BAKER CITY HERALD • THuRsDAY, FEBRuARY 24, 2022 A7
BAKER COUNTY HISTORY
Cheerleaders’ memories
Baker High School’s five cheer-
leaders, in addition to rooting on
the Bulldogs at the 1972 state
tournament, watched each of
Baker’s four thrilling games, cul-
minating in the championship
game on Saturday, March 25, in a
filled-beyond-capacity Portland
Memorial Coliseum.
Be (Gutridge) Tiedemann
The crowd, even 50 years later,
still stands out in Tiedemann’s
memories.
“It was the most people we’d
ever been in front of – it just
echoed,” she said.
She was one of two juniors
on the cheerleading squad. One
cheer, she said, drew boos from
the opposing crowd.
“Teri (Guymon, now Swanson,
the head cheerleader) said ‘just
keep smiling,’ ” Tiedemann said.
And she focused on familiar
faces from home.
“People actually got in their
cars, drove and stayed,” she said.
“The community support was
amazing.”
But mostly she remembers the
team’s path to the state champi-
onship.
“It was surreal – this is what
hard work does. They had to keep
winning to get there,” she said.
“We were such the underdog.”
In this photo from the March 27, 1972, issue of the Baker Democrat-Herald, Baker’s Daryl Ross, second
from right, accepts the sportsmanship award for Baker High School. At far left is Dick Sheehy, and in the
center, Mike Davis.
Bulldogs
Continued from Page A6
But despite shooting just
34%, Jefferson had four more
field goals.
Missed free throws also hurt
Baker, especially in the fourth
quarter.
The Bulldogs were 10 of 22
overall, shooting at a lower
percentage from the line than
they did from the field.
Jefferson was 9 for 14 from
the line.
Davis had 17 points to lead
Baker. Scrivner had 15 points,
Ross 13, Sheehy 4 and Erick-
son 3 points.
The aftermath
Heriza went on to coach
the Baker varsity for the next
two seasons, then moved to
Pendleton in 1977, where he
coached for many years, be-
fore returning to Baker City
in 2004.
Heriza said the loss to Jef-
ferson in the 1972 champion-
ship game was of course disap-
pointing.
“But it wasn’t a calamity by
any means,” he said.
Sheehy said his initial reac-
tion was that he wasn’t happy
with the second-place trophy.
“It’s kind of like kissing your
sister,” he said with a laugh.
“We were so close, but it was
not very satisfying.”
Over the years, though, he
came to appreciate the accom-
plishment.
“It sure was fun,” Sheehy
said. “Coach Hammond got
the most out of his players. For
a bunch of kids it was a pretty
good deal.”
Greg Hammond, who later
coached for 17 years, said his
dad was sad to come so close
to an epic upset victory, but he
also recognized what he and
his players had done.
“I think that was a huge ac-
complishment at the time for a
small school like Baker,” Greg
Hammond said. “I think (his
dad) was very pleased with the
kids and the community sup-
port. I’m sure he was disap-
pointed that they didn’t quite
pull it off.”
Because he was on break
from college, Greg was able to
return to Baker after the tour-
nament and see how the com-
munity greeted the team.
“It was incredible,” he said.
He believes that the level of
support contributed to the Or-
egon School Activities Asso-
ciation’s decision to move the
state basketball tournaments
for the state’s smallest schools
to Baker High School just
three years later.
Scrivner also remembers the
crowds that greeted the team
members when they returned.
“I really didn’t understand
how excited everyone was in
Baker until I got back,” he said.
“It was unbelievable how peo-
ple would travel back then just
to watch a ballgame. Every-
body got on board.”
Sheehy said he occasionally
sees one of his rivals from the
1972 game, Jefferson graduate
Tony Hopson, who scored 14
points in the championship
game.
Sheehy said he also runs
into people every now and
again who, after hearing that
he grew up in Baker, mention
the 1972 game, talk about how
exciting it was, and ask him if
he too remembers.
Baker Bulldog Basics: 1972 state tournament team
• Seniors: Daryl Ross, Mike Davis, Dick Sheehy, Craig Erickson, Mark
Johnson, Fred Warner Jr.
