Loramie Basketball - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.


Loramie Basketball

Strangely, I had a dream recently about the 1963-64 Loramie Redskin basketball team; why I have no idea! When waking up the next morning, I recalled the dream but only could come up with the names of 4 of the 5 senior starters, Mel Boerger (#50 above, my 1st cousin & my dad’s Godson), Nelson Barhorst (#45 above & distant cousin), Ed Sanders (#55 above & brother to classmate friend) and Dave Borchers (distant cousin - number not shown). So after a Google search to find the 5th starter, what came up from the Nov. 30, 1963 issue of the Lima News is shown below. Like my dream, it’s all garbled so the reader is inclined to pay to access the full article, but the name of the forgotten player was buried in the scrambled mess :­ John Rethman (#43 above & a neighbor). The team blew away Buckland early in that season 104-60. Dave Borchers scored 38. Note that a few years later, Buckland was consolidated into Wapakoneta HS. This game occurred over 52 years ago, which means the Seniors on the team will be celebrating their 70th birthday this year! Thanks to my cousin Mel, my sister Lucy and Jim Rosengarten, the curator of the Ft. Loramie Historical Association, for the photos and the stats (Mel sent the cheerleader photos; unfortunately they weren’t in my dream!)

Fort Loramie Goes 4Crazy' FORT The Buck- Totals land Bucks "took it on theBuckIand 42 20 104 22 14 17 Fort Loramie 31 23 26 nose" here Friday night Indian Lake Garners Win 3 were downed by the Fort Lora- mie Redskins, 104-60. Dave Borchers shoxved the Raskins trie path to victory as dumped in 38 points, more double the total of any- orft else in the game. Buckland Mix Place Tom Place Bob Fry Tod Miller Harold Ettly David Hughes Eisass totals Fort Loramie Sanders Ernst Dave Borchers John Turner Mel Boerger Dick Schwartz Nelson Barhorst Mike Bollenbacher John Rethman Steve Monnin Jay Darst GFT 066 0 7 0 1 6 1 2 7 19 0 0 4 10 1 0 00 1 0 0 00 19 16 54 GFT 4 2 0 1 1 3 1 3 15 0 8 0 4 0 0 1 3 0 2 1 7 0 2 0 6 2 32 

As indicated in the stats below, under Coach Kremer's guidance, that ’63-’64 team went on to win the SCL (not SCAL!) with a 21-3 record. They were great role models for us younger players coming up in the system. Plus with all my personal connections to the team, it was especially fun to watch them play and do so well. Growing up with these guys meant playing many barnyard basketball games together that would always be physically challenging, especially since I was a few years younger, but that rough and tumble play really helped me to eventually become a better basketball player.

Happy 70th Birthday to the seniors from one of the best teams in Loramie history.

(click on the pictures to enlarge)