg had bested Brockton during the regular season when its coach was healthy and able to be in attendance, the Red and Gray should go to the National tourney in Chicago instead of Brockton.
When word reached Fitchburg that the squad received the bid to the national tourney, the athletic committee was called in to make a decision. Principal Charles T. Woodbury publically voiced his opposition to post-season tournament games and intersectional bids. In addition, the advisory committee voted against the trip because of Amiott's illness, as well as the fact that the boys would be losing four days of school to make the trip to Chicago. However, pressure from several influencial community fathers forced the hand of both the school board and the athletic council, which relented and allowed the trip.
Hundreds of Red and Gray fans, headed by Mayor Joseph H. Delaney, assembled at Union Station on March 27 to see the Fitchburg team and Coach Amiott off for the Windy City at 6am. Their travel plan had them taking the 7:25am train out of Worcester on Saturday morning for Buffalo; they spent Sunday visiting Niagara Falls and Buffalo, then left Buffalo at 9pm Sunday to arrive in Chicago at 7:40am Monday.
At nearly every rail stop along the way, Fitchburg natives would drop up from their new venues to wish the Red and Gray team luck. The arduous 990 mile train excursion was a novelty for several of the Fitchburg youngsters, as one player had reportedly never even been on a railroad, only one had ever ridden in a "sleeper," and most of the other boys had never ventured outside of New England. What lay ahead was an experience no member of that team would ever forget.
(editor's note: second of two parts) By Mike Richard
Although he was better known for his contribution to football, the national basketball tournament at the University of Chicago was the brainchild of its head football coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg. Stagg, who was a college classmate of the "father of basketball" Dr. James Naismith at Springfield College, felt that there was a need to recognize schoolboy basketball players across the nation.
The tournament began in 1917 and continued until 1930, but Fitchburg became the only Eastern seaboard school to ever capture a championship. In fact, no other school east of Kentucky had ever won the national title.
In 1926, Fitchburg High was one of only two New England teams to take part in the Chicago Tourney, with Torrington, Conn. the other. A total of 40 teams entered, to that date the largest field ever with more than 30 state championship teams and many runners-up
An entourage of 14 made the train trip from Fitchburg to Chicago: the nine team members, along with coach Clarence N. Amiott, faculty manager Ralph W. Howard, well known referee James Parker of Everett, Fitchburg businessman and fan Lyle S Profitt, and Brockton High basketball coach Arthur F. Staff.
According to Staff at the time, Fitchburg's style of play would bode well for its chances in the tournament. "My impression of successful basketball, as interpreted by Fitchburg, is to keep possession of the ball until time to put it in the net," Staff was quoted at the time. "The western style, popular but not successful, is to see how fast you can reach the other end of the floor."
After arriving at Bartlett Gymnasium in Chicago on March 29, Fitchburg received a first-round bye and had a couple days off before its opener against Billings, Montana. The day off was spent meeting sporting idols Stagg and Knute Rockne, who were both in attendance at the tournament.
In the opener on March 31, Billings proved to be a taller opponent. Yet a fourth-quarter explosion from Anastos "Nasty" Fanos, who led the way with 12 points, and nine each from Johnny Oliva and Lauri Myllykangas, made it a 32-20 opening win.
Next a very fast Roswell, N.M team clung close and trailed by a mere 11-10 deficit at halftime. In the second half, Fitchburg exploded for 20 points and allowed Roswell a mere two in a 31-12 runaway, with Myllykangas and Oliva each hitting for 10 points.
The next opponent would be the "coal miners" of Nanticoke, Pa., winners of an impressive 28 victories, who held a 14-13 lead going into the final quater. Their "criss-cross advances and ability to pivot," according to the game stories, gave Fitchburg early fits.
However, Myllykangas heated up with 13 as the winners hit the last nine points of the game in a 22-14 victory.
