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Lucas helps fire up Mohawks

Basketball legend Jerry Lucas talks Monday, March 15, 2010 with the Madison girls and boys basketball team in Madison Township, Butler County, Ohio. The Girls will be traveling to Columbus on Thursday in the State semi finals tournaments. The boys will play Wednesday in Kettering at the regional semifinals.

Staff photo by Gary Stelzer Basketball legend Jerry Lucas talks Monday, March 15, 2010 with the Madison girls and boys basketball team in Madison Township, Butler County, Ohio. The Girls will be traveling to Columbus on Thursday in the State semi finals tournaments. The boys will play Wednesday in Kettering at the regional semifinals.

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By Rick McCrabb, Staff Writer Updated 8:15 AM Tuesday, March 16, 2010

MADISON TWP. — If the Madison boys and girls basketball teams aren’t good enough — they’re a combined 50-0 — they now have Middie Magic on their sides.

Jerry Lucas, who led the Middletown High School boys basketball team to 76 straight victories and back-to-back Class A state titles, made an impromptu appearance Monday, March 15 between practices.

Lucas was in town Monday visiting friends — Don “Woody” Withrow and J.B. Deaton — and he’s teaching a memorization class tonight, March 16 at Bethany United Methodist Church on Cincinnati-Dayton Road Liberty Twp.

After posing for a picture with the boys team — only 6-foot-9 senior Justin Brunswick was taller — Lucas stood before the players on both teams and talked about his high school, college, Olympic and professional basketball championships.

Lucas was the first player to accomplish this feat.

“He’s done it all,” Jeff Smith, the boys coach, told the players. “Now he wants to help the Mohawks.”

Lucas called all his championships “great fun” and said he’d remember them forever. Lucas said the 1960 NCAA Championship team from Ohio State recently celebrated its 50-year reunion.

“You never forget about winning,” he said.

When asked to name his favorite teammate, Lucas couldn’t name one. He called the Buckeyes “a phenomenal team” that possessed a 3.5 accumulative grade point average with “great, unselfish people.”

He called the gold medal from the Rome Olympics his most satisfying basketball accomplishment. That’s because he knew there was only one chance to play in the Olympics, which, at the time, were reserved for amateurs.

He told the Mohawks to enjoy their postseason ride because it’s the “part of your life you will remember forever.”

He posed for a team picture with the girls, then put on his OSU jacket and walked out of the gym.

Smith said it was great to have someone of Lucas’ “magnitude” speak to the Mohawks.

John Rossi Jr., girls coach, said the players, who didn’t ask many questions, probably were “star-struck” after they were told about Lucas’ basketball accomplishments.

One player who knew Lucas was Brittany Shields, whose father, David, graduated from Middletown. She said listening to Lucas talk about his championships “fired up” the players.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.