The Logan 7th Ward Church had an excellent basketball program. They had been the Northern Utah Champions for some seven straight years. Their coach looked at my 6‘2: height and said “Do you play basketball?” I said yes and was given a suit immediately. Mutual class on Tuesday; Basketball practice on Wednesday; games played Friday and sometimes Saturday kept most of the evenings filled. I made the first squad and formed some new friends. They consisted of short, sharp shooting Stemmy Hull, a forward; John Broberg big burly 6’6”: at the center; two brothers, Allan and Stan Scoles for the fast, tall guards. On the other squads I had been a center but on this one I became forward.
We played in addition to our church stake teams other ward and commercial teams in Cache valley. Because we were considered a good team we were always being challenged by some team that thought they could defeat us. We remained undefeated as of the middle of March. We were Logan Stake champions. We were going to the LDS church championship tournament in Salt Lake City.
One week before we were to go to the tournament we lost our coach. The company that employed him moved him to somewhere in Louisiana. We left for Salt Lake without a coach or without supervision. We thought that we were good enough without a coach. We had won too many consecutive games. We had the big head.
Our first tournament encounter of all things, was the Ogden 8th Ward team. This was a team that, when I had played with the Ogden 21st ward, had always beaten us. They were a good team and had a good coach. We, now, did not have a coach. But we knew we could beat the Ogden 8th. We had beaten everyone; why not the Ogden 8th. We could easily have been called over confident. In the first half of the game we built a rather pleasing lead. At halftime, without a coach, we talked about how good we were. What we should have talked about was how we were going to keep that lead.
Coming out for the second half I was greeted by two of the Ogden 12th Streeters; Doxey Stone and Jack Hilton of the Ogden 21st. They had come to Salt Lake to watch their friend Charley Ward play.
The second half started. In almost no time that bunch from Ogden 8th decreased our lead to a mere two points. We called time out and without a couch we all talked about what to do. The Ogden 8th played slow deliberate ball and before we knew we were behind. We tried to get better organized; we couldn’t do it. We lost a game we should have won. Yes we found out that we were not as we thought. It was then that we understood what the value of a good coach is. Also the loss was a good lesson on over confidence. Never in all of life underrate your competitor. This is true not only in sports but in all of life’s activities. The selling game is particularly one to watch over confidence. Before you know it your competitor will walk away with the order while you are patting yourself on the back.