Baltimore produced a handful of national dynasties in the second half of the 20th century.
Johnny Unitas and the Colts spread the popularity of pro football in the late 1950s. From 1969 to 1971, the Orioles had the Best Damned Team in Baseball. Just ask Earl Weaver. Johns Hopkins University won six NCAA lacrosse titles from 1978 to 1987.
A step down on the educational ladder but top rung with basketball fans was another institution: Dunbar High School hoops.
The Poets and their followers will gather tomorrow at the school's gym on the corner of Orleans and Central for a series of old-timers games, an event that quickly sold out. The draws include the crew from the 1982-83 season that has long been acclaimed as, if not the best high school team ever, then certainly on that debate's short list.
Has it really been 20 winters since 5-foot-3 Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues turned laughs of derision into whoops of joy? Two decades since Reggie Williams was the first option on a team with too many? Was is that long ago that the second player off the Dunbar bench was Reggie Lewis, who would star for the Boston Celtics before his early demise?
Dunbar was Bob Wade's springboard to becoming the first black coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1986. Given that he was dismissed after three seasons at Maryland, he gains considerable comfort from his tenure at his high school alma mater and regrets that scorebooks, photos and other curio from his Dunbar days are lost.
"When I moved from Maryland, I lost a lot of that stuff," Wade said. "I had it all, but when I had to relocate, the moving company lost two boxes. I would rather have had them lose a lamp or a sofa. You can replace that."
The memorabilia may be missing, but Dunbar's lore is as polished as ever.
Climbing on national stage
Tomorrow's reunion starts at noon. Ernie Graham and Skip Wise are supposed to play in the 3 p.m. game honoring players from the 1970s. The main event comes at 6 p.m., when Dunbar's 1992 national championship team of Keith Booth, Donta Bright and Michael Lloyd -- with help from the likes of Sam Cassell, Rodney Elliott and Tommy Polley -- challenges the wisdom of the early 1980s.
Dunbar High won mythical national championships for Wade in 1983 and 1985, and the Class of 1982, the reunion's sponsor, gives the team headed by that senior class the same distinction. Even Wade doesn't back that claim, but the fact is, while his 1982-83 team had three players who went on to substantial NBA careers, his 1981-82 team had four NBA players, with then-senior David Wingate being the first.
The 1981-82 team, which went unbeaten, didn't even top the charts locally. Calvert Hall began the season No. 1 nationally and stayed there. The Cardinals had to work to beat New Jersey power Camden at the Philadelphia Spectrum, and a few weeks later, as Dunbar readied to play at Camden, Wade went on about its tradition and home-court advantage until Williams interrupted the pep talk and said, "Coach, shut up, we're ready to play."
"That was a little out of character for me," said Williams, who, had he been a Beatle, would have been George Harrison, the quiet one.
During the player introductions, the unorthodox Bogues was mocked by USA Today All-American-to-be Kevin Walls. Wade asked the point guard he called "Short Man" if he was OK, and Bogues answered something about getting the last laugh. It was 50-21 at the half, against a team that began the season ranked No. 2 in the nation.
"People would laugh the first time they saw Muggsy," said Eric Green, a reserve guard throughout his Dunbar career. "By the end of the game, they'd be in awe of him."
The Camden rout was a portent of things to come. Wingate and Gary Graham moved on, but Dunbar reloaded and went 31-0 in 1982-83. Williams was a first-team prep All-American, but Wade named Bogues his most valuable player. With Williams in foul trouble in an out-of-town tournament, Lewis came off the bench and rescued the day. It was a rare close call, as the Poets averaged 82.9 points and allowed 46.5 a game.
'Everyone knew their role'
A year later, Williams and Wingate had key roles in Georgetown's only NCAA title. In 1987, Williams became the only Baltimorean to be a first-team consensus All-American before Juan Dixon. Bogues still holds the Wake Forest career records for assists, by more than 200, and steals. Lewis, who set the New England college scoring record for Northeastern, was a budding Celtics star before he died suddenly with a heart ailment in 1993.
In his final season, Lewis averaged 20.8 points and became an NBA All-Star. The Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs by the Charlotte Hornets -- and Bogues. The previous season, 1991-92, Williams' average of 18.2 led the Denver Nuggets.
Besides Lewis, Dunbar's bench in 1982-83 included guards Derrick Lewis, who teamed with him at Northeastern, and Darryl Wood, who went into the military. Forward Herman Harried helped Syracuse to the 1987 NCAA final, and Green quarterbacked James Madison University to the I-AA football playoffs.
Bogues was the on-floor director of a tightly choreographed show that started juniors Michael Brown and Keith James on the wings and Tim Dawson at center. Brown played for Syracuse and Clemson, James for South Carolina and Nevada-Las Vegas, and Dawson for George Washington and Miami. All three needed time to find the right college fit, but knew their place at Dunbar.
