Migration
From the Stars and Stripes archivesOld-timers bring back memories of past Air Force basketball play
Stars and Stripes
September 14, 1965
North Carolina coach Dean Smith, during the 1965 USAFE basketball school at Wiesbaden. (Lloyd Borguss/Stars and Stripes)
North Carolina coach Dean Smith, during the 1965 USAFE basketball school at Wiesbaden. (Lloyd Borguss/Stars and Stripes)
North Carolina coach Dean Smith, during the 1965 USAFE basketball school at Wiesbaden. (Lloyd Borguss/Stars and Stripes)
Reminiscing about the early days in USAFE sports are, from left, Al Bianco, USAFE athletic director, who leaves for a new assignment in the U.S. next week after 16 years in Germany; Tony Travato, Bremerhaven; Bob Wolf, Wiesbaden; Herb Hartwig, USAFE Athletic Office; Doc Garman, Ramstein; Dean Smith, formerly of Furstenfeldbruck but now coaching the University of North Carolina; and Bob Spear, ex-Rhine-Main and Chateauroux mentor who now coaches the Air Force Academy. (Lloyd Borguss/Stars and Stripes)
U.S. Air Force Academy coach Bob Spear. (Lloyd Borguss/Stars and Stripes)
WIESBADEN, Germany — Odds and ends from the 1965 USAFE basketball coaches and officials clinic ...
USAFE sports chief Al Bianco opened the five-day school by revealing he arrived here exactly 16 years ago Monday. He then announced that this clinic climaxes his USAFE career, as he leaves Sept. 20 to take over a similar position with the Air Force Logistics Command at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
Monday was a day of nostalgia for some of the almost 100 coaches and officials attending. A student was an AF-man named Travato and serving as instructors were a couple of coaches named Spear and Smith.
Now turn back the pages of history to 1955. The scene is Ramstein, Germany, and Furstenfeldbruck is playing Wiesbaden for the Germany Conference championship. At guard for Fursty is Dean Smith — now head coach at the University of North Carolina — and coaching the Flyers was Tony Travato, now stationed at Bremerhaven. Wiesbaden won, but Fursty also entered the USAFE tournament played at Wiesbaden a couple of weeks later.
At Wiesbaden, Smith and his Fursty quintet picked up all the marbles, but a Chateauroux team built by Bob Spear beat Travato's flyers out for second place. Spear wasn't with the Chateauroux team, however; he had been called stateside to help get the Air Force Academy cage team started. He still holds the Academy coaching reins.
Smith followed Spear to the Air Force military school and spent three years there as his assistant. He then journeyed to North Carolina to serve as an assistant to Frank McGuire, taking over as head coach of the Tar Heels four years ago.
Travato soon leaves Bremerhaven for Chicksands, England. He was head coach there in 196263. the year the Fighting Chicks won their only USAFE title. The little round man has coached Wiesbaden, Crete, Kirknewton and Chicksands into USAFE tourney play over the past decade.
Veteran USAFE referee Bob Wolf of Wiesbaden was also very much in evidence on opening day. Well into his third tour in Germany, Wolf has worked USAFE championship games in football, baseball and basketball during the past 10 years.
Ramstein coach Doc Garman brought a half-dozen of his cagers along to serve as floor demonstrators during the clinic. Doc was moaning that his defending USAFE champion Rams will be pressed to win a game this year. But all six of the boys he had with him were over 6 feet, 3 inches.
Travato worked for Garman when the two were stationed at Andrews AFB, Md., in the mid-1950s. It will be interesting to see what fireworks develop if the two find themselves as opponents this basketball season.
And, last but not least, there was Herb Hartwig, the retired colonel who commanded Ramstein when it won back-to-back USAFE cage crowns in 1957-58 and 1958-59. He's now working in the USAFE athletic office.