On Saturday, April 3, Fitchburg took on Salem, S.D., in what was termed "the best in the history of the Chicago Tournament, in terms of cleverness, fight and thrills." With a mere 20 seconds left in the game, the Salem coach was whistled for a technical foul. "The coach came and started giving the ref hell," recalled the late Tauno O. Puhakka, a back-up center on the squad, in a 1991 interview. "He got a technical foul."
Myllykangas calmly drained the free throw to send the game into overtime. There, Myllykangas hit the clincher as Fitchburg moved on to the finals with an 18-17 victory.
The final would be a bit anticlimantic, as Fitchburg captured the national championship going away with a 26-14 win over Fargo, N.D. Myllykangas led the way once again with eight points, while Fanos had seven and Oliva six.
Myllykangas paced the team in the tournament with 47 total points, Fanos had 28, Alfred Maffeo 12, David Allan 8 and Puhakka 1. Fitchburg played an excellent five man defense throughout the tournament, a hallmark of the Amiott era, not allowing a single team to score over 20 points in any game.
Fitchburg was presented a goldplated basketball trophy, as well as the five game balls for each tournament win. Several of thse basketballs are still encased outside the FHS gymnasium.
In 1974, the basketball used in the final game was donated to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, after surviving members of the team were polled of their feelings. It still remains there to this day.
Before returning home, Amiott felt his champions deserved an audience with the President, so the squad stopped in Washington on the route home and met fellow New Englander Calvin Coolidge. True to form, "Silent Cal" merely shook hands with the boys, without so much as a word of congradulations.
The squad arrived in Worcester early on the morning of Monday, April 5, and took a special bus back to Fitchburg, which was adorned with a large sign "1926 National Champion Basketball Team." All along the route, from Worcester to Fitchburg, men, women and children waved their hands, took off their hats and cheered them along the route home. The bus pulled into Depot Square in Fitchburg at 8 a.m. and was welcomed by nearly 2,000 fans and supporters bordering on hysteria.
"Fitchburg was an industrial town and Amiott was a great salesman," noted Ashburnham's Phil Congdon, who had compiled a lengthy history on the championship team. "He told them this was the biggest thing to hit Fitchburg, ever, and people there believed him."
According to newpaper reports, "staid businessmen, grammar school children, grey-haired matrons and flappers greeted the team. A winding snake dance was staged.
As the paraders headed up Main Street, over Academy Street to the high school, a near-riot was staged when the entire 2,000 or more tried to enter an assembly hall built to accomodate 800 students. The policy of first-come first-served was adopted by the overzealous paraders, allowing no room for the students. Even an appeal by principal Woodbury that the fans vacate the hall to let the students take their accustomed places went ignored. Finally, after the students had been ordered to their classrooms, the police department was called upon to empty the hall.
Not until the law arrived did the followers of the Red and Gray begrudgingly give up their seats. Even then, the mob crowded into the corridors to the point where it was feared that the building may collapse. Later that evening, the city turned out in full force for a huge celebration, featuring a street parade and a large fireworks display at the Summer Street grounds.
Sadly, there are no living members of the champions.
Amiott, who never quite fully recovered from the illness, on the advice of family and friends retired from his job of director of athletics at Fitchburg in 1938. His career record was an amazing one with a basketball mark of 310-91 , while his football record was 173-66-13. Upon his retirement, he relocated to Clearwater, Fla. where he died of a heart attack in 1942 at the age of 52.
A heart attack also claimed the life of Myllykangas in 1954, at the age of 45. A plaque honoring Myllykangas hangs in the Crocker Field Clubhouse, while there is also a memorial to Amiott, dedicated in 1954.
Fannos died in 1970, Oliva - a fomer longtime Fitchburg High hoop coach - died in 1978, but surviving members of the team would gather on anniversaries up until the last decade. When Puhakka died in 1993, the last link from the championship team went with him.
Now 70 years have come and gone, and with them the names and legends which brought basketball honor to the proud city of Fitchburg. Yet every time a youngster bonces a basketball, or has dreams of wearing the red and gray uniform, the memory of Fitchburg's national champions will always burn bright.