By George Belden

Special Contributor to Portage Sports

March 25.

In 2026, that means it’s just two days until the opening of the high school baseball season.

But exactly 50 years ago, on March 25, 1976, the crack of the bat was the last thing on the minds of every single soul in the little town of Windham.

That’s because, for the first time in their 49-year basketball history, the Windham Bombers were headed to the Final Four. In an era with only three divisions, just 12 teams in the entire state were making that trip to Columbus.

They were led by a 23-year-old rookie coach, Marty Hill.

Hiram College President Elmer Jagow’s signature on Marty’s diploma had barely dried, and his sole head-coaching experience was Windham’s fifth- and sixth-grade team.

He inherited a squad which had won the Portage County League championship for coach Ron Kamada the year before. Unfortunately, four of the five starters had graduated, leaving Hill to rebuild as best he could.

What remained, however, was a squad with plenty of height in players like Larry and Dave Jett, Dave Apthorpe, Jeff Stanley and Baxter Jones.

Except that Baxter Jones had a broken leg. He wouldn’t be available for a good part of the season.

Complementing the big boys were the two smallest players on the court, Ron McCleary and Sanford Turner, both of whom were so sneaky fast that they could steal a ball and score a layup before their opponent even knew the ball was gone.

New coaches need a bit of time to figure out the best combination of players to put on the court, and by the time Hill knew what talents worked well together, the Bombers were mired deep in the PCL standings with a 3-3 record.

Knowing that Baxter Jones would return after Christmas vacation inspired the Bombers, as they reeled off four wins, including their first overtime victory. The stage was set for Jones, who would one day become just the second First Team All-Ohio player in school history, to take the team to the next level.

They lost only one regular-season game the rest of the year, playing for a co-championship with Waterloo to end the season, in a game so eagerly anticipated that WKNT-FM signed on to broadcast the game all over Northeast Ohio.

What they got to witness was one of the greatest one-man shows in Bomber history, as Larry Jett scored 16 points in 6 minutes to edge the Vikings 61-59.

Marty Hill had mustered his troops to a league title that no one had anticipated, earning PCL Coach of the Year honors.

It was time to head out on the state tournament trail.

Up first were the Bristol Panthers, who one day, 40 years in the future, would join Windham in a new league, the Northeastern Athletic Conference.

The Bombers were coming off a two-week layoff, but if there was any rust on them, canning 14 of their first 19 shots soon disproved that, leading to a 78-51 victory.

Next up, a week later, were the Farmington Indians, representing a school which would one day be absorbed into Bristol High School. Farmington had drawn a higher seed than league champion Windham, a fact that did not sit well with the Bombers, who jumped out to a 24-8 lead in what looked like a replay of the Bristol game.

It wasn’t. With 2 minutes left, the Indians had pulled within two points, and Coach Hill went into a four-corner stall that was contrary to his mile-a-minute style. This forced Farmington to foul continuously, and sinking 6-of-8 charity shot earned Windham a scary 82-78 win.

Sectional title in hand, the Bombers headed off to the Canton Fieldhouse, a familiar but still daunting destination, for the sixth year in a row.

Their first opponent, Crestview, was coached by Rod Truman, who knew Windham well, having played an entire career of games against them as a Southeast Pirate.

Knowing Windham’s reputation, then, why did Truman offer one of the most controversial bulletin board quotes ever about an opposing coach?

“It’s a big step from coaching 6th grade to the district tournament in one year.”

He was about to find out that Coach Hill had a very long stride.

Truman made the mistake of switching to a zone defense in the second half of a very close game, and “sixth-grade coach” Marty Hill saw his opening. Moving Dave Apthorpe out to the wing, the towering sophomore launched six jumpers that barely grazed the nylon on his way to a 23-point performance.

The 80-72 win earned them the right to face undefeated Lordstown, possibly the best small-school team in Ohio that year. And the Red Devils had a grudge against Windham High School.

Those two teams had met in the same place last year, when Ron Kamada rallied his troops from a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter to demolish Lordstown’s hopes for a regional berth.

That was the very last game that the Red Devils had lost, and they returned four of the five starters — four kids with bitter memories and a thirst for revenge.

Lordstown compensated for a lack of height with breathtaking aggression, and Hill counseled his boys to hold the ball tight and let Lordstown hack at them. By the end of the game, the Red Devils’ coach had to tell his boys to back off, since one of their best players had already fouled out and two more were hanging on by a thread.

