By Rick Anderson
For the Grays Harbor News Group
If and when he decides to run for president, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee can expect attempts to unearth assorted skeletons in his closet.
He likely doesn’t know (or care) that one of those skeletons, related to a 50-year-old basketball game, has been rattling around innocuously in The Daily World conference room for the past seven years.
During his successful campaign for governor in 2012, Inslee wrapped up a Daily World Editorial Board interview with a lighthearted comment. He said he might experience difficulty obtaining votes in Hoquiam because he had stolen the ball in the final seconds to preserve Ingraham High School’s 39-38 win over Hoquiam in the 1969 state AAA basketball championship game.
Inslee did indeed see action for Ingraham, a Seattle school, in that contest. And his recollections of the game are accurate — aside from the minor details that there was no last-second steal of any kind and that it was an Ingraham teammate who made the game’s critical defensive play.
A politician exaggerating his accomplishments? Bob Woodward undoubtedly would be salivating to get his hands on this story.
Without a shot clock or 3-point field goals, high school basketball was much different 50 years ago.
It was also a different era in terms of spectator interest. With the NBA’s SuperSonics representing the only major-league game in town (although baseball’s ill-fated Seattle Pilots would play their first — and last — American League games that summer), the state AAA tournament was a big deal in Seattle at the time.
A crowd estimated at 9,600 packed the University of Washington’s Hec Edmundson Pavilion to watch the Grizzlies and Rams do battle.
Hoquiam was the smallest school in the 16-team state field, which at the time was split into a quartet of single-elimination regionals that qualified survivors for a state Final Four. With an enrollment of approximately 750, HHS was actually about 250 students shy of the AAA classification minimum, but opted up to compete with the big boys.
Coached by Jerry Anderson and sparked by brothers John and Patrick Quigg and guards Doug Bitar and Ed Backholm, the Grizzlies survived tough competition to nab Southwest Washington’s only regional berth. Many Harborites believed that an Aberdeen team that featured future all-stater Steve Soike also was capable of capturing a state trophy that season (the Bobcats placed third at state the following year).
Hoquiam then vanquished Lincoln of Tacoma and Federal Way at regionals and Everett in the state semifinals to earn a crack at unbeaten Ingraham.
Although, as a University of Washington student, I was three years away from first setting foot on Grays Harbor, my rooting sentiments were strongly with Hoquiam. That’s because Ingraham was the arch-rival of my high school alma mater, Ballard of Seattle.
The two North Seattle schools staged some memorable battles, including the first-ever basketball game (won by Ballard) played in what is now KeyArena. Inslee, in fact, may have competed against Rob Murray, the future husband of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray. Rob was a deep reserve on Ballard’s 1967 and ’68 regional-qualifying teams.
Ingraham drew its student body at the time from more affluent neighborhoods than Ballard. With the type of well-reasoned maturity common to high school students and their parents, we at Ballard regarded the Rams as smug whiners. Mike Kroeger, an Ingraham forward of the era, could have given LeBron James lessons in registering disbelief to adverse officiating calls.
Make no mistake, however, the Rams could play. With no true superstar but boasting an exceptionally balanced eight-man rotation that included Inslee, they averaged close to 85 points per game during the regular season.
In the championship game, the Grizzlies were able to shut down Ingraham’s high-powered attack but experienced difficulty finding an offensive rhythm of their own. Shooting poorly, they trailed 37-30 with about 2 1/2 minutes remaining.
Hoquiam rallied to cut the deficit to 39-38 on John White’s basket with 1:01 left. Following a missed Ingraham free throw, the Grizzlies regained possession for the final 15 seconds.
The plan, according to Backholm, was to feed John Quigg in the post. Hoquiam’s leading scorer was double-teamed, however, so he kicked a pass out to Backholm in the corner. But Ingraham forward Ricke Reed, who later played at Seattle University and began a long educational career as a teacher and coach with a brief stint in the Aberdeen School District, suddenly emerged to block Backholm’s shot out of bounds.
Daily World sports editor Ray Ryan, who covered the game, described Reed’s play as a clean block. Some of the Grizzlies remembered it differently.
“He kneed me,” recalled Backholm, who recently returned to the Hoquiam area after retiring as a sports agent with a Seattle management firm. “I should have gone to the line for two shots. I never saw him coming.”
“I remember Backholm shot. He’s fouled, no call, game over,” John Quigg glumly agreed.
Actually, the game wasn’t over, as the Grizzlies still had the ball out of bounds with two seconds left. A lobbed inbounds pass to Quigg, however, overshot the mark and time expired in the scramble for the loose ball.
Backholm said that Inslee might have been involved in the scrum for the loose ball, but isn’t even certain of that possibility,
“Eight out of 10 times, maybe 9 out of 10, I think we would have beaten Ingraham,” Backholm maintained.
Informed in the immediate aftermath of the editorial board interview of Inslee’s last-second steal claim, Ray Ryan (who died in 2013) almost snorted over the phone.
“He may have wound up with the ball (after the clock ran out),” Ray asserted, “but there’s no way he stole it.”
Inslee scored three points in the championship game, a not-insubstantial contribution to a contest that was decided by a single point. His appearance in the box score, however, is the only time he was referenced in Ryan’s comprehensive game story.
“I think the governor’s kind of embellished (his role),” Quigg concluded.
Making political projections a year in advance is all but impossible in this day and age. Two things, however, are probable.
Grizzlygate is unlikely to gain much traction in Dubuque if Inslee enters the 2020 Iowa caucuses. And if Ricke Reed (living in Skagit County at last report) wants to succeed his ex-Ingraham teammate as governor, he may have trouble getting votes in Hoquiam.
