HATFIELD — Basketball players growing up in Hatfield aspired to one day play on the parquet floor inside the historic Boston Garden.
For several boys on the Smith Academy teams in 1960 and 1961, getting to the court at the famed arena became a reality following back-to-back Western Massachusetts championships.
“Everybody’s dream was to play in the Boston Garden,” Marty Wilkes, a member of both title teams, said this week on the 60th anniversary of the historic time. “It was just a fantastic thing for the town to have a sports team that could go to Boston.”
Speaking from his home in Melbourne, Australia, and reflecting on the support received from the community while competing for the New England Schoolboy Championship, Wilkes gets choked up about how the teams, whose home court was at Town Hall, captivated residents.
“The whole town, if they could have gotten into Town Hall to watch our games, they would have,” Wilkes said.
On Thursday, March 18, at 6:30 p.m., he will be part of a panel discussion via Zoom, sponsored by the Hatfield Historical Society and Smith Academy, that will bring together some of the players and cheerleaders from 60 years ago, alongside a team manager and those who covered the games — David Byrne, a student writer for the Gazette, and Garry Brown, a longtime reporter for the Springfield Republican.
The idea for remembering the teams came from Wilkes, who last spring got in touch with Kathie Gow, the curator of the Hatfield Historical Museum. Wilkes said the town’s ongoing 350th anniversary motivated him to suggest the idea, as he isn’t sure any other sports team in town had done as well before or since. The “Fabulous Falcons,” as they were called, were a real-life counterpart to the small-town, 1950s Indiana team depicted in the film “Hoosiers.”
“This is too good an opportunity to miss to not promote our basketball team,” Wilkes said.
Gow, who will host the panel, said even though the championships are relatively recent history for a town that dates back to 1670, it is an appropriate topic.
“Our mission is to tell the history of Hatfield from the beginning of the town, even from before the beginning of the town, to the present,” Gow said.
The underdog aspects of the team makes the history all the more compelling. “I think this will have wide appeal,” Gow said.
Rob Wilson, vice president of the society and moderator of the panel, appreciates that the period will be brought alive by those who experienced the joy the teams brought.
“This is a significant thing in Hatfield history,” Wilson said, noting that some of the schools Smith Academy defeated on their way to the titles were 10 times the size. “Basketball teams over the years have been celebrated in town, and have been a big part of town pride.”
That was demonstrated when the Western Massachusetts championship on the campus of Springfield College in 1961 saw 1,500 tickets sold to Hatfield’s contingent.
Kathy Godek was a student at Smith Academy at the time and her brother played on the teams. She remembers that Tuesdays and Fridays were basketball nights, and how one basket at Town Hall was attached to the balcony and the other to the stage.
“People were lining up an hour or two outside the door of the Town Hall to get a seat on the three rows of bleachers on either side of the auditorium gym,” Godek said.
Godek, who is creating a memory book as part of the anniversary commemoration, said she is finding that many people still fondly remember the team. The memories include standing outside in the cold to get a seat in the Town Hall and eating at Russell’s, a small sandwich shop in West Hatfield where spectators would gather after the games.
The star of the teams was the late Bob “Jingles” Kovalski, who later went on to lead Providence College’s NIT basketball championship team before returning to the area to direct Greenfield’s Honor Court.
A bench player in 1960, Wilkes said he always tried to pass the ball to Kovalski, ensuring easy scores close to the rim from the 6-foot-7-inch player.
While not a starter, Wilkes “hardened” then team captain Ken Kulesza during practice. “We eked out the wins because they had that extra toughness,” Wilkes said.
In 1961, Wilkes played point guard as a starter alongside Charlie Symanski.
What made the runs impressive was that fewer than 60 boys were at the school in Grades 7 to 12 at the time. “What they did really was a remarkable feat,” Wilson said.
Wilkes attributes the success to so many of the boys playing basketball at the old middle school, during recess, lunchtime, after school and on weekends.
Gow and Meg Baker, collections assistant at the museum, are also putting together a virtual exhibit on its website with images from the collection and recent donations that will show some of the artifacts, including the trophies displayed in cases at the school, a belt buckle given to members, a jacket Wilkes wore, a cheerleader’s uniform, programs from the games, and scrapbooks filled with articles and photos from coverage in both the Gazette and the Republican.
Gow said participants on the Zoom call will be capped at 100, but the event will be recorded and later posted online so people can listen to the recollections.
To sign up for the program, hosted on Zoom, send an email to Historical Society Program Chair Marion Abrams at marionabrams@comcast.net.
Being in Boston those years, Wilkes said he watched the Celtics play and also happened to ride in the elevator with their head coach, Red Auerbach.
“It blew us away it was such a great experience,” he said, adding that “I can’t imagine a better, wonderful group to play with than those fellows.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
