1965-66 East Fannin High School Boys Basketball Team

East Fannin High School first opened its doors to students in the fall of 1955 and closed 21 years later when consolidated into the new Fannin County High School in Blue Ridge. East Fannin sponsored boys and girls basketball teams that competed with other high schools in each of those 21 years. The 1965-66 East Fannin basketball teams achieved a level of success never reached before or after that season. For it was in that year that both the girls and boys teams advanced to the Class B state tournament in Macon. The 1965-66 Wildcat boys team was a veteran group with six seniors on the roster. Four of those seniors, David ‘Chip’ Nichols, Morgan Arp, Dale Buchanan and Johnny Rogers, had played together since their days at Mineral Bluff Elementary School where they were coached by Kenneth Wood. The other seniors were starter Jimmy Golden and 6th man Ronnie Reel. When the six boys reported for practice in the fall of 1962, they were greeted by first-year coach Ron Ely, a lanky 6’5” 23-year-old fresh out of Tennessee Wesleyan College. Ely, a native of Pennington Gap, Virginia, had been a standout player at Tennessee Wesleyan and brought discipline and fresh, innovative ideas about how to play the game to Morganton. He remained the Wildcat coach for three seasons. The East Fannin boys posted a 22-5 record in 1964-65, narrowly missing a trip to the state tournament. Ely had molded his team into a championship caliber outfit and hopes were high for the 1965-66 season. Fate intervened, however, and Ely accepted a coaching job at Sylva-Webster North Carolina High School. East Fannin tapped Jack Myers to take over the coaching reins. Myers had played basketball for a couple of seasons at the University of Maryland and came to Morganton after coaching several years at Sequatchie County High School in Dunlap, Tennessee. Myers inherited a talented group of players for his debut in Morganton. The 1965-66 East Fannin boys put together a regular season record of 20-5 including two victories over Copper Basin. Also included in the victory column was a 58-52 victory at West Fannin on January 18, 1966. It was the last victory over the cross county rivals until the 1974-75 season. The Wildcats won the Region 4B Area 1 championship and advanced to the overall 4B tournament in Watkinsville in Oconee County. Two more victories found the boys in the championship game against Oconee County on their home court. The Wildcats came up short in that game but, as region runners up, advanced to the state tournament in Macon where they received the unlucky draw of facing Waynesboro, the number one team in the state. Waynesboro prevailed and went on to win the state championship. East Fannin completed its season with an impressive record of 24 wins and seven losses. In addition to the six seniors, other team members were Fred Ganues Jr., Steve Atkins, Danny Ross and Roger Henry. Managers were Jerry Rice and Oscar Buchanan. The singular accomplishments of the 1965-66 East Fannin girls and boys basketball teams have earned them team memberships in the Fannin County Sports Hall of Fame.