Sollars remains sold on State B

The sight of Gonzaga’s Derek Raivio and David Pendergraft signing autographs at the Arena this weekend was happy proof that, yes, this town was big enough for both the State B and the West Coast Conference Tournament.

But kids today!

If you’re a B schooler – especially a B scholar – why would you value those two signatures when you could have had a Jim Sollars?

Don’t pretend you don’t know. He played with the Tenino Tower!

Sure, Raivio and Pendo play with Adam Morrison, but he’s no Gordy Harris. Well, OK, he is so.

But the Tower was the Ammo of his day and his milieu, and in those days it didn’t seem nearly as far removed as the B of today is from the ESPN-style hubbub happening at McCarthey Athletic Center.

But it didn’t seem so far to Sollars this weekend.

Finishing his 20th year coaching the women at the University of Portland, Sollars bunked his team at the Ridpath Hotel – the same place he stayed as the starting point guard for the Tenino Beavers in the 1961 State B.

“We had three rooms,” Sollars remembered. “Five players stayed in one room, five in another and the coaches and their wives stayed in the third room. We did a great job with water balloons blasting people on the street until we got caught.

“We came here and had the time of our lives. It was the most wonderful athletic experience of my life, without a doubt.”

This is the difference between an athletic life viewed through the prism of 45 years and the perspective of a kid whose biggest thrill is his next one. Sollars has taken teams to four NCAA tournaments, but he insists it was never got more fun than it did at the B.

And he was reminded of it all at the WCC women’s semifinals Saturday afternoon when he was shown a program from the ‘61 State B. There in the grainy Tenino team picture was an 18-year-old Sollars with what appears to be jet black hair – the opposite, in any case, of his current snow-capped look.

“Look at that!” marveled his wife, Pam.

“Handsome devil,” said Sollars.

Here’s how long ago that was: Gonzaga’s old Kennel hadn’t yet been built or even imagined, never mind this pocket palace they play in now.

The Spokane Coliseum, home to the B’s but razed to rubble a decade ago, was only seven years old.

“They had these little metal portable showers,” Sollars laughed. “Gordon Harris was so tall that when he showered, his head would stick up over the top and to wash his hair he had to stick his butt out of the shower door. We actually took pictures of that.”

We weren’t kidding about Harris being the Morrison of his little corner of basketball. At 6-foot-10 he was the first real giant the B had seen, and his tournament as a senior in 1963 – a 41-point average in four games and 54 against Davenport – remains in the record book.

But in 1961 he was not yet the Tenino Tower.

“We were so small – our center was only 5-11,” Sollars said. “Right before the district tournament, one of our juniors broke his leg and they moved Gordy up from the JVs. I don’t know if he even scored a point.”

Actually, he scored 19 that tournament and the Beavers beat Kittitas for fifth place – the first confrontation of Harris and Byron Beck, who overcame the biggest B odds of all. He had a 10-year career with the Denver Nuggets, who eventually retired his jersey.

Harris played three years at Washington and left with a master’s degree in engineering.

It is harder than ever to bridge that canyon between the B and the big time – although it still happens.

No Zags fan with any credibility forgets that during that seminal run to the Elite Eight in 1999, major minutes were played by a B alum named Ryan Floyd.

That run sent an electric charge through this city – but it still didn’t shut it completely down the way a B school’s trip to Spokane still can.

“In 1980 at the Final Four, they had some great legends of coaching on a little panel,” Sollars recalled. “They asked the same question of all of them – the moment that most impacted their career. Hank Iba’s was the Olympic victory, Pete Newell’s was the national championship in 1959.

“But John Wooden said the most impactful moment of his career was when he was a senior in high school, playing for the state championship, and he missed a one-and-one to lose the game. Isn’t that amazing?”

Today, ESPN’s cameras are at Gonzaga. But the memories won’t be any bigger than the ones made last night just 14 blocks away.