• Juniors: Randy Daugherty, Greg Sackos, Tim Wood, Wes Morgan
• Sophomore: Rick Scrivner
• Team record: 19-7 (16-6 regular season, 3-1 in state tournament)
State tournament records and accolades
• Ross, first-team all tournament, second in total points with 80,
fourth in rebounds with 46
• Davis, third in total rebounds with 49
• Tournament record for fewest fouls in a game — 4 against Sunset
• Single-game record for highest field goal percentage — 65%
against Newberg
• Tournament record for four-game field goal percentage — 53.1%
• Team won sportsmanship award for second straight year
Invariably, he said, they’re
shocked to learn that not only
does he remember, but he was
on the court for the entire 32
minutes.
“I was lucky enough to be
on the team,” he said.
Sheehy plans to attend Fri-
day’s ceremony accompanied
by his father, Dick Sheehy Sr.
of Baker City, who will turn
100 on May 3.
The younger Sheehy said
his dad kept the shot chart
for Gary Hammond for many
years, including during the
1971-72 season. Sheehy fig-
ures his father must have at-
tended around 1,000 basket-
ball games.
Tim Wood
Wood, who lives in Baker
City and was a junior in 1972,
remembers how the combina-
tion of Ross, at 6-foot-7, and
Davis, 6-foot-4, made for an
“enormous presence” in the
key.
He also remembers the
crowd at the championship
game.
“More than three-quarters
was from Portland,” Wood
said.
Although the Baker players
were of course ensconced in
a Portland motel throughout
the tournament, Wood said he
remembered how the contin-
gent of Baker fans grew with
each of the four successive
games.
By the night of the cham-
pionship game, Wood said, “I
can imagine Baker was a ghost
town.”
“It was a very historic mo-
ment,” he said. “It was quite an
experience.”
were intrigued by the “contrast
of basketball styles” that Baker
and Jefferson presented.
Johnson also thinks many
fans — at least among those
who weren’t rooting for either
the Bulldogs or the Demo-
crats — were just plain curious
about whether the underdog
could upset the Jefferson jug-
gernaut.
“I think that appealed to
people,” Johnson said. “We
weren’t supposed to beat Sun-
set. Could Baker pull it off?”
In the end, he said, the
fans “got their money’s worth.”
Johnson said that although
he naturally has thought at
Debbie (Colton) Hampton
Hampton also remembers the
vast sea of faces filling the arena.
“I remember feeling so small
in this huge place,” she said. “But
I think the whole city of Baker
was in the same hotel. It gave us
a sense of camaraderie — we
were so proud of our school, and
our town.”
And she still has solid remind-
ers of that game.
Photo from the March 10, 1972, issue of the Baker Democrat-
Herald. Front row, Toni Justus, left, and Cindy Curtis. Back row, left
to right, Belinda Gutridge, Teri Guymon and Debbie Colton.
“I actually still have my pom-
poms,” she said with a laugh.
Cindy Curtis
Curtis was a senior. Although
the experience was “surreal,”
she said Baker stayed humble
throughout the experience.
“The team, in my opinion, was
very humble,” she said. “Everyone
worked so hard — Daryl (Ross)
had such an incredible work ethic
and was one of the kindest peo-
ple on the planet.”
Humble — but happy about
the path to the state champion-
ship.
“It was an incredible time,” she
said. “It was such an ego boost for
the entire school.”
She remembers the crowd too
— and feeling a bit out of place.
“It was huge, and they talked
about our team being the coun-
try boys because they had short
hair.”
Teri (Guymon) Swanson
Swanson, a senior, was the
head cheerleader, or Song Queen.
She still has her pom-poms
from that 1972 season.
“It was just a wonderful time
in our life,” she said. “It was one of
the best things in my life to be a
part of. It gives me the chills just
thinking about it.”
The cheerleaders, she said,
traveled to the boys’ away games
throughout the season, and to
the state playoffs — along with
Toni (Justus) Goss
most of the town, it seemed.
Goss still has a folder full of
“Everybody had the Bulldog
clippings from that year of bas-
spirit,” she said. “The support of
ketball — newspaper stories and
the town and the school was
photos detailing the experience.
something else.”
