The Penicillin Kids and
An Improbable Basketball Title

By Dan Kincaid

It was fall 1965. Basketball season was about to begin. Vinson High School was located in Westmoreland—also known as the Wayne County section of Huntington. It’d been known primarily as a football school, winning five state gridiron titles in the 1940s and 1950s behind stars like Buzz Nutter, Dale Boyd, and Tom Perdue.

There were a few “might have been” basketball seasons. The Tigers, led by Keith Ross, went to their first state tournament in 1954 but lost by one to Pax in the Class B semifinals. In 1955, Vinson fell one game short of the state tournament, losing to Chattaroy in the regional finals. That Tigers squad was led by Benny Coffman, who later starred for Adolph Rupp’s 1959 and 1960 University of Kentucky teams. The 1960 Vinson squad, led by Donnie Smith, also fell one game short of the state tournament. Smith went on to play for the University of Dayton.

After 1960, sports at Vinson were more or less average. Heading into the 1965-66 basketball season, there were no high expectations for the Tigers. To the close observer, however, there were some positive signs. The team had five seniors, including three who’d started for all or part of the previous season: Bill Thomas, Wally Snyder, and Gary Norris. Two others, Ty Tomlinson and Bill Beldon, had seen substantial playing time. There was also a good group of juniors, including Tony Ritter, Tucker Lynch, Danny Kincaid, and Norman Myatt.

Another positive was the return of Donnie Smith—this time as head coach. Smith brought with him a winning attitude from his years at Dayton. He switched Vinson from its traditional zone defense and run-and-gun offense to a patterned offense and man-to-man defense. This style required great physical conditioning, so the players ran, and ran, and ran. When they weren’t running, they were practicing defense. One commented, “There were times we hardly used a ball during practice.”

As the 1965-66 season approached, most observers gave little thought to Vinson. The best local AA team was thought to be Ceredo-Kenova. C-K was coming off a state football championship and was loaded with talented athletes. Huntington St. Joe (St. Joseph’s) had a very good team, as did a couple of Ohio teams, Chesapeake and Fairland, which Vinson would face.

The season opened on December 7 with a win against Buffalo of Wayne and an unexpected victory over C-K. Then came three straight losses to St. Joe, AAA-power Logan, and Fairland.

As January approached, the Tigers were 2-3, and most fans were settling in for another mediocre season. Several nagging injuries and illnesses forced Donnie Smith to experiment with new lineups. A number of backups got substantial playing time. By late season, this would prove highly beneficial.

During January, the Tigers began to jell with another win over C-K and a payback victory over St. Joe. By the end of the month, Vinson was 7-5, and enthusiasm was building in Westmoreland.

Thomas was scoring over 20 points per game with Norris and Snyder also averaging double figures. Kincaid offered a scoring boost off the bench in wins over C-K, Milton, and St. Joe. He soon joined the starting lineup, alongside Snyder, Tomlinson, Norris, and Thomas.

But there were still growing pains. Vinson lost its first three games in February, dropping to 7-8. The losses, though, were to very good teams: Oak Hill, Barboursville, and Chesapeake (Ohio). It turned out that the Tigers’ overtime loss to Chesapeake on February 12 would be their last of the season. But no one could see that coming.

All of Vinson’s players were finally healthy, nine had a lot of playing experience, the lineup and substitution patterns were set, and the Tigers had a four-game home stand coming up. The coaches, too, had become seasoned. Smith, the rookie head coach, was now comfortable with the team. Assistant coach Don Trimboli, who was also the head football coach, provided key help in practices and with conditioning.

On February 15, Vinson hosted the AAA Huntington East Highlanders, probably the area’s best ballclub. East was led by two future Division I college players: Mark Dawson (WVU) and Bill McNeer (Virginia Tech). Vinson opened up a 60-51 lead at the end of three quarters. East cut the margin to five, but Vinson won it 76-71.

Vinson rolled over Wayne in its next game and then came away with a surprisingly easy 68-44 win over a tough Boyd County team out of Kentucky. With another easy win over Milton, the Tigers had swept its four-game home stand. On the season, Vinson was now 11-8 with an upcoming rematch against East to end the regular season on the Highlanders’ home court—Huntington’s Memorial Field House. East was eager to avenge the February 15 loss to the Tigers. The Highlanders thought they were the better team, and maybe, on paper, they were. But as they say, “Games are not played on paper.”

You can read the rest of this article in this issue of Goldenseal, available in bookstores, libraries or direct from Goldenseal.