JSOnline, Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, WI
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February 28, 2009
Weaver's Heave in 1969 Remains Clear
to All 40 Years Later
to All 40 Years Later
By Gary D’Amato of the Journal Sentinel
Whitewater - LaMont Weaver was eating in a restaurant in Beloit not long ago when he noticed a man staring at him. Weaver kept eating. The man kept staring.
Finally, the man got up and approached Weaver.
"You're LaMont Weaver, aren't you?" he said.
"Yes, but how did you know?" Weaver said.
"You're eating," the man said, "with your left hand."
Of course. The left hand. The hand that launched the most famous shot in the history of the WIAA boys basketball tournament. The hand that turned a moment of desperation into a lifetime calling card.
The hand that made the shot heard 'round the state.
Has it really been 40 years?
Close your eyes and you can still see the ball - if you're of a certain age - leaving Weaver's left hand, sailing through 55 feet of electrified air in the University of Wisconsin Field House and improbably, impossibly, banking in off the glass at the buzzer.
The old barn shook to its creaky rafters in what a veteran sportswriter would call, 40 years later, the most explosive moment he ever witnessed. Across the state, people watching on black-and-white TVs leaped from their seats, screaming, jumping, holding their heads in disbelief.
Weaver, a 6-foot-1 junior guard for Beloit Memorial High School, had just tied the score in the WIAA championship game against Neenah, sending it into the first of two overtime periods. The Purple Knights would win, 80-79, on Weaver's two free throws in the closing seconds of the second OT.
Few people remember the free throws. Those who witnessed the shot, however, will never forget it.
In 1999, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ranked it 19th on a list of the century's greatest Wisconsin sports moments, ahead of Warren Spahn's 300th victory and Alan Ameche's 1954 Heisman Trophy.
Now 56 and the director of reinstated and probationary students at UW-Whitewater, Weaver still is approached on campus by young men who say, "My grandpa wants to know if you're the guy who made the shot."
"Forty years is a long time," Weaver says, but there is no shelf life for a memory so grand. He's been asked to describe the shot thousands of times.
"I could see it was going in the right direction," he says. "But I had no idea it was going to bank and go in. It went off the glass and" - Weaver smacks his hands together - "right through the net."
Watch the Video
Finally, the man got up and approached Weaver.
"You're LaMont Weaver, aren't you?" he said.
"Yes, but how did you know?" Weaver said.
"You're eating," the man said, "with your left hand."
Of course. The left hand. The hand that launched the most famous shot in the history of the WIAA boys basketball tournament. The hand that turned a moment of desperation into a lifetime calling card.
The hand that made the shot heard 'round the state.
Has it really been 40 years?
Close your eyes and you can still see the ball - if you're of a certain age - leaving Weaver's left hand, sailing through 55 feet of electrified air in the University of Wisconsin Field House and improbably, impossibly, banking in off the glass at the buzzer.
The old barn shook to its creaky rafters in what a veteran sportswriter would call, 40 years later, the most explosive moment he ever witnessed. Across the state, people watching on black-and-white TVs leaped from their seats, screaming, jumping, holding their heads in disbelief.
Weaver, a 6-foot-1 junior guard for Beloit Memorial High School, had just tied the score in the WIAA championship game against Neenah, sending it into the first of two overtime periods. The Purple Knights would win, 80-79, on Weaver's two free throws in the closing seconds of the second OT.
Few people remember the free throws. Those who witnessed the shot, however, will never forget it.
In 1999, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ranked it 19th on a list of the century's greatest Wisconsin sports moments, ahead of Warren Spahn's 300th victory and Alan Ameche's 1954 Heisman Trophy.
Now 56 and the director of reinstated and probationary students at UW-Whitewater, Weaver still is approached on campus by young men who say, "My grandpa wants to know if you're the guy who made the shot."
"Forty years is a long time," Weaver says, but there is no shelf life for a memory so grand. He's been asked to describe the shot thousands of times.
