Dave Krider looks back at 60 years of Indiana high school basketball

The Golden Era Continued: Jimmy Rayl, Rick Mount, and George McGinnis

One of my first years at the Elkhart Truth I wrote a column about Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) from Power Memorial in New York City. I still have his high school picture in my file. In later years as a freelancer I wrote the first national stories about Magic Johnson and Patrick Ewing.

Working for daily newspapers in northern Indiana, I was able to see — either in person or on TV — many of the top basketball players since 1961.

But while I was still in college, I fell in love with the game of Jimmy Rayl, the Splendid Splinter from Kokomo. Jimmy was 6-foot-2 and 145 pounds — soaking wet. He always had the "green light" and often cut loose with shots from close to half court. It seemed like they soared to the rafters and then hit nothing but net. He was the most spectacular player I ever saw. Jimmy was Mr. Basketball and winner of the coveted Trester Award for mental attitude in 1959.

Little did I know that when he came to Indiana University, I would be a junior basketball manager and become a friend. One Saturday morning the two of us went to the gym and shot for an hour or two. It was both embarrassing and a fond memory for me because Jimmy rarely missed anything and I didn't hit much of anything.

He'll always be my favorite player and he cemented our relationship when he and mutual friend Dennis Kasey, a sportscaster from Indianapolis, helped me with a book signing in Indianapolis during the week I was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. We were laughing and telling stories for several hours and the uproar in a normally quiet Borders book store helped me sell 17 books — considered very good for a walk-on.

Jimmy and New Castle's Ray Pavy hooked up in probably the state's most famous regular-season game. They combined for an even 100 points, with Pavy netting 51 and Rayl 49. New Castle won the game 92-81. Rayl once made an astounding 532 consecutive free throws while practicing in a church gym.

In his senior year, Jimmy landed on the side of the scorer's bench and hurt his eye during a game against Muncie Central. He received several stitches and a patch that covered his swollen eye so fully he barely could see. All he did when he returned to the game was to drill four or five straight shots and make the decisive free throws in a 79-77 win over the No. 1, previously-unbeaten Bearcats. He finished with 45 points. 

The next day Indianapolis News sportswriter Corky Lamm came up with my all-time favorite description when he wrote, "Sickly, spindly Jimmy Rayl caught a Bearcat by the tail; wouldn't let him out alive; shot him dead with 45."

Long-time Purdue University assistant coach Bob King once told me that Rayl "has to be one of the best shooters and probably had the best range of any shooter I ever have seen."

He set many records without benefit of the 3-point basket and held the Big Ten record with a 56-point game before Rick Mount came along with a 61-point explosion for Purdue. Had Jimmy and Rick played in the 3-point era, their records probably would be untouchable today.

Mount, playing for small-town Lebanon, was Mr. Basketball in 1966. He was the first high school player from a team sport to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He told me that the SI photographer followed him everywhere — almost even into the bathroom — and had to search a long time to find a barn (even though he did not live on a farm) for the background of the cover picture.

You can take your choice — Rayl or Mount — but they are the two best shooters Indiana has ever produced and possibly the two best in the entire nation.

Rick "The Rocket" used to shoot 500 shots a day and still did the last time we talked because he runs basketball camps every summer and he reasons — correctly — that he has to retain his ability to demonstrate for younger players.

Mount learned how to shoot by firing tennis balls into a bottomless cashew can nailed to his porch. His fifth grade games drew crowds of close to 1,000 and some fans came from as far away as 100 miles to watch this rising young phenom.

One night in high school he picked up his date and headed for a movie. However, he spotted some out-of-town players in a pick-up game at a local park and his passion for competition took over.

He told his date, "You won't believe what I'm going to do, but I'm going to take you home." In his own way, the story did have a happy ending: "She slammed the door on me (at her house) and I never had another date with her," he said. "I went back and played for two hours."

The Fourth of July Carnival in Lebanon is one of my favorite stories. Mount started shooting free throws at two shots for $1. The reward was a teddy bear. Noting his success, fathers began feeding him money and he reciprocated by winning teddy bears for their daughters. He finally cleaned the carnival operator out (28 teddy bears in 45 minutes) and looking down the midway all he could see was little girls carrying teddy bears under their arms.

The carnival worker was so impressed that he asked Mount to go on the road with him and "win a lot of money."

Years later Mount was running a girls basketball camp and a mother told him that she had received one of his teddy bears as a youngster.

In 1969 George McGinnis, a powerful forward from Indianapolis Washington, held center stage as Mr. Basketball. McGinnis was also an All-American football player and is probably the best two-sport athlete ever produced in the Hoosier state.

He and Steve Downing formed a formidable inside threat and paced Washington to a state championship during a year in which teams entering the Final Four had combined for just one defeat. Growing up, McGinnis and his buddies had spent many summer nights in the quiet, empty parking lot at Butler Fieldhouse sitting in their car and taking turns "broadcasting" their future state-title game.

Hoosier Basketball Magazine publisher Garry Donna told me that he once saw McGinnis cut so hard that his tennis shoe literally exploded. He called him "the most skilled power player I've ever seen."

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