Tiger great makes homecoming at PHS

Joe Ruklick wore the Princeton letter jacket 52 years ago as an all-American cager for the Tigers. The former Tiger and Northwestern great spoke to members of the PHS boys and girls teams Thursday at PHS. (BCR photo/Kevin Hieronymus)

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PRINCETON — The past of Princeton High School basketball met with the future Thursday morning at Sally Skinner Auditorium.

Joe Ruklick was the toast of the town more than 50 years ago when he led the Princeton Tigers to back-to-back appearances in the old IHSA one-class state basketball tournament in 1954 and 1955. He went to Big Ten fame at Northwestern and made history in the NBA.

On Thursday, he spoke to the entire PHS basketball program, including members of the boys’ and girls’ varsity and underclass teams and coaches. Most of the teenagers had only heard about Ruklick’s name until just recently, and PHS boys coach Jesse Brandt and principal Barb Schmidt were glad to bring Ruklick in and so the students could have a better sense of history.

“When you have a resource like this, with the experiences he’s had, it’s nice to spread those to our kids. Personally, I just want to see what he had to say,” Brandt said. “He had great stories to tell. Hopefully, the kids got some good things out of it and will work a little bit harder because of it.”

PHS senior Michael Thompson really enjoyed Ruklick’s visit.

“That was really cool to hear him. Just knowing where he came from and the life he’s led. It’s just really amazing,” he said.

Ruklick came to Princeton to live at the Covenant Children’s Home when his mother became stricken with tuberculosis. He remained in town throughout his high school days and still holds the town dearly in his heart,

“This is a terrific town and a terrific place,” he said.

He also told the PHS students, “these are the best days in your life” and the decisions they make now will stay with them the rest of their lives.

“You will be formed here in high school,” said Ruklick, who was presented with PHS sweatshirts from Schmidt.

He challenged the students to strive to do their best, gain respect and show the character “that you can be counted on in your community.”

Thompson said it was a message well learned.

“What I got was just need to play to your best and not hold anything back, because these are the best times of your life,” he said.

Thompson  also was struck by Ruklick’s comments concerning the high school and the corruption in college and marketing  of the pro game.

“He said that high school is the only thing that’s pure and you should try to keep it that way,” Thompson said.

Ruklick talked with high praise about his coach, Don Sheffer, who took a young, tall and awkward kid under his wing after he was cut from the freshmen team. Sheffer taught him how to shoot the hook shot that would later be Ruklick’s ticket to Northwestern and as a top draft pick in the NBA of thePhiladelphia Warriors.

Sheffer, who coached at PHS from 1950-65 and lives in Florida today, was a man of high character who ran a tight ship, Ruklick said.

Once Ruklick elbowed an opposing player, and Sheffer told him if he ever did that again he’d kick him off the team.

Years later, Ruklick says he asked Sheffer, “You wouldn’t have kicked me off the team would you. He said, ‘Yep.’

“Now that’s character.”

He also shared the story how Sheffer cut a key Tiger reserve for curfew violation just before the postseason started. Sheffer replaced him with underclassman Jerry Zurliene, who “came out of nowhere” to make two free throws to win the sectional championship in 1955. Fifty-two years later, Ruklick is still thanking Zurliene, though he hasn’t seem him since.

Another example of the character he gained in Princeton came from his PHS teammate Dick Hult, who, with Ruklick, Lew Flinn, Forrie Finn and Gary Mulalley, formed the Famous Five in 1954-55.

Ruklick shared the story how Hult saved Shawnee-town’s Garrison Newsome from great harm, maybe even death, when Hult caught Newsome in a fall during the state tournament in Cham-paign. He passed a BCR clipping of the old photograph around to show the students.

The only time Ruklick was at a lost for words Thursday was when Thompson asked him if he knew Dixie Pome-roy, is second cousin. Know her? She turns out to be a high school flame of Ruklick’s. He told the students he was more scared of calling her up for a date than the time his team almost went down in a plane crash.

Ruklick was asked about the best players he ever played against and mentioned NBA Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain of Kansas and Jerry West at West Virginia as well as Jimmy Green of Michigan State. He later became lifelong friends with Chamberlain, because “Wilt put in 52 points against me the first time we met,” and his teammate as the Stilt’s back-up for the Philadelphia Warriors in the NBA.

Ruklick, and Chamberlain, who died in 1999, are forever linked in history. Ruklick was credited for the assist on the Big Dipper’s 100-point basket, in 1961, in Hershey, Pa. Ruklick says he was shocked to get into he game, but coach Frank McGuire put him in knowing Ruklick would pass Chamberlain the ball, and other fellow white players on the team wouldn’t.

“We had racists on the team who didn’t want to see a Negro get 100 points. I’m not guessing about that, they told me,” Ruklick said.

Ruklick said he was wide open on that final play, but there “was no way I was going to (shoot).”

With all of his experiences, Ruklick said there was nothing like game night in the South Gym at PHS in front of a packed crowd with their legs hanging over the rafters and standing down the stairways.

He said you knew everybody in the stands and he remembers vividly today big Tiger fan “Smitty the Barber” bellowing out, “It’s Show Time, Louie, It’s Show Time Joe.”

He left the PHS students with one message he repeated from before: “Beat Mendota,” apparently striking up an old rivalry from days gone by.

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