An idea – 50 years later

Publicity for region’s kids An idea – 50 years later

By DANNY ANDREWS

Magazine Co-Founder

As Panhandle-Plains Basketball Magazine celebrates its 50th year, I’m stickin’ with my story that the idea for a basketball magazine for this region was mine.

But I’m also as quick to acknowledge it never would have become a reality but for the driving force of Garet von Netzer, my co-publisher for 36 of the first 38 years of the publication. Way back in November 1972, when Garet was writing sports for the Amarillo Globe-News and I was sports editor of the Plainview Daily Herald, Danny Andrews Garet met me in Plainview, and we drove to Midland to cover the Floydada-Alpine playoff football game.

That’s when the subject of the magazine came up and, as I recall, I said something like “Bill Harle and Sam Mayo are making some money putting out Top O’ Texas Football; why don’t we start a basketball magazine?”

Being young with small children (Garet’s two kids went on to star in basketball at Amarillo Tascosa, and two of my three played JV ball at Plainview) and not making a lot of money, I’m sure we kicked around the idea, but I probably forgot about it as soon as I got home.

But a few weeks later, Garet called and said, “Let’s start that basketball magazine we talked about.” So we put $100 into a checking account, Garet printed up the forms and we contacted area coaches and said, “Take the football magazine around and tell advertising prospects that we’re going to start a basketball magazine to give publicity to the kids in this region.”

It certainly was not lost on us that football is king in Texas, so we had no idea what to expect.

High schools and colleges

As it turned out, we had 85 high schools plus Texas Tech, West Texas State (as it was then known), Wayland Baptist, Amarillo College, Clarendon College, Frank Phillips, South Plains and Western Texas in a 264-page inaugural issue. In later years, the magazine grew to more than 440 pages.

I don’t remember what our most expensive ad was long before Garet decided to start selling color advertising. However, the smallest was $15, causing one curmudgeonly Plainview shop owner to grouse, “Don’t you have anything cheaper for us little guys?” Fifteen dollars then converts to about $80 now – well above the most inexpensive current ad at $50. (That’s not counting the $20 signature ads that many supporters purchase.)

Before we quickly discovered that most businesses didn’t care about having a lot of magazines lying around, we decided to give a book for every $3 in advertising, so the fewest any establishment received was five. I have no idea where we put all those Special Features22 magazines before distribution, but Garet’s garage in Amarillo was full of old magazines.

We hired Globe-News employee Bob Tosh, who had his own “hot lead” shop in his garage, to do the layouts in those days before a lot of folks went to offset printing and well before personal computers were in vogue. We established a relationship with Dave Autry of Trafton-Autry Printing (later Trafton, then Cenveo, now ColorArt) to do the color cover and get the magazine printed at various places through the years, including Dallas Offset. That relationship continued for many years with Tony Freeman at Trafton and Cenveo and now Brady Hochstein at ColorArt.

Bobby Smith of Bobby’s Photographic Memories in Plainview took cover shots for many years, and another longtime cover photographer has been Steve Satterwhite of Amarillo, who is retiring in 2022.

Obviously, another big project was delivering the magazines to the various schools or coordinating with folks to pick them up in Amarillo. In recent years, two- or three-day delivery runs have been made across the South Plains and Panhandle with the help of Sam D. Haynes and others.

Garet and I spent many long nights and weekends working on the magazine and often marveled at how we ever got it out before computers, email and PDF files. I’m sure we talked on the phone and mailed back and forth a lot.

Because we got the first edition out about mid-October, we advised coaches not to distribute the magazines too early so we wouldn’t get football coaches mad at us for “trying to start basketball too early.”

Mitchell and Davis on first cover

That first issue had only two players on the cover – compared with the 90 or so in recent years. Fred Mitchell, a 6-7 all-district player from Amarillo Palo Duro, wearing dark glasses, sat on a stool in the foreground with Lynn Davis of Canyon, a 5-5 allstate guard (five years before Texas adopted the five-player game starting in 1978-79), standing in the background. (See that first cover in this edition’s color section.)

Features in the first issue included legendary Wayland Flying

(Continued from previous page) Queens coach Harley Redin, who had retired after the previous season; Wayland men’s coach Bob Clindaniel, who was marking 26 years in the business; another Southwest Conference title for the Texas Tech men of Gerald Myers; women’s basketball in China by George Nicodemus, the coach at John F. Kennedy College in Wahoo, Nebraska (a foe of the Wayland Flying Queens in those days when gender-equity Title IX was just a year old); and how the National Women’s Invitational in Amarillo had gotten started five years earlier.

The first All-Panhandle-Plains boys team included Fred Mitchell and Vernon Krueger of Levelland inside and Tom West of Lubbock Coronado, Wayne Pitt of Canyon and Eric Felton of Lubbock High (who became an All-Southwest Conference football defensive back for Texas Tech) outside. Second teamers included Dan Vanderzee of Hereford and Walter Bond of Shamrock (later head coach at his alma mater) and Eddie Owens of Amarillo Caprock, Tim Massey of Hale Center and Leon Freeman of Hedley.

The girls’ first team in the days before larger schools like Amarillo High and Plainview fielded girls’ teams had Sheri Haynes of McLean (now co-publisher of this magazine with her brothers Mike and David; she was on the second cover), Mary Faye Smith of Crosbyton and Joyce Gensman of Darrouzett at forward and Lynn Davis, Mary Brunson of Valley and Deena Lowrance of Claude as guards. Second teamers were Renee White of Hedley, Darla Rhodes of Friona and Kim Carroll of Follett at forward and Lynda Martin of McLean, JoAnne Coker of Springlake-Earth and Becky Wheeler of Spearman at guard.

