Puxico changed prep basketball with run-and-gun play
by Jim McCarty
In 1945 a new coach launched his basketball career in tiny Puxico, Missouri. He would stay for 10 years, and in that time would completely change prep basketball in Missouri. His Puxico Indians would destroy opponents while smashing nearly every basketball statistic.
Before moving on he would lead his teams to two Class B state championships, a third-place state finish, five regional titles and an undefeated 40-0 season. His high school coaching record stood at a lofty 436 wins to just 129 losses. The players under his tutelage would go on to college and pro careers, with several earning their own recognition as winning coaches.
Along the way he would put Puxico firmly on the map for sportswriters around the state in a way that is still talked about today. So renowned were the Puxico Indians from 1949-1952 that virtually every Missouri newspaper carried constant reports of the team’s success. This included the big dailies in Springfield, Kansas City and St. Louis, as well as smaller papers as far away as Maryville.
His name was Arnold Ryan, and to his players he was Mr. Ryan. So renowned is his name that today’s Puxico Indians tip off inside a new gymnasium that proudly bears his name. Fans enter past a pair of trophy cases that hold dozens of mementoes of his winning ways.
Coach Ryan’s success came from the simple fact that he made men out of his boys. From the moment he first walked into the log-cabin Puxico gym the young coach set the tone for what was expected of his players. There would be no late nights. No smoking or drinking. Players were required to attend Sunday school. Dating was allowed — as long as it didn’t interfere with basketball.
And if they wanted to make the team, they would hustle. “Ryanmen” as they came to be called were required to give 100 percent and never let up until the final second ticked off the clock. Hustle was the buzzword that every player came to know by heart.
“This basketball team has been the greatest influence for good we have ever had in Puxico,” said Harry White, the town druggist and president of the school board in an interview with the Kansas City Star. “We are more proud of the fact that Coach Ryan is building good citizens than that he has coached a championship team. He and his team have done a tremendous job for all of our youth.”
It took time for the Ryan juggernaut to build momentum. Looking for an advantage, the coach turned to the tactics used by boxing legend Joe Louis. The boxer won his matches not through defense, but by outpunching his opponent.
Ryan’s early method was to concentrate on offense by constantly attacking the basket and not worrying about defense. When an opponent shot and missed, the tall Indians would snag the rebound and launch the ball to teammates who were streaking downcourt.
Today it’s called the fast break, but in the late 1940s and early ‘50s this style of play was unheard of. Most teams — including the University of Missouri under Coach Sparky Stalcup — played a plodding style, with set plays and an offense based on dribbling and passing. Final scores in the teens were common.
The Puxico Indians would change the game through a fast-paced offense only possible because of their constant conditioning — and clean living.
Open shots were encouraged because Ryan knew his team would make more than they missed. That’s because they practiced shooting every spare minute. Some accounts say the players shot at least 100 times per day, every day. Under Ryan’s direction, hoops went up everywhere, including in barn haylofts. The school gym, built from cypress logs cut in the nearby swamps, was open year-round and constantly in use.
“My boys love the game so much they’ll work all day in the fields and their farms during vacation time. Then come to town to practice in the school gym,” the coach told the St. Louis Star-Times. “I’ve seen them haul a load of beans or hay into town and then stop at the gym and spend an hour on shooting practice. That is the secret to winning.”
As their style evolved Ryan added a full-court , man-to-man press, another innovation that brought terror to the unprepared competition. “Every time you score,” Ryan told the Star’s reporter, “you have to give the ball to the other team. So, we’ve worked out a plan whereby we’re able to steal the ball some 15 or 20 times during a game and in that way we get more shots. And our kids don’t miss very often.”
It wasn’t long before the Indians were blowing out their opponents by huge margins. In the 1949-1950 season the team scored 2,239 points, an average of 65 points per game. They won 34 games and lost only once.
That season the Indians seemed destined to win the coach’s ultimate goal of a state championship. Perhaps awed by their first visit to a major city (Springfield), they fell short in the semifinal game, losing to Ozark 43-39 in a hard-fought contest. They would bounce back against Windsor to take the third-place trophy.
In the state tournament run the Indians would rewrite the record books. They had the most points in a single game (78), highest four-game total (222), most combined points (125 vs. Thayer) and most points scored in the third-place game (95). Two individual marks were set by Puxico’s Win Wilfong: most points in a game (31) and most points in the four tournament games (86).
Despite the consolation of taking the third-place game, the Indians set their sights on next year’s championships. Practice started not long after the team returned to southeast Missouri.