"I could see it was going in the right direction," he says. "But I had no idea it was going to bank and go in. It went off the glass and" - Weaver smacks his hands together - "right through the net."
Watch the Video
March 22, 1969
Twelve days earlier, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. The Vietnam War raged on. Neil Armstrong was four months away from taking one giant leap for mankind.
In Madison, Beloit Memorial, coached by the legendary Bernie Barkin, entered the WIAA title game 25-0 and looking to avenge a 63-51 loss to Manitowoc in the '68 final. Neenah, coached by Ron Einerson, had a strong team, too, with a lineup of deadly jump shooters.
The UW Field House was packed with 12,923 fans.
The game was nip-and-tuck all the way. Finally, Neenah's Pat Hawley made a 10-footer in the lane with 3 seconds left to give the Rockets a 70-68 lead. Beloit senior Chuck Loft had the presence of mind to call time out, but the Purple Knights were distraught and their cheerleaders were crying.
With Beloit inbounding at the far end, it was as good as over.
"We were joyous," Hawley says. "But when we got in the huddle, Coach Einerson said there were 2 seconds left and brought us back to reality."
Change of plans
The Knights, always well-prepared by Barkin, had practiced a play for just such an occasion. Dan Wohlfert would inbound the ball to Weaver, who would throw a crosscourt pass that center Bruce Brown would try to tip in.
Weaver cut diagonally across the court from right to left and took the inbounds pass. He dribbled twice, and his momentum carried him within a few feet of the Beloit bench. There was not enough time to throw a pass to Brown.
"I was sitting at halfcourt, directly across from where LaMont took the shot," says John V. Nelson, then a sportswriter for the Beloit Daily News. "I can still hear Bernie Barkin, in his raspy voice: 'Shoot, 'Mont, shoot!'"
Weaver threw the ball from well behind the halfcourt line, more a heave than a shot because of the distance it had to cover.
"I was underneath the basket and when the ball went over the top of me, I thought it had a chance to go in," says Tom Kopitzke, then a star for Neenah. "I turned and said, 'Oh, my God, it's going to go in.'
"When it did, I turned and looked at our bench and all our players were jumping up and down, thinking we had won. They didn't realize it had gone in."
Craig Leipold of Racine, now owner of the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League, was a member of Neenah's junior varsity team and was sitting behind the Rockets' bench in street clothes.
"I remember the shot like it was yesterday," Leipold says. "I remember exactly where I was sitting, how the ball left his hand. You're watching, it's like slow motion and all of a sudden - shoom! - it goes in. I was stunned. Just stunned. I'm like, 'Huh? What just happened here?'"
He was not alone. Some fans couldn't bear to watch and closed their eyes or turned away (Weaver says hundreds of people have told him over the years they missed the shot). Others focused their attention on something else on the court. Still others tracked the ball but couldn't believe their eyes when it went in.
Within a second, however, the old barn exploded.
"I felt like my head hit the rafters," Nelson says. "It was just the most explosive moment I've ever experienced. I still get goose bumps talking about it." Part of the mystique of the shot is that it happened before ESPN and SportsCenter, cell phone cameras and YouTube, instant replay and DVD recorders. You either saw it live or on TV, or you missed it.
"It happened so fast and it was such a stunning event," says Vince Sweeney, UW's senior associate athletic director for external relations and a spectator at the game. "When the cheers ended, there was this buzz in the crowd. It was as active a buzz as I can ever remember hearing."
The Beloit fans stormed the court, which had to be cleared for the overtime session. The game went into a second overtime, and Weaver made the clinching free throws with 36 seconds left.
"It was a great, great basketball game," Weaver says. "I never thought at any point that we had the game won. It was teeter-tottering throughout. It was a great game right to the end."
In the chaos afterward, Nelson found Weaver sitting alone against one of the pillars in the Field House.
"He was almost in shock," Nelson says.
