I thought Hawkeye fans would enjoy this piece written by my 85 year old cousin, David Dorr. David was an award winning sports writer for the St. Louis Patch Dispatch for years. He is one of the few journalists inducted into the Naismith Basketball HOF in Springfield, MA. He used to work with Bob Costas when Bob was an up and coming sports journalist in St. Louis. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I did!
To my Dorr cousins:
Sixty seven years ago today, on a cold March morning, your dad met my brother Larry and me at the parsonage in Des Moines. We climbed into his car and the three of us were off to Iowa City for a Big Ten basketball game between Iowa and Illinois, but not just any Big Ten basketball game.
The 120-mile trip was made on old Route 6 for the simple reason that there was no I-80 then. Route 6 was a two-lane highway that sometimes could be a slow slog.
We didn’t care. Route 6 might have well been the Yellow Brick Road on that day. We were among the 14,000 who had tickets to The Game, awaited by the entire state of Iowa for weeks.
Both Iowa and Illinois had been like trains heading for each other during that season in 1956, on course to collide, each with a solemn purpose. And here they were. The day had arrived. Both teams had lost once in the Big Ten. The winner would have what amounted to a lock on the Big Ten championship.
The Hawkeyes were a statewide treasure. Coached by the brilliant Bucky O’Connor they’d won the Big Ten title the previous season, in 1955, for the first time in a decade and reached the NCAA Final Four for the first time in school history. Was a national championship in 1956 on the horizon? An accomplishment like that, given its rarity, was on everybody’s mind.
Some argued that, accolades aside, such a lofty goal seemed far-fetched. Others took the position that you need to keep the faith, which in a later time brought to mind the famous line with the same wisdom and prophecy in the film Field of Dreams: If you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true.
Known as the Fabulous Five, the Hawkeyes – Carl Cain, Bill Logan, Bill Seaberg, Bill Schoof and Sharm Scheuerman – had drawn attention beyond the state of Iowa to what they were accomplishing. America was watching.
Amid the anticipation surrounding the game was the game itself which resembled a neighborhood skirmish for bragging rights. How so? Consider this unique feature: Of the 10 starters who took the floor for the opening tip on that Saturday afternoon, nine were from Illinois towns. Bucky O’Connor had built his team around four of the Fabulous Five who were from the state of Illinois. Bill Logan, from Keokuk, was the lone Iowan among the 10 starters. Added to the intrigue: Illinois had finished second behind Iowa in the 1955 Big Ten race and was nipping at the Hawkeyes’ heels again.
Then there was the Iowa Fieldhouse, the heart and Holy Grail of these Hawkeyes. It had character. It had history. It was a distinctive basketball arena in its day and on this day it had energy. Bursting at the seams with Iowa fans, thunderous roars for the Hawks shook the venerable place to its very core.
Honestly, the Illini never stood a ghost of a chance. The Hawkeyes gave them the boniest edge of the elbow and gave the state of Iowa what it was hoping for, a scorching 96-72 victory and back-to-back Big Ten titles.
And so, this time, in 1956, Iowa, having won 17 in a row, would soar all the way to the NCAA title game, another Hawkeye first. They’d face defending national champion San Francisco and the Dons’ K.C. Jones and incomparable Bill Russell on Northwestern University’s campus in Evanston, Illinois.
As fate would have it, the Dons proved too tall an order for even the Fabulous Five. They fell, 83-71. Russell was spectacular with his 26 points and 27 rebounds.
Unbeaten San Francisco finished with a 29-0 record, becoming the first NCAA Tournament champion to achieve a perfect season. The Dons were 28-1 in their national title run in 1955. During one stretch over their two championship seasons they won 55 consecutive games. To a nation that saw Russell play in college he was, fittingly, “the Babe Ruth of basketball.”
Yet, as mighty as San Francisco was, those two seasons Iowa had in 1955 and 1956 still stand on their own merits, even in 2023. They were historic and more. They bound the state together. They were tied to Bucky O’Connor’s legacy. You could say the Fabulous Five were, indeed, fabulous. The Iowa jerseys of each of the Five were retired. In the state of Iowa, old-timers, Hawkeye fans and basketball purists all, romanticize the Fabulous Five era.
