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Series to Spotlight North Park's 'Three-Peat' Champs
By Craig Pinley
CHICAGO, IL (May 28, 2003) - The most successful college basketball team I've
ever seen in person played in a gym that comfortably seated 1,500 and only
received television coverage a handful of times.
But for three years, that squad reached a level of proficiency that no NCAA
men's basketball team has accomplished since. And the team's lineup reached
a level of play that might never be duplicated at the level at which they
played.
Twenty-five years ago, North Park College (now University), a school of
around 1,000 students on Chicago's north side, beat Widener College of
Pennsylvania 79-67 (March 18, 1978) for its first Division III men's
national basketball championship. The Vikings would continue to dominate at
their level, posting an 83-10 mark and winning two more titles under coach
Dan McCarrell. No one in NCAA Division I, II or III men's basketball has
won three straight titles since the Vikings pulled off the feat during the
1978-80 seasons. And no Division III team has ever assembled the kind of
talent the championship squads had under McCarrell - before or since.
Three players (Michael Harper, Modzel Greer and Keith French) were drafted
by National Basketball Association (NBA) teams after finishing their
collegiate careers in 1980. A fourth, Michael Thomas, was drafted by the
NBA's Philadelphia 76ers in 1981. Harper eventually played for the NBA's
Portland Trailblazers while Greer had a successful career playing
professional basketball in The Netherlands.
I grew up on Chicago's south side. It was predominantly a Roman Catholic
neighborhood and if you rooted for any college, you rooted for Notre Dame.
I was the weird one in the neighborhood. I grew up with an affinity for
North Park College because they were sponsored by the church denomination I
belonged to - the Evangelical Covenant Church. So while everyone else could
brag about Notre Dame football, I could crow about North Park's basketball
teams, even if no one knew what I was talking about. Unlike my friends,
however, I actually got to see my hallowed team up close - really close -
because the foldout bleachers jutted out to within inches of the
out-of-bounds lines at North Park's dinky gym.
In college hoops, the team to watch on television was UCLA, which won eight
titles in 10 years under coach John Wooden and whose center, Bill Walton,
was the dominating player during my youth. I wasn't sure that North Park's
teams could ever compete with the UCLA's of the world, but I also knew that
the Vikings were much better than many people imagined. But when I went to
my first North Park game in February 1978, I had no idea just how good this
small college team was.
My first indicator came when I watched North Park's 6-foot-10-inch,
bespectacled center Michael Harper shoot the ball. For years I had watched
players loft the ball into the hoop - this guy was so tall and jumped so
high that he actually appeared to be shooting down at the basket. Needless
to say, Harper's athleticism and height gave him a clear advantage over
most of the people guarding him. He became a three-time All America player,
scoring 1,880 points, grabbing a school record 1,184 rebounds and earning
the nickname "Dr. Dunkenstein" with 162 dunks. His unique story (he had
grown about six inches between his freshman and sophomore year in college)
and talent attracted numerous NBA scouts and local reporters.
The second indicator of North Park's prowess came in the form of
6-foot-7-inch forward Modzel "Bud" Greer, who could glide from one end of
the court to the other in about three seconds and who added a smooth
shooting touch to boot. I became an admirer of Scottie Pippen of the
Chicago Bulls when they won six championships in the 1990s and the Division
III All American Greer seemed like an earlier version. Greer eventually
scored 1,826 points and nearly became a Bulls player. He was drafted and
cut by Chicago in 1980 and later became a standout player for pro teams in
Amsterdam, leading the RICOH Astronauts to a championship in the mid 1990s.
Harper and Greer were often my focus as I watched North Park blew out
Carthage College 91-70 on my first trip to the North Park gym. North Park
beat Potsdam State College of New York 66-62 to win the 1979 Division III
championship and finished off its third straight title run with an 83-76
win over Upsala College of New Jersey in 1980 as hundreds of Chicago area
North Park fans drove three hours to see the title game at Augustana
College in Rock Island. During those years, I was playing high school
basketball and learning more about the subtle parts of the game of
basketball. And as I returned to North Park, I began to appreciate some of
the less spectacular players on the Vikings as they completed their
championship "trifecta."
Point guard Mike Thomas and reserve forward Keith French could provide
spectacular moments as players. More than once I watched Thomas throw
half-court lob passes that French dunked with authority - those plays would
send the jam-packed crowds of nearly 2,000 into a frenzy and often led to
10-point North Park spurts that demoralized the opposition. I watched one
of those dunks during an opening-game romp over Illinois-Chicago to start
the 1979-80 season and saw its effect on a Division I team that didn't know
what had hit them. Thomas could also score. He finished his career in 1981
with a school record 2,085 points, averaging 23 points per contest and
helping his team make the NCAA playoffs after Harper, Greer and French
graduated.
But Thomas' true talent was in finding ways to get everyone the ball in
ideal positions to score. Lobs to French or Harper, bounce passes off the
break to Greer and Jim Clausen and chest passes for outside shooters like
Tom Florentine and Grant Grastorf were among the ways Thomas made everyone
better on the floor during North Park's three-peat. I also began to
appreciate the small things that other players like Clausen, Al May, Ernie
Flores, Gregg Gierke and Scott Groot did for the North Park title teams.
For a while, it seemed like North Park would always have quality basketball
teams. The Vikings would continue to stay among the top Division III
programs for the next decade as assistant coach Bosko Djurickovic
eventually took over as head coach and led North Park squads to
championships in 1985 and 1987. Now, Djurickovic coaches at Carthage, the
Vikings haven't earned an NCAA playoff bid for a dozen years and parity has
reigned at all levels of men's college basketball. Only one NCAA Division
III program (University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 1998-99) has managed to
win consecutive titles. One NCAA Division I men's team (Duke University in
1991-92) and one Division II program (California State-Bakersfield in
1993-94) have earned two straight national titles.
Given the rare air that lifted North Park's program more than two decades
ago, it seemed appropriate that the school orchestrated a special 25th
anniversary reunion for the 1978-80 teams on March 1. And through my work
as a reunion committee member, I had the privilege of conversations with
many of the players and coaches who made up those squads. Their stories
will be chronicled over the next three Fridays - one story for each winning
season - with each article containing links to snapshot features on key
players on the three title teams.
Editor's note: Craig Pinley is a staff writer in the Department of
Communication of the Evangelical Covenant Church. He served as Director of
Sports Information at North Park from 1988-90 and has written for the
Chicago Sun-Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the
Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, California, among others.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