"When the ball went from Muggsy to Russ [Williams], or one of the wings got hold of it, it wasn't going to go past them," Dawson said. "There weren't enough balls to go around, but everyone knew their role. I was the blue-collar worker."
Wade motivated with digs at weaknesses, however minuscule. He told Dawson that he couldn't get 15 rebounds in a game, and knocked Bogues' jump shot. With Williams, that approach took longer.
"Reggie was a little different," Wade said. "He was the complete package, but I had to find some type of flaw. I used to tease him that he didn't have the strength to play the entire game."
The image that lingers most from the winter of 1982-83 came when the Poets handled DeMatha and Danny Ferry in the Beltway Classic. Leading a break, Bogues penetrated and flipped a no-look pass over his shoulder to a trailing Williams, who dunked.
"Me and Wingate were talking the other night," Bogues said from his home in Charlotte. "I told him about that pass."
Deep well of talent
That Towson Center memory eased the sting of a defeat there, as Williams was a sophomore in March 1981, when Dunbar lost a fourth-quarter lead and a triple-overtime classic to Calvert Hall.
"I attended that game," said Bogues, who was then a sophomore at Southern High. "After the game I got a funny look from Coach Wade, like it was my fault. I was supposed to go to Dunbar during my sophomore year, but my records were lost and I was sent to my zoned school."
Dunbar was to Baltimore basketball what the New York Yankees are to major-league baseball, a stockpile of talent that left an uneven playing field.
"In practice, I used to check Tim Dawson, and Reggie Lewis went up against Reggie Williams," Harried said. "The way we traveled, the gear, we were like a college program playing at the high school level. Players were just happy to be associated with the program. Bob Wade had to deal with 15 kids who were good enough to start for anyone around, but he did a masterful job of keeping everyone happy."
In 1982, Brown transferred in from Cardinal Gibbons, and had second thoughts.
"Ray [Mullis] ran a tight ship at Gibbons, but Michael was used to being around two or three top guns," Wade said. "We had a lot of top guns, and Michael was worried that he wasn't going to fit in. I went to his home and talked to his mother. He was in the other room with the door closed, but I knew he was listening."
Just as the late Sugar Cain influenced him in the early 1960s, Wade became a surrogate father to many of his Dunbar players. He commanded respect, handed out pet names -- Harried and Reggie Lewis were "the Blues Brothers" off the bench -- and used peer pressure. If a player missed a school assignment, everyone ran.
"Games were like a party for me," James said. "I was never tired after a game. The unreal thing for me was the work ethic in practice. The more we won, the harder practice got. Bob Wade had some incredibly skilled athletes, but I say we were able to put teams away so easily because of our conditioning."
Where are they now?
Wade, 57, hasn't worked a game since the 1989 ACC tournament and said, "I miss coaching all the time." He coordinates interscholastic sports in Baltimore City, where one of the best young coaches is Harried, who directed Lake Clifton High to the state 4A title in 1999. Dawson is finishing up his Ph.D. and is in charge of 3,500 students as the principal at Miami Killian High, one of Maryland point guard Steve Blake's stops in South Florida.
Depressed over the death of his mother last autumn, Bogues was encouraged to keep a Madison Avenue commitment. He was in an ingenious IBM campaign, trotting off the court with Moses Malone and Bill Laimbeer. They're retired, but Bogues said he is not. He did not play last season and is a free agent with 14 seasons of NBA experience, looking for the right situation.
Tyrone Bogues II, 11, plays for the Chick Webb Rec Center. Reggie Williams Jr. will be an eighth-grader at Northern Middle School in Calvert County. In the rare moments when not preparing for the grand opening of Reggie's Sportz Kafe, a sports bar in Bowie, his father has been working out in anticipation of setting foot in Dunbar for the first time since the 1980s. He retired from the NBA in 1997.
James has lived in Las Vegas since 1992. He has his real estate license and said he just bought five acres for his wife and their three daughters, who ride show horses. Brown is a city employee, said to have a serious golf game.
Wade said Reginald McNeil, the only player on both of his national championship teams, "got involved in the streets" and was paralyzed in a shooting. Green, the college quarterback, is in law enforcement, and just had a home built in Woodstock, about a mile from Wade's.
"The thing that I remember is that he taught us how to carry ourselves with class," Green said. "That's the No. 1 thing I took to college and life, never be a showboat. There is one picture of us holding up our index fingers to proclaim No. 1. That was after we beat Flint Hill at Morgan State to finish unbeaten."
The statute of limitations has run out, so the old Poets can talk trash now.
"We would have killed that '92 team, beat them by 50," said James, the only player from 1982-83 contacted who won't make it back to Dunbar tomorrow. "They couldn't defend like we did."
Dunbar reunion
What: Dunbar alumni basketball games featuring players from the 1940s until the present. The main event starts at 6 p.m. and will feature players from the national championship teams of 1983 and 1985 against players from the national championship team of 1992.
When: Tomorrow
Site: Dunbar High gymnasium
Time: Noon-8 p.m.
Tickets: Sold out