Later in 1956, Carl Cain, K.C. Jones and Bill Russell would play together on the United States team that won the basketball gold medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, defeating the Soviet Union 89-55 in the gold medal game. Iowan Chuck Darling, a Hawkeye in 1950-51-52 and the school’s first consensus All-American, was also on that Olympic team in Melbourne.
Basketball had planted its flag in the state of Iowa long before and the sport thrived in high schools, enough so that it led to the state becoming the country’s leader and centerpiece for girls’ basketball during an innovative period when the sport was played based on 6-on-6 rules. Not surprisingly, over time, basketball’s roots deepened their hold at both high schools and colleges in Iowa.
The Hawkeyes of 1955 and 1956 were largely responsible for much of the state’s fast-growing interest in basketball, which was why two years later the stunning news flash sweeping across Iowa that Bucky O’Connor was dead brought the state to its knees. He was driving to Waterloo for a speaking engagement when, at half past noon on April 22, 1958, about four miles south of Waterloo on Highway 218, he swerved to avoid two Guinea hens in the road and collided with a semi truck loaded with 32,000 pounds of sewer pipe. He died instantly. He was 44.
But that day in Iowa City 67 years ago was breathtaking for two Dorr kids because of the extraordinary effort and gracious generosity of Uncle Melvin, who gave Larry and me a Dorr family gift, an inspirational, unforgettable childhood memory. Truthfully, it’s one of those things that never leaves you.
What do I remember? Staring out the car window on the return to Des Moines into a night draped in darkness, watching the farms roll by. And a red-hot hit on the car radio, the song So Rare that somehow found its way into my soul and there it has stayed.
Even now, at age 85, I can close my eyes and hear Jimmy Dorsey’s alto saxophone, his orchestra and lyrics to "So Rare."
'You are perfection
You’re my idea
Of angels singing the Ave Maria'
How do you explain a memory of a day from very long ago flooding back and coming to life? I can’t. An echo from the past I guess. Someone once said that one day our life will flash before our eyes and to be sure it’s worth watching.
That day was a moment in time. Larry and I witnessed something special. It touched me then, and it touches me now. Is that day worth watching? Probably, thanks to your dad.
That day was. . .well, it was fabulous.
So sorry Larry isn’t with us to share his thoughts on this brief episode of Dorr history. Best to each of you.
--Dave Dorr
To my Dorr cousins:
Sixty seven years ago today, on a cold March morning, your dad met my brother Larry and me at the parsonage in Des Moines. We climbed into his car and the three of us were off to Iowa City for a Big Ten basketball game between Iowa and Illinois, but not just any Big Ten basketball game.
The 120-mile trip was made on old Route 6 for the simple reason that there was no I-80 then. Route 6 was a two-lane highway that sometimes could be a slow slog.
We didn’t care. Route 6 might have well been the Yellow Brick Road on that day. We were among the 14,000 who had tickets to The Game, awaited by the entire state of Iowa for weeks.
Both Iowa and Illinois had been like trains heading for each other during that season in 1956, on course to collide, each with a solemn purpose. And here they were. The day had arrived. Both teams had lost once in the Big Ten. The winner would have what amounted to a lock on the Big Ten championship.
The Hawkeyes were a statewide treasure. Coached by the brilliant Bucky O’Connor they’d won the Big Ten title the previous season, in 1955, for the first time in a decade and reached the NCAA Final Four for the first time in school history. Was a national championship in 1956 on the horizon? An accomplishment like that, given its rarity, was on everybody’s mind.
Some argued that, accolades aside, such a lofty goal seemed far-fetched. Others took the position that you need to keep the faith, which in a later time brought to mind the famous line with the same wisdom and prophecy in the film Field of Dreams: If you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true.
Known as the Fabulous Five, the Hawkeyes – Carl Cain, Bill Logan, Bill Seaberg, Bill Schoof and Sharm Scheuerman – had drawn attention beyond the state of Iowa to what they were accomplishing. America was watching.
Amid the anticipation surrounding the game was the game itself which resembled a neighborhood skirmish for bragging rights. How so? Consider this unique feature: Of the 10 starters who took the floor for the opening tip on that Saturday afternoon, nine were from Illinois towns. Bucky O’Connor had built his team around four of the Fabulous Five who were from the state of Illinois. Bill Logan, from Keokuk, was the lone Iowan among the 10 starters. Added to the intrigue: Illinois had finished second behind Iowa in the 1955 Big Ten race and was nipping at the Hawkeyes’ heels again.
