Altoona basketball

[WPIAL~Titan]

The 1950s through the early 1990s were the golden years for District 5/6 basketball.

[Head Roadie]

Absolutely correct, those were some great times. The atmosphere in the War Memorial that night was phenomenal. There were other playoff games in that era, Uniontown and Aliquippa vs Altoona at the War Memoria and Cory Gehret's 80 footer to beat the Quips, Overbrook at Altoona played at the Fieldhouse in the early 80's, Games vs Schenley and other WPIAL/City opponents at the Mosque in the 70's with Billy Moore and Randy Allen playing for AAHS. I was also at the J-town at Altoona game when Fortson threw the elbow and things got crazy....I was coaching then and had taken some of my players to that game.

My recollection is that overall crowds were much bigger and more intense in that era. Oh to go back!

[Crimson's Ghost]

I do wish Baksetball locally was still on par with that. And I guess your right, 1950-90 was the golden era. My old man loves to tell me about the the 1966 Bishop McCort team. They went 28-2 and won the Catholic state championship, and beat the public state Champs during the season (Schenley) so he says the were the best team in PA that year. I guess they can back it up. Steve Smear went on to play Football at Penn State and the CFL. Mike Patcher played basketball at Pitt, and led them in rebounding for two seasons. They were a pretty solos high school team as well. Probably not 73 Johnstown level, but good team overall

[WPIAL~Titan]

Here is an absolutely fantastic thread from the Pitt message board which speaks of some of the great teams and players from the 1950s to present.

http://pittsburgh.rivals.com/showmsg.as ... 96&style=2

The thread is very long, but very well worth the read, particularly for some of the younger posters who don't know the history of western PA HS boys' basketball, or folks like me who just wish to read about the history, some of which I remember.