Enjoyed reading this article. https://www.daytondailynews.com/spo...d-like-rock-stars/6HTACFSB2JDKHJ5OYPH47BS75M/
Recent Dayton Daily News article-Dayton Roth 81 and 82 teams
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scbuckeye99
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Very cool article.
Great article by the iconic Archdeacon! As a kid growing up in Residence Park my friends and I couldn't wait to go to Roth! I looked up to those guys they were my heroes and I'm friends with most of those guys today. They brought pride to the neighborhood every Friday I was there for years. The 81' team was the greatest high school team I ever seen to this day and the next year the 81' JV team won state again as varsity players with two guys returning from the 81' team Byars and Steve Smith. Roth was so great they also won state in track in 81' and went to the playoffs in 81'and 82' in which it was much more difficult back then to make the football playoffs only 4 teams from the region made it. Even the cheerleaders were hot and great! Roth had everything then they shut it down.
nwwarrior09
Well-known member
Good read. The westside of Dayton was absolutely loaded with talent in those days.
Great team. Really enjoyable to watch. But my vote for the best ever in Dayton is the 1970 Chaminade HS team. 27-0 State Champs. Wire to wire top ranked team in Ohio. Blew out both teams at the State. Made it to the Final Four as Juniors the year before. Loaded with D1 players. Dan Gerhard, POY in theState in D1. Chose Ohio State over Kentucky and Dayton. Terry Tyler full ride to Michigan. Ted Wueban full boat to Creighton. Mike Eifert full ride to Kent State. Paul Kurpiel turned down full rides for basketball, instead full ride in baseball to Ohio State. Stan Pfander full ride to Indiana for football. John Weiland full ride in track to Indiana. Several others played small college basketball. Their biggest competition was the great Roth team staring future NBA players Donald Smith and Phil Lumpkin. Chaminade beat them twice. The first time is maybe the most celebrated game in the history of Dayton high school basketball. It was the first high school game ever played at UD Arena, and it was sold out PRESALE! No tickets at the door. Game was won on a last second shot by Gerhard. Chaminade would win the rematch in the District Finals by about 15. Jim Turvene was COY in Ohio. He also won the State in 1966, and was also Ohio COY. In those days there were only two divisions in Ohio. When Chaminade won the State in both 66 and 70 they won tournaments of over 400 schools. That was the Golden Age of HS basketball in this area. All kinds of D1 players: Gerhard, Tyler, and Wueban from Chaminade; Smith (UD) and Lumpkin (Miami) from Roth; both Cashes (Bowling Green and Colorado State), Howard (Bowling Green), Gates (Kent State) from Dunbar; Montgomery (Bowling Green) and Faulkner (Ball State) both from Miamisburg; Ashworth (Tennessee) from Beavercreek. And, there were a lot of other very good players around the area, including Wild Bill Higgins(Dunbar) who would later lead the nation in scoring at D2 Ashland college and then play in the ABA. All this on the heals of the May/Hosket team at Belmont, and Pratt (Meadowdale) and McCowan (Fairview) who both went to Kentucky, Jim and Jerry Gotschall (Chaminade) both to UD, and Bertke (Chaminade) and Gardecki (Miamisburg) both to UD. And, I know I’m leaving out a lot of great players. By the way, who gave Belmont their only loss in 1964? Chaminade, coached by Jim Turvene.
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What a great article buy the legendary "Arch". Being old enough to remember this team and others like 87 Dunbar with Baker and Taylor which to me, was the best backcourt ever to come out this area. This really took me back to true HS sports writing that has now been taking over by internet blogs and podcast. I remember picking up the paper on Saturday morning and reading wall to wall to coverage about the games from Friday night. Those writers made the players from teams like this out to be super heroes! And as a kid that's who we followed. Heck I remember the tribute to the late Dynell "Duck" Springer one writer wrote after the final game of his HS career. In the article he talked about how much he enjoyed covering him and the Dunbar team he was a part off. I couldn't even image something like that today. This article was not only a tribute to this team but a tribute to a "Golden " era of HS sports in this area. I can't tell you who was the best team Roth, Belmont, Alter, CJ, Dunbar but I can tell you back then those teams all had style, charisma, class and larger than life personalities that were all enhanced by great sports writing. Kudos to Arch for being a point of remembrance to an era of not just great HS sports but the talented people that told the stories.
Nobody from my area thought Lorain Catholic could lose a game in the 1975-76 season, and they didn’t...until they lost to Dayton Roth 82-81 in the AA state championship game. I believe Roth had a young Dwight Anderson. Anyone who tried to run with LC that year got ran out of the gym, but Roth was able to run with them and nipped ‘em at the wire.
And Keith Byars is still my favorite Buckeye footballer of all time. He was robbed of the Heisman by Doug Flutie’s memorable game winning heave that beat Miami. Byars just dominated that season with size, speed, ability to catch, block and even throw. That foot injury changed his game and he became a different player in the NFL. Still had a nice career, but we never got to see the athletic freak again that he was before the injury.
The
The best backcourt to ever play in the Dayton area was Donald Smith, UD great, and Phil Lumpkin, Miami of Ohio. Both played several years in the NBA ata time when the NBA was half the number of teams it has today. Baker and Taylor were very good, but not in the class of Smith and Lumpkin.
I believe the Dayton area now has had 10 Big school state champions in basketball ( not counting Middletown ). I think Cincinnati claims them...That's pretty impressive. I count Belmont, Chaminade twice, Roth twice, Dunbar 2, or was it 3? Alter twice as a big school and now Centerville. Miss anybody?
Dunbar has four and Alter three. Also, you have those Stivers teams from from the 20s and 30s. I think they have four. Don’t forget the Colonel White team of 1990. Roosevelt won once in the early 60s. Trotwood won it just a couple of years ago.
2015 Wayne
That's why they are called opinions sir everyone is allowed to have one. Look and Baker and Taylor 's numbers. They stack up with anyone. Smith and Lumpkin where great but to say "Shake n Bake" and "Ice T" were not in their class....Whoa. It may be a small class but Bake and Taylor were definitely on the roll when it was called!
Still remember that Hamilton-Roth game from 81. Remember was at a friends along with other friends house listening outside as we were shooting basketballs ? ourselves. Being from Trenton we were pulling for Big Blue and were disappointed when they lost. What a game it was a 85-84 Roth win which was the Big Blue’s only loss that year. Hamilton had Greg Stokes who went to Iowa and had a great career there and became the schools all time leading scorer until Roy Marble passed him. He also played in the NBA as well as spending some time overseas.
Still to this day, one of the best high school games I've ever seen.