A 70-62 win over that undefeated team earned the Bombers a trip back to Canton the next week, the third year in a row that Windham made an appearance in the regional tourney.

Their opponent would be Hillsdale, out of Ashland County, a school, which in 2024, would knock the arguably greatest Windham football team out of the 50th Ohio state high school playoffs.

The Falcons brought in a better record than the Bombers, and for most of the game, showed why, forcing Windham into an inconceivable 20 turnovers. But Larry Jett nailed an impossible 11 straight shots, a desperate Hillsdale team sent the Bombers to the foul line 11 times without a miss, and Windham found themselves in the Elite Eight with a 76-67 victory.

The next game, against Monroeville, was as tight as a game should be at this point in the season.

With 90 seconds left and the Eagles leading by one point, disaster struck. Point guard Ron McCleary, the quarterback of the Bombers, sprained his ankle. His replacement was Sanford Turner, the shortest player in Portage County at 5-foot-5, if he was measured standing on his tip-toes.

Hill wanted Turner to bring the ball up the floor and feed one of the Jett boys or Baxter Jones under the hoop. Instead, Sanford produced one of the finest moments in schoolboy basketball history.

In an era before the 3-point shot was even a dream, Turner pulled up 25 feet from the basket, and without a moment’s hesitation launched a slowly rotating sphere that hung in the Canton Fieldhouse lights for an eternity — and then passed through the cords with a whisper that froze the hearts of the Eagles.

After the game, Turner told a reporter, “The only way the ball can go in is if you shoot it.”

Meanwhile, a large number of Windham fans were nearly in need of CPR because of the coolness of the diminutive Turner. Windham, for the first time in its basketball history, was going to the Final Four.

The week before the tournament saw every aspect of the town involved in the near hysteria.

Father Dominic, of St. Michael’s Church, asked his parishioners to include the Bombers in their nightly prayers.

Bombers fans bought 2,100 tickets, almost the entire population of the town. In a wonderful gesture of friendship, the Garrettsville police offered to patrol the town so that the Windham cops could go to the game.

The game was almost storybook.

It would feature a 24-year-old rookie coach — 24, because Marty had a birthday the week before — against veteran Charlie Huggins and his Indian Valley South team from Gnadenhutten. Charlie had won state championships with two schools, Strasburg and Indian Valley South, and he had taken his squads to the Final Four in four of the last five seasons.

The Rebels were so talented that sitting at the end of the bench, seldom playing, was Charlie’s own son Larry, who would go on to start four consecutive seasons for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Coach Hill would send out a starting lineup of Larry Jett, Dave Jett, Baxter Jones, Ron McCleary and Jeff Stanley against a team that was known to press for 40 minutes.

The high point of the game for Windham was a 2-0 lead. They savored it  for all of 57 seconds. Then the IVS press, and the most accurate shooting Windham had faced all season, kicked in.

The Bombers were called for four traveling penalties in the first quarter. Windham was behind only 33-26 at the half, but the Rebels reeled off 16 consecutive points to open the third stanza, and slowly the 13,500 fans who filled St. John Arena began to filter out, long before the 76-40 final score registered.

Marty Hill made sure every one of his players got into the game, so they would have a story to tell their kids and grandkids about playing in the Final Four.

Coach Hill took the blame for the loss, and praised his foe without bitterness.

“We haven’t seen a press like that all year. Charlie has 12 players who can do things we just weren’t ready for.”

The Record-Courier had not deemed the Bombers worthy of a full sentence in their preseason PCL predictions, but this team had done things that in retrospect seem impossible.

That was the magic of Marty Hill.

He eventually coached 47 years of Windham boys, earning a spot in the Ohio Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame.

His style of basketball is called “Bomber Ball” all over the state.

Seven players on that 1975-76 team have been selected for the Windham High School Athletic Hall of Fame individually.

However, they all are members, because in January of this year, the entire squad, right down to the managers and ball boys, was inducted into the Hall as one unforgettable team.

Marty Hill took two more teams to the Final Four, in 1982 and 2006.

But there always has to be a first one.

Fifty years have passed, but it still seems like yesterday that these boys and their rookie coach dazzled Portage County and brought pride to a tiny town where basketball is still like a religion.

And where fifth and sixth graders still dream of playing in a Windham Bombers uniform on Marty Hill Court.