Fifty Years Ago The Cyclones Were Big Eight Champs

AMES, Iowa- The joy of winning a championship and hoisting a trophy high in the air with school pride is one of the most thrilling feelings for an athlete. Former Iowa State basketball star Larry Fie can relate. The Spencer, Iowa product was the team captain of ISU's 1959 Big Eight Holiday Tournament title squad, an outstanding team which has been unfairly forgotten through the years.

The craziness and overblown exposure of college basketball might not have been like you see today, but there still had to have been a huge celebration in Ames marking ISU's historic achievement, right?

“Not really,” Fie said. “I guess we had some people meet us off the bus when we got home.”

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Big Eight Holiday Tournament championship, there is no argument that the 1959-60 Cyclone men's hoops crew was extremely talented. Glen Anderson was in his first season as head coach after assisting Cyclone legend Bill Strannigan for a number of years. Strannigan had led ISU to national prominence before leaving Ames to take the head job at his alma mater Wyoming.

Strannigan did not leave the cupboard bare for Anderson. The new Cyclone coach inherited Fie, a senior who had averaged 11.2 points the year before, and was blessed to have the services of a pair of outstanding New York ballplayers in Vince Brewer and Henry Whitney. Fie remembers the different coaching styles between Strannigan and Anderson.

“Strannigan worked on defense a lot more and Anderson was a better offensive coach,” Fie said. “They each had their own personality. Strannigan was more happy-go-lucky and Anderson was, until you got to know him off the court, and I got to know him pretty well, more serious on the court and more stern. Strannigan was fiery and Anderson was more laid back. Everybody is different and they're all effective.”

The Cyclones were 4-2 heading into the conference tournament with wins at Wisconsin and at Washington.

Back then, the tournament was a round-robin format with all eight teams playing three games in three days at the old Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City. The games began the day after Christmas (Dec. 26). ISU's first round game proved to be its toughest, winning a close overtime thriller vs. Kansas State, 74-73. Brewer led the way with 24 points and 13 boards.

“We had already lost two games before the tournament, so nobody really expected much out of us,” Fie remembers. “We were quite a young team but we had some really good talent and they proved themselves later because Henry (Whitney) played in the ABA, the only Iowa Stater to do that.”

Whitney and Brewer were considered two of the most talented players in the Midwest at the time. Whitney, a junior, was a monster on the boards while standing at a muscular 6-7. He earned First Team All-Big Eight honors the following season (1961). Brewer, at 6-2, was the do-it-all forward. He could run, jump and shoot, and was already considered a New York legend when he arrived in Ames. He was close friends with the legendary Connie Hawkins and the two would get together frequently when Hawkins was at the University of Iowa.

Both New Yorkers were instrumental in ISU's 83-70 victory over Kansas in the championship game of the tournament. Brewer posted a 21-point, 10-rebound performance, while Whitney chipped in with 11 points and eight boards.

“Whitney was a tremendous rebounder and he did not back down to anybody,” Fie said. “Kansas had future NBA stars Bill Bridges and Wayne Hightower in the post. They were pretty well stocked even though we beat them later in the season at home too. I remember their coach Dick Harp saying, ?we could've played six players and not beaten Iowa State tonight.'”

Brewer was named MVP of the tournament and Fie made the all-tournament team, as the Cyclones made it a three-game sweep in three days. Brewer averaged 19.0 points and 12.0 rebounds and Fie chipped in with an 11.7 scoring average to help ISU win its second holiday tournament title in five seasons.

Brewer is just one of three Cyclones in school history to earn MVP honors of a conference tournament. Dedric Willoughby (1996) and Marcus Fizer (2000) are the others.

“Vinny (Brewer) was really an unusually gifted player,” Fie recalled. “He was only about 6-2 and he could take one step and dunk it. That was before dunking was legal but he really was nifty around the basket and drew a lot of fouls. Things just gelled well for us. I remember we had a team meeting before the final game and we just felt we had great chemistry. It was a fun deal. It was kind of a surprise for everybody else but our team.”

The Cyclones finished the season at 15-9 and 7-7 in the Big Eight. Injuries in the second half of the season hampered ISU's shot for a conference title. Fie was one of the Cyclones to fight the injury bug.

“I sprained my ankle right at the very end of the Oklahoma State game,” Fie said. “I never really recovered from that. I know our guys were a little disjointed and we kind of struggled later in the season. I don't know why it was, but we just kind of lost our momentum.”

One win in the final part of the year will go down as one of the most memorable in school history when the Cyclones won at Colorado, 83-80 in a school-record five overtimes. Many Cyclones, including Fie, played close to almost all 65 minutes of the marathon.

“That was long,” Fie said. “I remember Ted Ecker hitting a shot that tied the game to put it into one of the overtimes for us. Ted could really shoot it. What you have to remember is if you got the ball with a two-point lead and you had three minutes left, you could hold it for the last shot because there was no shot clock. That means you ended up playing a lot of defense if you were behind, or if you were ahead, you had to handle the ball a lot. I think I played all but a minute or two of the game because my legs cramped up. A lot of guys played a lot of minutes in that game on both sides.”

Fie still smiles when discussing the accomplishments of his team 50 years later. It's just one of four conference tournament titles the Cyclones have won in their long history.

“Darn right I am still proud about winning it,” Fie said. “We had a group of guys that came together and accomplished a goal as a team. That's pretty special.”

Iowa State University Athletics

Fifty Years Ago The Cyclones Were Big Eight Champs

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