The Knights returned to Beloit that night and were greeted by 15,000 supporters. The Daily News described the scene: "Families came out of their homes, some in pajamas, pin curlers and housecoats. Sparklers and flares were lighted. The entire road was a mass of leaping, laughing, cheering humanity."
Weaver remembers pizzas strewn about the gym floor at the high school. Someone produced a stack of paper plates and the team members signed them.
"A few years ago a kid came in my office and said, 'I want you to see something,'" Weaver says. "He handed me one of those paper plates I autographed in 1969."
Suddenly, Weaver was a hero in Beloit and a celebrity statewide. His father, Robert, had a weekend trash route and the Weavers were deluged with calls from people who wanted LaMont to pick up their trash, just so they could shake his hand. Fans wrote from as far away as Wisconsin Rapids, asking for autographed photos.
It was heady stuff for a young man who didn't celebrate his 17th birthday until two weeks after the championship game.
"My dad, he had a pretty big fist," Weaver says with a laugh. "He never would have allowed me to get a big head because there was always something you could have done better. It was never like, 'You were great.'"
The next year, the Knights won their first 14 games, giving them 40 consecutive victories. But Madison West beat them in the sectional and they didn't get a chance to defend their title. Weaver was recruited by several Division I programs and signed with Wisconsin. While on a recruiting trip to Kansas State, he duplicated his famous shot for stunned onlookers.
"We were walking through the gym, four or five of us (recruits), and someone said, 'Hey, this guy made a 55-footer in high school,' " Weaver says. "Someone said, 'How'd you do it?' They threw me a ball and I walked over to the spot and threw it and it went in. They didn't know what to think. Maybe, 'We probably should sign this guy.'"
At Wisconsin, Weaver was a part-time starter and a defensive stopper assigned to guard players such as Indiana's Quinn Buckner and Northwestern's Billy McKinney. He played in the famous Milwaukee Classic game in which victorious Marquette coach Al McGuire jumped on the scorer's table.
Weaver then coached the UW freshman team for two years before moving on to UW-River Falls, where he became, at 23, the youngest head coach in the Wisconsin State University Conference.
He wanted to bring in junior college players, but the administration wanted him to recruit kids from the surrounding farms and small towns. In his first year, River Falls went 3-23.
"I hadn't lost 23 games in my life, including pick-up," Weaver says. "I'm getting my (butt) kicked. I go buy a German shepherd. I'm taking that dog to St. Paul (Minn.) twice a week for training. My wife was like, 'What are you doing, buying a dog?' Hey, I'm getting my (butt) kicked. Training that dog was my therapy."
Weaver had enough after two years. In 1980, he joined Dave Vander Meulen at Whitewater and enjoyed a 14-year run as an assistant coach, during which the Warhawks won two NCAA Division III championships.
Though he no longer coaches, Weaver remains connected to basketball through his son Kyle, who played at Beloit Memorial and Washington State and now is a rookie with the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder. They talk after every game.
"Oh, I tell you, as a father it's just great," Weaver says. "Kyle has kind of gotten me back into the limelight. Before, he was my son. Now, I'm his dad. It's kind of nice."
Twelve days earlier, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. The Vietnam War raged on. Neil Armstrong was four months away from taking one giant leap for mankind.
In Madison, Beloit Memorial, coached by the legendary Bernie Barkin, entered the WIAA title game 25-0 and looking to avenge a 63-51 loss to Manitowoc in the '68 final. Neenah, coached by Ron Einerson, had a strong team, too, with a lineup of deadly jump shooters.
The UW Field House was packed with 12,923 fans.
The game was nip-and-tuck all the way. Finally, Neenah's Pat Hawley made a 10-footer in the lane with 3 seconds left to give the Rockets a 70-68 lead. Beloit senior Chuck Loft had the presence of mind to call time out, but the Purple Knights were distraught and their cheerleaders were crying.
With Beloit inbounding at the far end, it was as good as over.
"We were joyous," Hawley says. "But when we got in the huddle, Coach Einerson said there were 2 seconds left and brought us back to reality."
