On June 16th, some of the team members and cheerleaders from the back-to-back State Championship winning 1963-64 Jefferson Jayhawks got together at the Tri-Valley High School Cafetorium to reminisce about their seasons on the court and catch-up on the lives of their friends.
Let’s start with some history. In 1963 the then Jefferson Jayhawks varsity basketball team was having one of the best seasons on record and playoffs were starting to look like a possibility. All told when they ended the regular season the Jayhawks had won 22 games and only lost 2 and they had won the Muskingum Valley League title.
Coach Rich Longaberger stated “If I had to use one word to sum up both teams it would be Grit!”
The team was moving on to the playoffs and the town, as well as the surrounding community, was getting excited. The more playoff games the more excited the town would get as would be expected. But the town of Dresden started to take it to a whole new level.
It’s hard to even fathom in this day and age, imagine a time when everyone around you from your town and community would drop everything that they have going on in their busy lives to attend every game all over the state of Ohio, just to watch you play basketball. No teenager could even understand the magnitude of changes in daily life, from empty office buildings to empty streets, to policeman and firefighters drawing straws to see who would stay and watch the phones. We are talking about a virtual ghost town when a playoff game rolled around. People from this little community would take out loans to pay for tickets or to cover time off from work, they made signs, and outfits so that the Jefferson Jayhawk team would know that the town had their backs! This was amazing enough to happen for one season, but the next year the Jayhawks came back and did it again, so in like fashion the town stepped up the support again!
During the winning seasons, the players understood that they were getting more support from their little town then most other bigger towns and cities could muster and that made them proud. After graduating and getting into normal careers and other life events this group of friends looked back and saw the lengths that a little town in Ohio went to, and they were truly humbled.
Even today you can’t drive down Main Street in Dresden without seeing the sign commemorating the 63-64 Jayhawks team that adorns the 9th Street Park.
And although it has been over 55 years since this group of friends went to the championships and put the little town of Dresden on the map so to speak, they still laugh, joke, and carry-on like the group of teenagers that didn’t realize the impact that one era of time could have on their entire lives and the lifelong friendships that would tie them all together.
