THE 1992-93 Port Townsend Redskins’ run to the Class A state championship game at the Tacoma Dome is a major part of a basketball season that I’ll never forget, and one I don’t think will ever be repeated.
As a basketball-obsessed 10-year old growing up in Port Townsend, the kind who memorized NBA team stats printed weekly in the Seattle Times, 1992-93 has maintained an indelible hold.
That team was highlighted by a commitment to man-to-man defense, the seemingly can’t miss shooting heroics of guards Dan Rough, Andy D’Agostino and his little brother Rich, and the toughness of posts Dekker Dirksen, Kevin Maier and Luke Eaton.
I remember driving down to Tacoma with my dad during rush-hour traffic made all the worse back then with only one Narrows Bridge, worried we’d miss action from Port Townsend’s quarterfinal with No. 2 Zillah.
We made it in time and were treated to one of the most electric, exciting games I’ve ever seen.
Fans from Zillah, an absolutely basketball-crazed town near Yakima, made the trek in force, rooting on their No. 2 Leopards in full throat.
But a motivated Port Townsend team, described in a Tacoma News Tribune column as an “embarrassment” for the then-Redskins nickname, wouldn’t have it.
Andy D’Agostino couldn’t miss on his way to 36 points. Most of the players couldn’t miss that night as Port Townsend shot a blistering 58 percent from the floor. The squad made eight straight clutch free throws down the stretch in an 81-73 triumph.
After beating Chelan in the state semifinals, Ephrata’s crafty legend of a coach in Marty O’Brien and a guard named Travis King awaited. King broke the state’s career scoring record during his team’s championship win, and Port Townsend fell 67-58.
1992-93 in review
The season started with the U.S. men’s Olympic team (the Dream Team) waltzing to the gold medal in Barcelona in August of 1992.
Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, et al. The game’s best player, best passer and best shooter along with some other guys such as Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, John Stockton, Karl Malone rounding out the roster.
September saw the premiere of Nike’s Barkley vs. Godzilla television commercial. Featuring a slimmed-down Sir Charles dribbling the ball into a confrontation with the terror of Tokyo, backing down the monster who slayed Mothra, elbowing the goggled lizard in the head and finishing off with a vicious two-hand slam dunk.
“The Lakers are looking for a big man,” Barkley consoled Godzilla as the pair walked away through the ruins of the leveled city.
Godzilla took further abuse when the monster graced youth basketball uniforms on the Peninsula that winter. Black, the Port Townsend assistant coach, also worked for Jefferson County Parks and Recreation, and designed a T-shirt that displayed King Kong dunking over Godzilla and the iconic Jefferson County Courthouse clock tower.
The commercial kicked off a remarkable season for Barkley, in which he was voted the NBA MVP after being traded to Phoenix and leading the Suns to the NBA Finals.
Phoenix, powered by Barkley’s 44 point, 24-rebound effort, defeated a rising Seattle Supersonics team in the deciding seventh game of the Western Conference Finals in early June 1993, sending budding superstars Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp home with the help of a decidedly pro-Suns officiating crew (see: a 64-36 disparity in free-throw attempts).
A Barkley-Jordan NBA Finals awaited, with John Paxson sealing the six-game series victory and the third straight NBA title for the Chicago Bulls with a 3-point shot on Father’s Day.
That NBA season also was the rookie year for a sensation named Shaquille O’Neal, and saw the Charlotte Hornets trio of Larry Johnson (who starred in his own awesome series of shoe commercials as Grandmama), Alonzo Mourning and Muggsy Bogues make the playoffs.
And a little arcade game came out in March of 1993, NBA Jam, featuring exaggerated 2-on-2 action with the best players (minus Jordan) from the professional league. A game or two of NBA Jam was a staple of every trip out for pizza or to the since-shuttered Key City Lanes bowling alley.
College basketball was solid, too.
An upset-filled NCAA Tournament saw No. 15 seed Santa Clara defeat No. 2 Arizona, at the time this marked just the second time in tourney history a 15 seed had beaten a two seed.
Chris Webber and Jalen Rose led Michigan’s Fab 5 to a second-straight NCAA title game appearance. Clad in their all-yellow uniforms with black Nike socks and Air Max shoes, the Wolverines fell to North Carolina 77-71 when Webber called a timeout his team did not have in the waning seconds.
A dream season for Port Townsend, a Dream Team, Sir Charles and Air Jordan and the Fab 5 taken down by Dean Smith and the Tar Heels. That 1992-93 season will be hard to top.
