Story Links
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Here is a picture and a couple of basketball stories to help take you into your weekend.
The other day, Missy McPherson called the office and said she had some of her dad’s stuff that she’d like to donate to the University archives.
Her dad, of course, was Gary McPherson, who spent five years as Sonny Moran’s No. 1 assistant coach from 1969-74, and then another 14 years on Gale Catlett’s Mountaineer basketball staff before moving into fundraising with the Mountaineer Athletic Club.
Gary, who was born in the exact spot where the practice green for the Raven Golf Club at Snowshoe Mountain Resort now sits, was once a multi-sport star athlete at Green Bank High and a Washington and Lee University football player.
His coaching career began at Bluestone High in Skipwith, Virginia, before moving on to Ferrum Junior College in 1961.
Two years after that, he joined Weenie Miller’s VMI men’s basketball staff and then, in 1964, he became one of the youngest Division I head coaches in the country at age 27. Because VMI’s military requirements meant he couldn’t recruit players taller than 6-feet-6, McPherson was basically on borrowed time in Lexington City, Virginia.
And by 1969, his time was up.
Sonny Moran, Bucky Waters’s replacement at West Virginia, needed some additional basketball expertise so he added Gary to his coaching staff.
One of McPherson’s first West Virginia recruits was junior college forward Sam Oglesby, whose left hook turned out to be much better than his hook shot. Athletic director Red Brown, growing weary of hearing about Sam Oglesby fights, told McPherson his next one would be his last one at WVU.
Well, it happened at Penn State.
Brown, who wasn’t at the game, had caught wind of the fracas and demanded to see the film when it arrived via air courier the next day. If Oglesby was involved in any way, he was done!
McPherson, who watched Sam slug Penn State backup center Paul Neumayer hard enough to send him staggering to midcourt, knew he had to act quickly. Instead of having the student manager get the game film, which was how it was normally retrieved, Gary slipped him $10, told him to take the next day off, and he would drive up to the airport and get it.
When he got back to the office and put the film into the projector, fast forwarding to the melee, sure enough, Sam’s punch was clear as day. Gary immediately stopped the projector and removed the film from the carriage. He pulled a straight razor out of his desk drawer, cut out the sequence with Oglesby’s punch, and then spliced the film back together.
When Brown finally got to watch it later that afternoon, it was about six seconds shorter than the original version, and Sam Oglesby’s spot on the Mountaineer roster was preserved!
Gary also worked his magic on Charleston High star player Levi Phillips, who was being recruited by a bunch of schools, including Purdue, coached then by Charleston native and former NBA player George King.
King was considered a master recruiter who once helped West Virginia land Rod Thorn when he was on Fred Schaus’ Mountaineer staff. Later at Purdue, King signed Indiana schoolboy star Rick Mount.
George thought he had Phillips, as did Moran and McPherson, which required them to make an emergency trip to Phillips’ Charleston home. While sitting in the kitchen, Levi excused himself to go to the bathroom, which left Moran and McPherson alone with his mother.
“I just love that George King,” she said, a worried look forming on her face. “He’s so well-spoken and so handsome, and I know he will take care of my son. But I just can’t get over the fact that he’s with a team all the way down in Peru. I don’t want to see my boy leave the country to play college basketball.”
“Peru?” a confused Moran said, before McPherson quickly leaned in and firmly placed his hand on Sonny’s thigh to interrupt him.
“Mrs. Phillips, you are right! Peru is an awful long way from Charleston!” McPherson said.
And that’s how West Virginia landed its starting point guard.
So, with those two stories as a backdrop, here is another one associated with the picture above. The net Missy is holding was on one of the baskets at the old Field House for the final game ever played there on Tuesday, March 3, 1970.
Missy was just four then, so she doesn’t recall what transpired that night.
With the new WVU Coliseum set to open the following season, the finale against Pitt was to be the final game ever played at the Field House and a huge celebration with balloons and the band playing “Aude Lang Syne” was planned afterward.
The Panthers hadn’t won a game at the Field House in seven years, so a post-game celebration seemed like a safe bet, especially when the Mountaineers took a commanding 19-point lead midway through the first half.
But then Kent Scott caught fire, swishing in a career-high 32 points, and West Virginia’s star player, Wil Robinson, went ice cold in the second half. Pitt rallied for a stunning 92-87 victory, and the planned postgame celebration was unceremoniously canceled.
While a shellshocked Moran was talking to reporters trying to explain away another defeat, the team’s 15th in 26 games that year, his assistant coach had his sights set on one of the Field House baskets.
He was going to get himself a little piece of Mountaineer Field House history!
Grabbing a pair of scissors from trainer Whitey Gwynne’s bag and pulling a ladder out of a closet, McPherson snipped down the net that you see Missy holding in the picture above.
For years, it rested in their family room out on Baker’s Ridge next to autographed pictures of Jim Palmer, Hot Rod Hundley, Jerry West and others.
Within a span of three years, from 2017 to 2019, Missy’s older brother Chris, father Gary, and mother Peggy had passed away. It has taken her nearly six years to settle the family estate and now that the task is nearing its conclusion, her wish is to have the Field House net permanently displayed in basketball’s Hall of Traditions for Mountaineer fans to enjoy.
It will go in a case somewhere near a portion of the Field House flooring and the original scoreboard, not to mention the game ball from the first basket ever scored at the WVU Coliseum the following year.
That was accomplished by none other than Levi Phillips, the guy who was all set to leave the country to play college basketball in Peru before Gary McPherson’s quick thinking saved the day.
And now you know the rest of the story!