Change of plans
The Knights, always well-prepared by Barkin, had practiced a play for just such an occasion. Dan Wohlfert would inbound the ball to Weaver, who would throw a crosscourt pass that center Bruce Brown would try to tip in.
Weaver cut diagonally across the court from right to left and took the inbounds pass. He dribbled twice, and his momentum carried him within a few feet of the Beloit bench. There was not enough time to throw a pass to Brown.
"I was sitting at halfcourt, directly across from where LaMont took the shot," says John V. Nelson, then a sportswriter for the Beloit Daily News. "I can still hear Bernie Barkin, in his raspy voice: 'Shoot, 'Mont, shoot!'"
Weaver threw the ball from well behind the halfcourt line, more a heave than a shot because of the distance it had to cover.
"I was underneath the basket and when the ball went over the top of me, I thought it had a chance to go in," says Tom Kopitzke, then a star for Neenah. "I turned and said, 'Oh, my God, it's going to go in.'
"When it did, I turned and looked at our bench and all our players were jumping up and down, thinking we had won. They didn't realize it had gone in."
Craig Leipold of Racine, now owner of the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League, was a member of Neenah's junior varsity team and was sitting behind the Rockets' bench in street clothes.
"I remember the shot like it was yesterday," Leipold says. "I remember exactly where I was sitting, how the ball left his hand. You're watching, it's like slow motion and all of a sudden - shoom! - it goes in. I was stunned. Just stunned. I'm like, 'Huh? What just happened here?'"
He was not alone. Some fans couldn't bear to watch and closed their eyes or turned away (Weaver says hundreds of people have told him over the years they missed the shot). Others focused their attention on something else on the court. Still others tracked the ball but couldn't believe their eyes when it went in.
Within a second, however, the old barn exploded.
"I felt like my head hit the rafters," Nelson says. "It was just the most explosive moment I've ever experienced. I still get goose bumps talking about it." Part of the mystique of the shot is that it happened before ESPN and SportsCenter, cell phone cameras and YouTube, instant replay and DVD recorders. You either saw it live or on TV, or you missed it.
"It happened so fast and it was such a stunning event," says Vince Sweeney, UW's senior associate athletic director for external relations and a spectator at the game. "When the cheers ended, there was this buzz in the crowd. It was as active a buzz as I can ever remember hearing."
The Beloit fans stormed the court, which had to be cleared for the overtime session. The game went into a second overtime, and Weaver made the clinching free throws with 36 seconds left.
"It was a great, great basketball game," Weaver says. "I never thought at any point that we had the game won. It was teeter-tottering throughout. It was a great game right to the end."
In the chaos afterward, Nelson found Weaver sitting alone against one of the pillars in the Field House.
"He was almost in shock," Nelson says.
The Knights returned to Beloit that night and were greeted by 15,000 supporters. The Daily News described the scene: "Families came out of their homes, some in pajamas, pin curlers and housecoats. Sparklers and flares were lighted. The entire road was a mass of leaping, laughing, cheering humanity."
Weaver remembers pizzas strewn about the gym floor at the high school. Someone produced a stack of paper plates and the team members signed them.
"A few years ago a kid came in my office and said, 'I want you to see something,'" Weaver says. "He handed me one of those paper plates I autographed in 1969."
Suddenly, Weaver was a hero in Beloit and a celebrity statewide. His father, Robert, had a weekend trash route and the Weavers were deluged with calls from people who wanted LaMont to pick up their trash, just so they could shake his hand. Fans wrote from as far away as Wisconsin Rapids, asking for autographed photos.
It was heady stuff for a young man who didn't celebrate his 17th birthday until two weeks after the championship game.
"My dad, he had a pretty big fist," Weaver says with a laugh. "He never would have allowed me to get a big head because there was always something you could have done better. It was never like, 'You were great.'"
