’68 Monson champs honored by alumni

MONSON – It happened 40 years ago, but to the former Monson Academy basketball players involved, it was like yesterday.

Those players, who took home the 1968 Class S state basketball title and brought recognition to their small school, which has since closed, gathered Saturday night to reminisce and be honored by their classmates during the annual Monson Academy Alumni Association meeting.

Eight of the nine Monson Slaters players, including Stuart Anderson of California, three cheerleaders and Coach Gary Webb of Stonington, were feted during the meeting.

According to Webb, the team played the last game in the championship with Casco and won 65-57, which was no small feat. Casco at the time had a 23-0 record and the players averaged 92 points a game, he said. In comparison, Monson Academy players averaged 65 points a game, Webb said.

“What a storied history this town has in basketball,” Webb told the crowd, which filled the same gymnasium where the team had practiced. “You people had some talent coming out of this small school.”

As to the team he coached, Webb recognized Buddy Leavitt as the best player he ever coached; Greg Lander, who he said ran the team, as well as Roy Taylor, Dicky Woodard, Jeff Greenleaf, Steve Bray, Eddie Kronholm and Anderson. Kronholm and Ronnie Harris, the team manager, were absent.

Also recognized were those 1968 cheerleaders who attended: Sandy Tomlin, Vikki Ryder, Julie Anderson and Gina Reed.

Anderson, who briefly spoke Saturday, said Webb was an “important person to all of us and to the town.”

Organizers of the association meeting presented each of the team members, cheerleaders and the coach with a CD of the 1968 basketball game broadcast.

“I don’t know why we won,” Webb said during the meeting. “It was just meant to be.”

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