With the help of many coaches, Garet put together All-Decade teams (first, second and third teams and honorable mentions) from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s for both boys and girls for the magazine’s 25th edition.

For three years (1975-1976-1977), the magazine provided uniforms for and organized the Panhandle-Plains All-Star Game for boys played at Hutcherson Center in Plainview.

Ehlo, Swoopes and many more

The region has produced many remarkable players. That list includes former NBA standout Craig Ehlo (1979 Monterey graduate) and former WNBA superstar Sheryl Swoopes (1989 Brownfield graduate).

We’re delighted that many of the youngsters whose names have appeared in the magazine have gone on to play college basketball.

The coaching ranks in this region also are full of individuals who played in high schools covered by the magazine, including several who have coached or currently are coaching at their alma maters.

That many of the players listed in the first magazine, then mostly 15 to 18 years of age, are now well over 60 and have or had children or grandchildren playing is sobering to all of us.

Of course, the magazine never could have existed without the cooperation of coaches providing information, rosters, schedules and pictures. Through the years a lot more individual pictures and action photos have been added as well as many more features, making for an even more enjoyable and valuable publication.

Oddly, we had no returning state champions from the region that first year when 3A was the highest classification for girls (4A was introduced in 1977 and 5A for both boys and girls in 1981). The smallest classification was Class B (changed to 1A in 1980-81).

However, since the magazine began, Abernathy (4), Amarillo High (4), Amarillo Tascosa, Brownfield (2), Canyon (17), Randall (2), Claude, Dimmitt, Dumas, Farwell, Gruver (2), Hale Center, Follett, Levelland (7), Lubbock Monterey, Morton, Nazareth (24), Panhandle (2), Phillips, Plainview (4), Seagraves, Shallowater (2), Slaton (5), Smyer (2), Spearman, Sudan (6), Stratford, Tulia, Vega, Whiteface and Whitharral have won girls state championships.

Also since the magazine’s first season, Abernathy (2), Amarillo High, Brownfield, Canadian (2), Clarendon (2), Dimmitt (3), Idalou, Lamesa, Lubbock Estacado, Morton (5), Nazareth (6), Paducah (3), Pampa, Plainview, Seminole, Shallowater, Sudan, Texline (2), Vega and West Texas High have claimed state gold basketballs on the boys’ side.

While we would have liked to have had every school from Dalhart to Seminole and Muleshoe to Childress in the magazine through the years, not all have been included, and some have participated sporadically for various reasons.

Sadly, several communities represented in that first magazine – Allison, Briscoe, Estelline, Higgins, Lakeview, Mobeetie, Phillips, Quail, Samnorwood and Stinnett – no longer have high schools or have consolidated. Amarillo College dropped basketball in the mid-1980s.

Though somewhat off the Panhandle’s beaten path, that first issue also included Electra and Seymour.

Production partners

After the first year, magazine production was done by another Globe-News printer, Seeger I. Jenkins; then for several years by the capable folks at The Canyon News; then Mike Mahon of Photographix in Amarillo; then for several years by Karen Edwards, formerly of the Globe-News and Cenveo. Recent production has been done by Justin Frank of Amarillo and Hartsfield Design of Lubbock with printing by Cenveo/ColorArt of Amarillo and Texoma Web Offset of Gainesville and binding by C&R Bindery of Dallas.

Garet and I sold the magazine to former New Deal basketball coach Jimmy Pope and longtime coach-turned-sports equipment salesman Sam Mayo after our second issue, but they sold it back to us after two years.

It is a labor-intensive product that begins in May when information is solicited from coaches and ad sales are coordinated by folks associated with the participating schools. The revenue generated has been vital to the success of the magazine, and school organizations receive a commission to fund their various projects.

Mainly over the course of the summer and through September, stories and features are written, schedules and rosters typed in, photos processed and layouts coordinated as deadlines always are looming for a project of this magnitude.

As we decided to include more players on the cover over the years (and even with 90 or so, the decision process is difficult with so many excellent players to choose from), half the cover photos have been taken in Amarillo and half in Plainview.

Through the years, Garet’s wife Mardi and my wife Carolyn were invaluable in assisting with typing rosters, schedules, etc., and helping keep up with the financial end. The typing job as well as compiling statistics and predictions has been handled the past 12 years by Kathy Haynes.

Magazine moves on

Garet decided after 38 years to move to his ranch in Fredericksburg and devote full time to raising sheep. In 2010, he sold

(Continued from previous page) his part of the magazine to Mike Haynes, then a mass media instructor and adviser of the school newspaper and magazine at Amarillo College, who also writes a religion column for the Globe-News.

When Mike’s sister, Sheri Haynes – a former McLean allstater who played at AIAW national champion Delta State in Mississippi and finished at Wayland before coaching at Lockney, Lubbock Roosevelt and Lubbock Monterey – and another brother, businessman David Haynes – approached me in 2011 about selling my part, I hesitated only briefly, thinking it might be good to depart after 40 years. But we “worked the deal,” and I agreed to do some feature writing.

I know I speak for Garet, Mike and Sheri in saying a sincere thanks to all the coaches, players and ad purchasers as well as all who had any part in the production of the magazine over five decades.

We’ve all made some great friends and associations. It truly has been a labor of love, and we hope it continues to showcase the outstanding basketball talent in this region for many years to come.