Book details Gildford's 1960 basketball championship

Frank Spragg was never much of a basketball player when he played at Belgrade High School, but like most Montanans, he developed a lifelong affection of the sport.

Spragg was good at writing, though, and enjoyed it very much. He had done some writing for pleasure.

Spragg became fascinated with the life of Jim Owens, a Wibaux player he competed against and found out that he went on to coach Holy Rosary High School in Bozeman to the state Class C championship in 1961. A friend said he would send him a copy of a Bozeman Daily Chronicle clip about the season.

Instead, the story was about the 1960 season, and told how Holy Rosary had lost the state championship to a team from a community he never heard of - Gildford High School on the Hi-Line.

The team won the championship despite the fact its gym burned down and it had to played all of its games on the road. And, it had lost its accreditation because the school was so small.

The intrigue about Gildford led him to do more research and lots of interviews that led to his recently published book "Two Moments of Glory," which details the the 1960 Class C season and the 1961 season, in which Holy Rosary won the championship.

Spragg is in Havre this week and was at the Havre-Hill County Library Wednesday night addressing a crowd, some of whom remembered the championship season.

He told stories of his research and interviews he conducted in preparing the book. He talked to all kinds of people in Gildford and other Hi-Line towns, and told the stories of their troubles.

"I tried to get into what Gildford is all about," he said, including the people, culture, politics and "the real characters," he meet along the way.

The town was founded in 1910 during the Homestead boom.

The book details the town's long decline.

The school was the main industry in the town, he said.

Local residents bitterly fought any efforts to close the school and merge with neighboring Hi-Line communities, though in stages, that's what happened.

An important part of Class C basketball is the story about small-town gyms.

Gildford wasn't the only school with gym problems, he said. In Manhattan, the school, to save money,built a combined gymnasium and auditorium.

One side of the gymnasium could be cranked up so there was a stage, he said. Then the stage could be lowered for basketball.

Then, an earthquake hit the town and buckled the floor.

When players went in for a layup, the gym floor was on a decline.

"Manhattan was very glad when they got a new gym," he said.