Great interview with Coach Matt Creamer. I was Matt 's next door neighbor for a while when he was coach of Lima Senior. He then took the head coaching job at Massillon and moved away in1996. Have followed his career from afar ever since. A great guy and it was good to hear from him again. Having grown up in Newark, I can recall seeing Matt and his brother at Central District tournament time in the old Fairgrounds Coliseum barn when he was playing at Columbus St. Charles.
He brought back a ton of memories from central Ohio when he talked about that great Columbus Walnut Ridge team that was undefeated state champs led by the late Ed Stahl and the other 4 starters who all earned D1 college scholarships. That team followed on the heels of that Columbus East juggernaut that won two state championships in a row and had a 3 year record of 70-1 a couple of years earlier.
I was surprised when Matt mentioned that East team and the announcer said, Wasn't that the team that had Bo Lamar and "a couple of other guys" on it ? Those "couple of other guys" were Ed Ratliff and Nick Conner, both D1 players at Long Beach St. and Illinois respectively. They had played for East for all 3 years while Bo Lamar only played for East in his senior year having transferred from Cols. North. Glad to hear Matt mention the Newark Wildcats and Mike Giomi and his performance in a loss in the State semi-final game to eventual State champion Dayton Roth. Matt was just a bit too generous when he mentioned Giomi being a one man wrecking crew by scoring 41 or 42 points in the 83-81 loss. Had Giomi scored 42 Newark would have won the game ! For the record, he scored 39 points, had 10 rebounds and 6 blocked shots despite sitting out almost all of one quarter in the first half with foul trouble.
Really enjoyed listening to the interview and also yesterday the interview with the legendary Frank Jessie, discussing the college hoops scene was also an informative interview with someone that I have a great deal of respect for. Terrific job for broadcasting these two interviews in the last couple of days to help soften the blow of no basketball being played in mid March. Appreciate your efforts. Thanks for letting us Yappi followers know about this.
JB
