A Team For The Ages -- To Many, Cleveland Set Standard In 1976

Carl Ervin can't believe it.

Was it really 20 years ago when he sank the game-winning shot to win the Class AAA state basketball championship for Cleveland High School?

Has it been two decades since Ervin's electrifying 18-foot jumper with seven seconds left gave the Eagles a 42-41 victory over Lincoln of Tacoma in front of 12,500 fans at Seattle Center Coliseum?

"Has it really been 20 years?" he asks. "The (20-year class) reunion must be this summer, then."

Twenty years. A little less hair, a little more waistline. Mortgages instead of report cards.

But one thing hasn't changed in two decades: Many people still believe the 1976 Cleveland Eagles were the greatest boys high-school basketball team in state history.

Every few years, it seems, a team enters state with a glistening record and reputation. This season, top-ranked Sehome of Bellingham (25-0) is the Class AAA team to beat.

As the AAA tournament returns to Seattle Center (in rennovated KeyArena), however, the years have only added to the glory of the team from south Seattle who wore short-shorts and won back-to-back AAA and AA titles.

The Seattle Times consulted a group of current and former coaches, who picked the '76 Eagles as the best in state history, with '74 Garfield second.

If Ervin ever wants an argument about which team was best, all he has to do is go to practice at Seattle University, where he's an assistant coach.

Or answer his phone.

Ervin frequently engages in verbal battles with Al Hairston, head coach at Seattle University. Or with Keith Harrell, a former teammate at Seattle University. Both Hairston and Harrell have strong Garfield ties.

The debate goes something like this:

Cleveland's the best, says Ervin, pointing to four Division I players, a 7-foot center who played in the NBA, and back-to-back state titles.

It has to be Garfield, counters Hairston. Maybe the 1974 team when he was an assistant coach. Or one of the five Bulldog teams Hairston coached that won Class AAA state titles in 1980, '83, '86, '87 and '91.

Harrell, a motivational speaker based in Atlanta, provides a Garfield double team by calling Ervin now and then. Inevitably, Harrell starts reminiscing about the 1974 Garfield team he played on.

Hairston was an assistant coach at Garfield in 1974, and the Bulldogs built up a 25-0 lead en route to an easy victory over the young Cleveland team that season.

"We argue about it all the time," Ervin said. "In fact, I just got into it with (Hairston). It's been an ongoing thing ever since I've been here. He's got his five state championships, and I've got my two."

Cleveland's dominance began in 1975 when it won the Class AA title, blowing out Mark Morris 77-57 to finish 27-0.

But it was the 1976 team that many consider the team for the ages. The Eagles were 23-1, losing only to Lincoln of Tacoma, the defending AAA state champion, in the second game of the season.

"Without a doubt, from my standpoint, we were the best team ever. And that includes the '74 Bulldogs," Ervin said. "We were able to adjust to different situations, so we were able to win so many different ways."

Has it really been 20 years since the Eagles terrorized opponents with a tall, talented, disciplined and athletic lineup?

There was Jawann Oldham, the mobile 7-foot center. James Woods, the smooth and quick 6-8 power forward. Eli Carter, the versatile 6-3 small forward. Brad Bowser, the deadly 6-1 shooting guard. Ervin, the 6-1 point guard with heavenly passing skills. And 6-2 Robert Keller, another sharpshooter, off the bench.

"I feel that team was one of the best," Bowser said. "I feel like if we could've played the '74 Garfield team, with JoJo (Rodriguez) and Keith (Harrell), that would've been a good game. A really good game.

"We had pretty good chemistry. What made it such a great team was our roles were very well defined. Everybody knew their job. We were high-school kids, so every now and then we'd get out of control. But we always knew our roles. That made us work together as a team and nobody tried to do more than what they should do."

Was it really 20 years ago that the players would run across 15th Avenue South to order a patty melt and fries from Louie's?

Oldham, Woods, Ervin and Keller were seniors on that '76 team; Bowser and Carter were juniors. The Eagles were ranked as high as No. 3 nationally in 1976.

Oldham and Ervin played at Seattle University, Woods played for the University of Washington and Carter played at Seattle U. and Central Washington.

"You can't just say it was the physical talent. They were great people," said Fred Harrison, Cleveland's coach from 1974 to '76. "I don't ever remember having a problem with those guys. And that's going back to the days of junior high.

"That was a special time. They were not just exceptionally talented basketball players, they were great people. I was fortunate enough to be the person who drove that bus to the games."