February 1951 – Puxico, Missouri, United States: Puxico’s gymnasium is so cramped for space that between quarters the team sits on the floor. Seated, from left: Forest Arnold, Leon Cookson, Coach Ryan, Welborn Smith, Dennis King, and Grady Smith. The Puxico Indians were a phenomenal, before-their-time squad that was undefeated, 40-0 in the 1950-51 season. Until the championship game, the Indians averaged over 90 points per game and won 13 of those games by a margin that exceeded 100 points or more. They were coached by Arnold Ryan who had little to no experience coaching high school basketball, but brought a vision of high paced, fast break basketball that made national sports news. His style of play might have changed basketball across the nation as future basketball icons like Dean Smith were known to have watched the Puxico Indian squad from the stands. At least 3 starters from this small Puxico team went on to start for the Division-I Memphis State College squad and successfully led Memphis to its first NCAA men’s tournament birth in its history. Forest Arnold was the leading scorer at Memphis. Win Wilfong became Memphis’ second collegiate all-american behind Arnold. Wilfong was drafted #4 in the first round of the NBA and won an NBA championship with St. Louis in 1958. Elmore Fortner was the captain of both the Puxico and Memphis State squads and was a ball handling extraordinaire and assist leader before assist statistics were recorded. (Jack Gould/St Louis Post-Dispatch / Polaris) ///
Midway through the 1950-1951 season, the Indians were on a tear. They scored over 100 points in four consecutive games. So dominant was Puxico that teams would stall to avoid having 100 or more points scored on them. One low score against Leadwood prompted this headline in the Southeast Missourian: “Puxico slipping: Has mere 68-point total.” This was after winning by 19 points.
Their highest margin of victory came against Greenville, which fell 148-16 in the subregional tournament. In their next game they beat Naylor 131-44. In the Class B state tournament, they won their four games 80-45, 97-43, 85-61 and 42-38 for the state championship.
The final game came against Waynesville, the team that came the closest to figuring out how to beat the Indians. The plucky Tigers used a stall to slow the Puxico running game and hold them to the lowest score of the season, only to fall short at the buzzer. Puxico went undefeated that season in 40 games.
The team would win 45 straight games before suffering a loss, which came on Nov. 30, 1951 against St. Mary’s in the Delta Invitational Tournament.
The winning ways continued. One highlight of the 1951-1952 season was the rivalry between Puxico and John Burroughs, a St. Louis small-school powerhouse. The teams swapped victories, with the Bombers handing the Indians their second loss of the season. When the archrivals met for the 1952 state semifinals, the overflow crowd broke the state tournament attendance record with 3,102 fans.
This time it was no contest, with Puxico easily winning the game 88-61 to advance to the finals. The Bombers only lost two games that season, both to Puxico. After the game pundits speculated on whether Puxico could beat the large school champion, St. Louis University High School. Mizzou’s Sparky Stalcup silenced the talk when he said, “I believe Puxico could have beaten Missouri tonight.”
In the 1952 state finals, Puxico would meet up with Shelbyville and their star player, Norm Stewart, the future coach of the Missouri Tigers. The Indians would frustrate Stewart, and years later he still remembered the semifinal game played at the old Houck Fieldhouse at Southeast Missouri State University.
“We were never in that game, never. There has been some outstanding high school basketball in this state, but I can’t remember anybody being more dominant than Puxico,” Stormin’ Norman told author Matt Chaney in an interview for his book “My Name Is Mr. Ryan.”
Puxico would set three more tournament records, including beating their own record for most combined points in a championship game (122), most points in four tournament games (338) and the first team to win back-to-back championships. The 15,182 fans also set another attendance record.
The 1952 title would be the last for an Arnold Ryan coached Puxico team, though the Indians took second in 1953 without him. He stunned the community by announcing his resignation, saying that he had gone as far as he could at the small school. He would coach elsewhere, including a season with Memphis State University.
His last stop was at Charleston where his career came to a tragic end on May 19, 1970. He was prepping the school’s baseball team for a game when an errant throw hit him in the head. He died instantly.
The Puxico legend created by Arnold Ryan lives on because fans were captivated by the image of a small town where a coach and his players found success through morals and hard work in vacant lots, haylofts and a gym made from cypress logs. The Ryan-era teams set a standard players will strive to uphold as long as they wear the orange and black of Puxico High School.
Email Jim McCarty jmccarty@ruralmissouri.coop.