Champs by Crum

In Allentown, Pa. the natives said it in the old Pennsylvania Dutch way: "It wonders [mystifies] me." In the city's only public high school, a dozen drum majorettes strutted up & down the gym. The 40-piece school band blared away. Allentown's basketball team, unconquered in three years, was in step as usual: down went rival Weatherly, 62-33.

So long as Allentown kept marching (it had won 60 straight), there was no argument about which of the 16,000 high-school teams was the nation's best. Coach Jay Birney Crum's champions were no accident; he had simply brought collegiate production-line tactics down to the high-school level.

"I Get "em Younger." Step A was organizing a farm system. Says Birney Crum: "If you start a boy from scratch in high school, he's ready to graduate just about the time he's learning to play. . . . I get 'em younger." He controls basketball in the city's seven elementary schools, where Crum-trained coaches spot likely kids. Coach Crum is also director of Allentown's 17 summer playgrounds, where basketball courts are standard equipment. "Any time I come across a promising stringbean," says he, "I just naturally bring him along."

By the time a Crum protege reaches Allentown High, he should know the coach's system of "give-and-go" and "flooding the center-lane." Crum shows motion pictures to illustrate new plays, takes his players to Philadelphia to watch topnotch college teams. Before every game, a scout (who works at it full time) reports on the rival team's good & bad points. Last season 35,000 fans crammed into Allentown's gym to watch Crum's team go.

At 48, Jay Birney Crum is the most esteemed of Allentown's 96,904 citizens. When his boys copped the Pennsylvania state basketball championship two years ago, the city gave him a $1,000 war bond and a watch. His gift for repeating last year: a new car.

Prize protege on this season's squad is ham-fisted Center Bill Wanish, who can hold a basketball in each hand palms down. In last week's game, Bill made 15 points. His No. 1 helper is Negro Elmo Jackson (ten points), a lightning-fast forward. Both Wanish and Jackson were regulars on Allentown's tricky T-formation football team, also coached by Crum, which has also won the Pennsylvania state championship for the past two years.

In the college basketball race, one team led all the rest past the halfway mark. Top-rated Kentucky last week trampled a good Notre Dame team 60-to-30, for its 20th win. Kentucky's five, who are tall, speedy and accurate, had lost only once--to Oklahoma A. & M. Also among the nation's best: unbeaten Seton Hall (South Orange, N. J.), Alabama and West Virginia; firehouse Rhode Island State (won 11; lost 1); Oregon State (19-2). Illinois' Whiz Kids (TIME, Dec. 23), a flop at the season's start, were now in the running with Wisconsin and Michigan for the Big Nine title.

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