Was it really 20 years ago that the Eagles would pile into a car and head to a movie at the Lewis & Clark theater?

They would climb into Oldham's Ford Fairlane ("That car would hold eight of us," Ervin said.) or Ervin's 1973 Blue Chevy Impala, complete with a white vinyl top, and head out for another night of good times.

Was it really 20 years ago they danced at parties to songs played on 45s, not compact discs?

The players sang along with Earth, Wind & Fire's "That's the Way of the World" long before karaoke became the bane of bars everywhere.

Cleveland's multicultural staff and student body was in place years before diversity became a PC buzzword. The school's motto was "Gettin' it Together at Cleveland."

"We were always together. It was like we were brothers," Carter said. "Even when school was out in the summertime, we were still always together."

If Ervin needs another reminder that it has been 20 years, all he has to do is look at today's style of hoop uniforms.

The shorts have gotten longer, but the socks have gotten shorter. The haircuts are shorter, the shoe designs are wilder.

But the game is still about passing and defense and teamwork and discipline and shooting.

"I think if we could maintain the same age we were in high school and we had a time machine, I think we could come back and beat everyone today," Woods said.

In Ervin's office, partially obscured behind a big-screen television and VCR he uses to watch game tapes, is a 2-by-3-foot black-and-white poster of Ervin launching the game-winning shot against Lincoln.

It was Cleveland's basic screen-and-roll play. The signal was Ervin raising his fist while dribbling upcourt.

Carter set the screen, freeing Ervin for the shot from the right wing.

"I knew it was going in," Ervin said. "I couldn't really believe it, you know what I'm saying, but I just knew that shot would go in."

Was it really 20 years ago the players would grub on spaghetti and peach cobbler made by Ervin's mom, Christene? Or scarf the fried chicken and sweet potato pie from Woods' mother, Betty? The growing teens would devour every crumb.

"My mom was the best cook," Ervin said. "But James' mom could burn it, too."

Others played a role in Cleveland's dream season without getting the headlines. There were the reserves, known as the Blue Bandits. Players such as Maurice Young, John Bell, Tony Carter, Jessie Gardner. The players who pushed the starters in practice, forcing them to improve. Practices were often tougher than the games.

"I think it was our work ethic because we always practiced hard and played hard," Woods said. "We got a couple of bloody noses at practice because we worked so hard. That work ethic stemmed from the teaching of Coach Harrison and (assistant coach Frank) Ahern."

There were the coaches. Most of the players learned the fundamentals under Ahern, Jim Taylor and Mel Williams at Asa Mercer Junior High.

"Without the work Frank did with those kids in junior high," Harrison said, "we wouldn't have had the success we had at Cleveland."

Woods, who works as a carpenter, and Bowser, who is in marketing, said a few co-workers know about their basketball background.

"They come up to me and say, `I remember you. I used to watch you play,' " Woods said. "I'd say, `That's OK, but I'm trying to swing a hammer for a living now."'

Carter said the work ethic instilled in the players, starting back at Asa Mercer in Ahern's PE class, has stuck with them.

"It teaches you not to be a quitter, no matter what you do," Carter said. "I'm not a quitter at anything. There's nothing I can't do if I want to do it. That still carries on with me today."

Steve Matzen, the star of that '76 Lincoln team, played summer ball with Carter, Woods, Ervin and Oldham on a squad that took second in a national tournament in Cincinnati. Seattle lost by one point to a New York team that featured brothers Albert and Bernard King, both of whom went on to play in the NBA.

"That whole (Cleveland) group was exceptional," said Matzen, now the general manager of the Washington Dairy Commission in Lynnwood. "That combination of players was probably the best group of basketball players on one team at any one time. Whether they're the best team of all time, that's hard to say. That'll probably be debated forever."

Ahern and Harrison declined to say Cleveland was the best team in state history, saying it's hard to compare teams from difference eras.

Ahern, 68, has coached basketball for 46 years in the Seattle area at Seattle Prep, Franklin, Asa Mercer, Seattle Central Community College, Cleveland and Garfield. He currently is an assistant coach at O'Dea.

"They did everything, and they did it very well. I think they could compete with anybody," Ahern said. "That team had real, real good talent. As far as physical ability goes, no one comes close to them."

Harrison, like a player facing Cleveland's suffocating zone press, eventually surrenders.

"I think as a team, one through five, they had talent that I haven't seen in high-school ball since," Harrison said. "So yes, I think it was the best high-school team in state history. There. You finally got it out of me.

"They were the best."