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Forty Years Ago Today

3/23/03
by John C. Thomas

Saturday, March 23 through Monday, March 25, 1963

At the moment Vic Rouse's tip-in beat the buzzer in Louisville, most Chicagoans were oblivious to the fact that a Chicago school had won the national championship. The Illinois state high school championship game featuring Chicago's Carver High School versus downstate Centralia took place at the brand new Assembly Hall in Champaign the same night, with the tip-off coming an hour before the NCAA championship was set to start. Tribune-owned WGN-TV, trying to please two audiences, delayed the televised start of the game until after the completion of the high school championship, which Carver won on a late steal and a basket, 53-52.

But some folks, including just about every Loyola fan that couldn't make it to Louisville, listened to Red Rush call the game on WCFL radio. When the radio listeners learned that Loyola was the 1963 NCAA National Basketball Champions, television viewers were still watching the Ramblers' first half futility.

"We spilled out on to Sheridan Road, and people must have come from someplace else, because there were only 300 people living in Loyola Hall," said James Hackett, who was huddled with a couple hundred fans listening in the basement of Loyola's only dorm. "It totally stopped all traffic on Sheridan Road for a long time. Everyone was just jumping and screaming, and there must have been some [commuter students] that came back to campus. It was just unbelievable, and the police came out, complete with police dogs. That's when I went back in to the dorm. I don't know how many people were out there, but it was a lot more than the 300 residents of Loyola Hall, that's for sure. There were probably 1,000 people at least."

Loyola fans, students, and neighborhood residents erupted into jubilant snake dances and conga lines that shut down Sheridan Road. There was leaping, strutting, and whooping up and down the street-from Loyola Hall under the El tracks, and past the Grenada Theater to Devon Avenue. Loyola students built small bonfires in the empty commuter parking lots and speakers provided music for impromptu dance parties that went well past midnight. Earlier in the day, Cashbox magazine released their weekly survey of the top songs in the country, and the #1 song was Ruby and the Romantics singing, "Our Day Will Come," most likely a popular song that night.

In Louisville, the players and coaches each reacted in their own way. Some players leaped into the air as though they would be launched into orbit by pure joy. Others feverishly ran back on defense as though it couldn't possibly be over. Coaches ran out onto the floor, sport coats flapping and ties waving, in search of someone to squeeze. A few members of the Loyola contingent wandered around unsure of the reality of the moment, observing others for verification of what they thought had just happened.

"I was probably as close to Rouse as anyone, I was right behind him when he made it," said John Egan. "I thought, 'It's good!' and I knew there was no time left. Then it was a sort of different kind of feeling for me. It wasn't exuberance for having won it--obviously I was really happy, but I felt like walking off into the locker room and enjoying it. I'm not one that jumps up with joy and kisses everybody. It was especially nice to see the guys on the bench so happy about it."

"I just remember Jerry going for the shot, and it wasn't open, and he made the pass," Miller recalls. "I was surprised that he passed off, and I thought, 'No!' because I had faith that Jerry was going to make the shot. And then it was a blur. I remember Les taking the shot, and then I remember jumping up and down. When it happened, I didn't see Vic tip it in. I was there, and I'm sure I was looking at it, but I don't remember that piece of it. I just remember hugging Les and jumping up and down."

The Cincinnati players, coaches and fans were stunned as well. The Bearcats were ranked #1 throughout the season, from the pre-season to the final poll-- often garnering a unanimous vote for the top team in the country. They had never before lost an NCAA Tournament game. With the final game only 106 miles from Cincinnati's campus, almost half the crowd was composed of Cincinnati partisans expecting a coronation and an unprecedented third-straight title. The Cincinnati players were coolly calling for a time-out after Rouse's tip-in, but the referees ruled that time had expired. Amid the chaos, they calmly walked back to their bench, as though they had to conserve their energy for a second overtime.

There was a bit of disbelief on each side, and with good reason. Everyone in the building knew that Jerry Harkness was going to take the last shot for Loyola. When Cincinnati's defense collapsed on Harkness to leave Hunter open for a jumper from nine feet out, it was a gamble that the Bearcats were willing to take. A missed shot from Hunter meant that there would be a second overtime-especially after the Bearcats had dominated the boards so completely. The tip-in by Rouse was the result of a lucky bounce and great execution from a player that had been considered fully defensed out of the play.

After a game with such finite consequences, it has to be difficult for either team to stay on the floor for postgame presentations. The Cincinnati team, which had already been through two championship trophy presentations, appeared cool and professional in receiving their runner-up trophy. Loyola, the upstart winners in their first-ever NCAA Tournament, didn't seem to have a set protocol for the occasion.

