Bob Lutz: The City League's best (21-30)
OK, now it’s getting serious. My personal list of Top 50 City League players that I’ve seen (and I started going to City League games with my dad in 1962 when I was barely more than a toddler), is down to the final 30.
Can you feel the tension? Yeah, neither can I.Former Wichita North forward Brandon Polk played two seasons at Butler. He is No. 28 on my list of Top 50 City League basketball players.But I can feel something, and it’s most likely fun. Putting this list together, a list that is sure to be flawed in the eyes of some of its beholders, has been a trip down Memory Lane for me. A little aside here: When I’m in a strange city, I always make an attempt to find a street named Memory Lane. It’s strange to be on a Memory Lane in a strange city where you have no memories.
OK, back to the basketball list. I fell in love with City League basketball when I was a kid growing up in Derby. The Panthers didn’t have many great teams during my youth, so when I wanted to see the best players I came into Wichita, most of the time with my sports-junkie father, Ray. It was a bonding experience for father and son, but also a supreme basketball experience for both of us.
It’s with that background – as well as years of writing about CL hoops as a journalist at The Eagle – that I give you this list. What is sports, after all, without lists?
Here we go, with Nos. 21-30. In reverse order, of course.
30) Bob Love, North – This guy could really play. He could do a little bit of everything and a lot of quite a bit. I can’t think of a better complimentary sentence. Love’s career concluded in 1969.
29) Jonathan Young, East – Young was freakish athletically, a tremendous player during an underrated era of City League basketball. He’s a 1973 graduate, like me.
28) Brandon Polk, North – Polk and East’s Taj Gray – and their teams – played one of the most memorable Class 6A state tournament games I can remember in 2002. Wow, that was almost nine years ago. They later went to Redlands (Okla.) Community College to play for Steve Eck for a couple of years.
27) Manny Dies, South – You’re going to see some names of guys who played for Steve Eck at South on this list. After all, the Titans were 227-15 during Eck’s 10-year tenure from 1987-96. Dies dominated inside for the Titans from 1992-95.
26) Eddie Smith, South – Boy, South has had a lot of good players over the years, but especially during the Bill Himebaugh and Eck eras. Smith, though, played his final two seasons for Greg Guice and more than held his own with McDonald’s All-Americans Greg Dreiling and Aubrey Sherrod.
25) Mike Boushka, Kapaun Mount Carmel – If I did a Top 50 football list (maybe next year), Boushka would be near the top. But he obviously was no slouch as a basketball player, either. Makes sense since his dad, Dick, was an Olympian during his playing career at St. Louis University.
24) Terry Benton, East – What a fantastic rebounder. Next to Xavier McDaniel and perhaps Bob Elmore, Benton is among Wichita State’s best all-time rebounders. He battled Southeast’s Randy Canfield during his high school career, which ended in 1968, in what was a classic big-man rivalry.
23) Karl Papke, West – Here’s this spindly guy with curly brown hair and glasses who looked like he should be president of the Future Farmers of America. But Papke was a great basketball player, one of the most underrated in City League history. At 6-foot-5, he was on par athletically with the other top players of his time, including Antoine Carr and Ricky Ross.
22) Kent Hill, West – Back to back Pioneers dot the list. Hill was a big man who could play smaller when he needed to. He was the best player to play in the City League during the bulk of the 1980s.
21) B.J. Williams, South – Another Eck player. Another really fine player. Williams was probably Eck’s tallest player and he was often unstoppable in the paint at 6-9.
This story was originally published February 8, 2012 at 1:27 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: The City League's best (21-30)."