Greeting motorists as they arrive in Iola along U.S. 54 is a sign proudly documenting the school’s signature athletic teams. WITH A strong returning squad in 1916, hopes were just as high for the Mustangs to take the next step. THE HISTORICAL significance of the sign, and Iola’s great 1915 and 1916 teams, has been largely overlooked.
The sign notes Iola’s state champion track and field teams from 1976 and 1993, respectively, as well as the Mustangs’ 1969 boys cross country titleists.
On the girls’ side, of course, is the 2006 powerhouse Fillies basketball team.
But one entry — 1915 boys basketball — is out of place.
While Mustang squads appeared in the state title game two straight years, in 1915 and 1916, Iola came up short in both championship matches.
The 1915 title game, a 41-31 loss to Wichita, was Iola’s only loss of the season.
The Mustangs entered the game with a perfect, 21-0, record.
“‘Disappointed’ doesn’t come within a million miles of naming the woe and anguish and utter heartbreak with which Iola received the news,” the Register reported at the time.
Score updates were telephoned to Iolans huddled at the YMCA.
“The boys had gathered to get the returns from which they expected to rush out with shouts of victory to the burning of bon fires,” the paper read. “And when the news did come they cried, just lifted up their voices and wailed and let the tears run down their faces and fall in great puddles on the floor and were not ashamed.
“All day Sunday the gloom was so thick it could have been cut in chunks,” the story continued. “A man who forgot and smiled, risked a punch. Confirmed church-goers stayed home. Iola was ‘disappointed’ all right!”
Sure enough, the squad rolled through the regular season in dominating fashion before moving onto the state tournament, and eventually the title game, in Lawrence.
What followed was one of the most controversial basketball endings in state history.
Iola played Newton for the crown, and looked to have things well in control by racing to a 12-4 lead early on.
Play slowed considerably from there, and Iola settled into halftime with a 25-20 lead.
Or so they thought.
Scorekeepers for both schools pegged Iola’s lead at 26-20, so the game’s official scorekeeper — a school official from the University of Kansas — changed it on the scoreboard.
The second half went back and forth before the final gun sounded and Iola up 47-46.
The championship was theirs.
For about 45 minutes.
Newton’s principal howled in protest, declaring Iola’s score be amended once again, to match the original scorekeeper’s book.
A 45-minute discussion followed, at which time the ruling came down: Iola’s score was changed once again, creating the 46-46 deadlock.
Iola’s five, playing without one of its star players due to injury, “was in no condition” for the extra session, the Register reported.
The Mustangs scored only two more points from there.
Newton prevailed in overtime, 51-48.
Martin Bambick, the school’s current athletic director, chuckled after hearing the story.
“I can imagine the uproar if something like that happened today,” he said. “People get upset enough if the score’s wrong on a freshman game.”
He was unaware who was responsible for erecting the sign.
OF NOTE, the loss was the last state title game in which Iola’s boys appeared.
Iola’s great Archie “Lefty” Hall graduated that season, and while several other stalwarts returned, the team never again reached such lofty heights..
Meanwhile, Newton’s crown was the first of 13 in the school’s history.
The Mustangs will try once again to change history starting Friday, when they open the Class 4A-II substate playoffs Thursday at home against Girard.
Recalling Mustang despair