Then there was the Iowa Fieldhouse, the heart and Holy Grail of these Hawkeyes. It had character. It had history. It was a distinctive basketball arena in its day and on this day it had energy. Bursting at the seams with Iowa fans, thunderous roars for the Hawks shook the venerable place to its very core.
Honestly, the Illini never stood a ghost of a chance. The Hawkeyes gave them the boniest edge of the elbow and gave the state of Iowa what it was hoping for, a scorching 96-72 victory and back-to-back Big Ten titles.
And so, this time, in 1956, Iowa, having won 17 in a row, would soar all the way to the NCAA title game, another Hawkeye first. They’d face defending national champion San Francisco and the Dons’ K.C. Jones and incomparable Bill Russell on Northwestern University’s campus in Evanston, Illinois.
As fate would have it, the Dons proved too tall an order for even the Fabulous Five. They fell, 83-71. Russell was spectacular with his 26 points and 27 rebounds.
Unbeaten San Francisco finished with a 29-0 record, becoming the first NCAA Tournament champion to achieve a perfect season. The Dons were 28-1 in their national title run in 1955. During one stretch over their two championship seasons they won 55 consecutive games. To a nation that saw Russell play in college he was, fittingly, “the Babe Ruth of basketball.”
Yet, as mighty as San Francisco was, those two seasons Iowa had in 1955 and 1956 still stand on their own merits, even in 2023. They were historic and more. They bound the state together. They were tied to Bucky O’Connor’s legacy. You could say the Fabulous Five were, indeed, fabulous. The Iowa jerseys of each of the Five were retired. In the state of Iowa, old-timers, Hawkeye fans and basketball purists all, romanticize the Fabulous Five era.
Later in 1956, Carl Cain, K.C. Jones and Bill Russell would play together on the United States team that won the basketball gold medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, defeating the Soviet Union 89-55 in the gold medal game. Iowan Chuck Darling, a Hawkeye in 1950-51-52 and the school’s first consensus All-American, was also on that Olympic team in Melbourne.
Basketball had planted its flag in the state of Iowa long before and the sport thrived in high schools, enough so that it led to the state becoming the country’s leader and centerpiece for girls’ basketball during an innovative period when the sport was played based on 6-on-6 rules. Not surprisingly, over time, basketball’s roots deepened their hold at both high schools and colleges in Iowa.
The Hawkeyes of 1955 and 1956 were largely responsible for much of the state’s fast-growing interest in basketball, which was why two years later the stunning news flash sweeping across Iowa that Bucky O’Connor was dead brought the state to its knees. He was driving to Waterloo for a speaking engagement when, at half past noon on April 22, 1958, about four miles south of Waterloo on Highway 218, he swerved to avoid two Guinea hens in the road and collided with a semi truck loaded with 32,000 pounds of sewer pipe. He died instantly. He was 44.
But that day in Iowa City 67 years ago was breathtaking for two Dorr kids because of the extraordinary effort and gracious generosity of Uncle Melvin, who gave Larry and me a Dorr family gift, an inspirational, unforgettable childhood memory. Truthfully, it’s one of those things that never leaves you.
What do I remember? Staring out the car window on the return to Des Moines into a night draped in darkness, watching the farms roll by. And a red-hot hit on the car radio, the song So Rare that somehow found its way into my soul and there it has stayed.
Even now, at age 85, I can close my eyes and hear Jimmy Dorsey’s alto saxophone, his orchestra and lyrics to "So Rare."
'You are perfection
You’re my idea
Of angels singing the Ave Maria'
How do you explain a memory of a day from very long ago flooding back and coming to life? I can’t. An echo from the past I guess. Someone once said that one day our life will flash before our eyes and to be sure it’s worth watching.
That day was a moment in time. Larry and I witnessed something special. It touched me then, and it touches me now. Is that day worth watching? Probably, thanks to your dad.
That day was. . .well, it was fabulous.
So sorry Larry isn’t with us to share his thoughts on this brief episode of Dorr history. Best to each of you.
--Dave Dorr