"I don't remember sleeping that night," says Miller. "I had an uncle who was in the service stationed in Louisville, and he was at the game, and he came up to the hotel after."

After spending a mostly-sleepless night at Louisville's elegant Brown Hotel, the Ramblers boarded a charter plane to return to Chicago. Several hundred fans and Mayor Daley greeted the Ramblers at Brown Aviation at O'Hare Airport at 11:30 a.m.

"I was dumbfounded by the reaction [in Chicago]," says Miller. "I didn't expect that. I didn't expect Mayor Daley to be greeting us at the airport, I didn't expect the huge turnout at the airport. To me personally, I didn't think it was that big a deal winning the national championship at that time. Of course I wanted to win it, but I was surprised at the local reaction."

Mayor Daley greeted the Ramblers at the airport and shook every hand he could. There was a mayoral election just two weeks away on April 2. Daley was at O'Hare the day before, too, for the official dedication of the the World's Largest Airport with President Kennedy. After greeting the victorious Ramblers, Daley went to Carver High School to shake more hands-- they had an even larger celebration for the state high school championship at Carver than they did at Loyola.

From O'Hare, the Ramblers returned to campus by motorcade. More than 3,000 students packed Alumni Gym for the student rally. Signs in the crowd read: "LU-- Giant Killers," "Welcome Home, Champs!" and "Loyola #1."

From the very beginning of the season, Loyola was thought to be a powerhouse team by the national media. The Ramblers were ranked #4 by the AP in the pre-season poll, and rose to #2 on the basis of winning their first 11 games without a defeat while averaging a 27.9 margin of victory and 100 points per game on offense. Yet things were different in Chicago.

The Tribune beat writer never wrote a word that year about the difficulties that Loyola players had in dealing with many overt acts of racism on the road. None of the Chicago papers sent their Loyola beat writers to road games during the regular season that year, even though Loyola was ranked as high as #2 in the country. Not only did the local beat writers not see the extent of the racism that Loyola endured on the road, the Tribune beat writer wrote stories that painted the opposite picture-- implying that Loyola players were violent, and that their mostly-Catholic student supporters held violent and dangerous celebrations when they won.

Tribune Loyola beat writer Roy Damer claimed that Loyola fans or players instigated incidents in three games, and that fans acted improperly in their celebration of the Loyola championship. He claimed that Loyola fans caused a disturbance in the February 27, 1963 game against Ohio University and the March 2, 1963 game against Wichita State. Yet his accusations in every case are not mentioned-- or even refuted-- in the other Chicago newspapers.

On March 17, 1963, the day after Loyola beat Illinois to advance to the Final Four, Damer wrote that "part of the glitter [of the Loyola victory] was taken off when Hunter elbowed Bill McKeown in the face near the end of the game. McKeown wisely held his temper and the two shook hands, averting an incident."

There was no mention of this near-incident in the other Chicago papers, and the Loyola players on the team at that time say they have no idea what Damer is talking about. Obviously, people get elbowed in the face quite a lot when they're fighting for rebounds in a Division I basketball game-- it's curious that Damer was the only one that thought it was intentional. It seems like journalistic malpractice-- at a minimum-- to print the incident as though it was intentional without supporting comments from participants. Why mention this supposed incident unless you could confirm that it was intentional? Would the same standards apply for white players or University of Illinois players?

On March 24, 1963, the Chicago Sun-Times reported this about the Loyola championship celebration: "Police reported that the Saturday night observances were noisy but orderly. The focal point of Loyola's celebration was a university parking lot at Winthrop and Loyola where a loud-speaker blared music for a post-midnight dance. Summerdale District squad cars and a Canine Corps unit were on hand-just in case. But they were not needed except to keep traffic moving."

In contrast, Damer of the Tribune reported on March 25, 1963 that "24 extra policemen and two dogs from the canine corps were brought to the airport... [because of] the 'celebration' held by Loyola students Saturday night... During the students' festivities, police blocked off part of Sheridan road, which borders the campus." The "celebration" was for a national basketball championship by a small, private university that came from 15 points behind against the two-time defending champions-- a juggernaut team. Would Damer's reporting have been different if Illinois had won the championship-- sending several tens of thousands more students into celebration-- instead of Loyola's?

Damer and the Tribune must be pleased that 40 years later the state of Illinois has never had to witness another "ugly" celebration of an NCAA college basketball championship that might briefly impair late night traffic on a Saturday night.