“I have a whole scrapbook,” she
— Lisa Britton
said. “It was amazing.”
“I really didn’t understand how excited everyone was in Baker
until I got back. It was unbelievable how people would travel
back then just to watch a ballgame. Everybody got on board.”
— Rick Scrivner, sophomore on Baker’s 1972 boys basketball team
times over the decades about
that night, his memories were
provoked by two other games,
ones that his sons, Kyle and
Grant, were involved in.
Kyle was a senior and Grant
a sophomore on Baker’s 2005
team, which lost 44-33 to Wil-
sonville in the Class 4A cham-
pionship game at Gill Coli-
seum in Corvallis.
Two years later, in 2007,
Grant was a senior who
helped lead Baker to the state
championship, a 59-45 win
over Stayton, also at Gill Col-
iseum.
Craig Woods coached both
the 2005 and 2007 teams. The
2007 state title was Baker’s
first in basketball since 1938,
when the Bulldogs, coached
by George “Stub” Allison beat
Amity 27-18 in Salem.
“We were just absolutely
the opposite,” Morgan said.
“We didn’t allow those teams
to get the momentum going.
That was Hammond’s thing
— make at least three passes
before any shot.”
Wes Morgan
Morgan said the support
“It was a quite a ride for us,”
from Baker fans was “amaz-
said Morgan, a junior mem-
ber of the 1972 team who lives ing” both in Portland and
when the team returned.
near Sumpter. “To end up
He recalls seeing banners
where we ended up was pretty
backing the Bulldogs flying
amazing.”
from Portland motel room
He noted that Jefferson, in
windows.
common with many teams
from west of the Cascades,
Greg Sackos
had by the early 1970s ad-
Sackos, a junior in 1972,
opted a fast-paced, “run and
recalls hearing the joke going
gun” style of place.
around at the time, one that
reflected the size of the Baker
contingent in the Coliseum
for the championship game.
“Will the last person leaving
town turn out the lights?”
And while like most jokes
that one indulges in exagger-
ation, Sackos said the number
of Baker fans was amazing.
“We had a lot of support
from home,” he said.
His most vivid recollection,
though, is of the team’s cama-
raderie.
“We just had such a good
group of guys,” Sackos said. “It
was really a fun thing.”
Fred Warner Jr.
Warner, a senior on the
team, described the atmo-
sphere of the championship
game as “pretty amazing, kind
of surreal. I enjoyed every bit
of it.”
He remembers how many
Baker residents were in the
crowd, and the celebratory
parade and banquet in town
after the team returned from
Portland.
Mark Johnson
Johnson was a senior who
had never gone out for basket-
ball before.
And he had never been to
a basketball arena filled with
more than 13,000 people.
“I had never been in an
environment like that,” said
Johnson, who lives in Baker
City. “It was pretty exciting. I
though, ‘wow, this place is full.
This is what a championship
game should be.’ ”
He thinks many of the peo-
ple who made up that record In this photo from the March 27, 1972, issue of the Baker Democrat-Herald, Baker’s Craig Erickson, front,
crowd on March 25, 1972,
and Daryl Ross surround a Jefferson player.
Verl Cote
Cote was a senior at BHS
and the team’s manager in
1972.
He remembers how team
members “just kind of froze”
when they walked out of the
tunnel into the Coliseum on
the night of the championship
game and saw the crowd.
“Holy moly — where did
all these people come from?”
he said.
Cote said that although Jef-
ferson had “great athletes,” he
felt that Baker, with its disci-
plined approach, could com-
pete.
“They just liked to run and
gun, but we did frustrate them
for the most part,” Cote said.
“We just had a couple of cru-
cial turnovers in the final four
minutes and the momentum
just kind of shifted a little bit.
It’s a disappointment when
you lose the championship,
but it was a great season.”
Cote said one of his favorite
memories from the 1972 tour-
nament involved a bunch of
kids at a Portland grade school.
Baker stayed at the Knick-
erbocker Motel, and before
each game they walked a few
blocks to the school — Cote
doesn’t recall its name — for a
brief practice.
Each time, he said, a group
of kids showed up to watch.
They didn’t know anything
about Baker, Cote said.
“But they knew who Jeffer-
son was.”