The next year, the Knights won their first 14 games, giving them 40 consecutive victories. But Madison West beat them in the sectional and they didn't get a chance to defend their title. Weaver was recruited by several Division I programs and signed with Wisconsin. While on a recruiting trip to Kansas State, he duplicated his famous shot for stunned onlookers.
"We were walking through the gym, four or five of us (recruits), and someone said, 'Hey, this guy made a 55-footer in high school,' " Weaver says. "Someone said, 'How'd you do it?' They threw me a ball and I walked over to the spot and threw it and it went in. They didn't know what to think. Maybe, 'We probably should sign this guy.'"
At Wisconsin, Weaver was a part-time starter and a defensive stopper assigned to guard players such as Indiana's Quinn Buckner and Northwestern's Billy McKinney. He played in the famous Milwaukee Classic game in which victorious Marquette coach Al McGuire jumped on the scorer's table.
Weaver then coached the UW freshman team for two years before moving on to UW-River Falls, where he became, at 23, the youngest head coach in the Wisconsin State University Conference.
He wanted to bring in junior college players, but the administration wanted him to recruit kids from the surrounding farms and small towns. In his first year, River Falls went 3-23.
"I hadn't lost 23 games in my life, including pick-up," Weaver says. "I'm getting my (butt) kicked. I go buy a German shepherd. I'm taking that dog to St. Paul (Minn.) twice a week for training. My wife was like, 'What are you doing, buying a dog?' Hey, I'm getting my (butt) kicked. Training that dog was my therapy."
Weaver had enough after two years. In 1980, he joined Dave Vander Meulen at Whitewater and enjoyed a 14-year run as an assistant coach, during which the Warhawks won two NCAA Division III championships.
Though he no longer coaches, Weaver remains connected to basketball through his son Kyle, who played at Beloit Memorial and Washington State and now is a rookie with the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder. They talk after every game.
"Oh, I tell you, as a father it's just great," Weaver says. "Kyle has kind of gotten me back into the limelight. Before, he was my son. Now, I'm his dad. It's kind of nice."
Survives health scare
In 1986, Weaver was involved in a minor traffic accident. Another car rear-ended his and he suffered a slight case of whiplash.
"I thought, you know, take a hot shower, stick your neck under the water and you'll be fine," he says. "A couple days later, one of my students said, 'Mr. Weaver, your neck looks swollen.' I said, 'Nah,' but I stopped at the doctor and he said, 'Get to the hospital right now.'"
It was thyroid cancer. Weaver had surgery and has been cancer-free since.
"If that guy hadn't hit me, who knows? I might not have found out until it was too late," Weaver says. "Somebody said, 'Are you going to sue him?' I said, 'Sue him? I'm going to send him a Christmas card and buy him Valentine's candy.'
"I'm not a guy to say, 'Why me?' With the cancer, I could have said, 'Why me?' But I wasn't saying, 'Why me?' when I made the shot. I wasn't feeling sorry for myself then."
Asked how his life might have changed had he missed the shot, Weaver says, "I think I would have lived the same life. I didn't get richer because I made that shot. It didn't put a dime in my pockets. But the joy, you can't put a price on that. Things are not always dollars and cents."
Weaver has two programs and the original play-by-play sheet from the game and keeps a videotape in a safety deposit box.
Others who witnessed the shot have stored away their memories, too.
"I don't think I've ever been to Beloit," Leipold says, "but I'll bet I've thought of Beloit a million times over the years."
In 1986, Weaver was involved in a minor traffic accident. Another car rear-ended his and he suffered a slight case of whiplash.
"I thought, you know, take a hot shower, stick your neck under the water and you'll be fine," he says. "A couple days later, one of my students said, 'Mr. Weaver, your neck looks swollen.' I said, 'Nah,' but I stopped at the doctor and he said, 'Get to the hospital right now.'"
It was thyroid cancer. Weaver had surgery and has been cancer-free since.
"If that guy hadn't hit me, who knows? I might not have found out until it was too late," Weaver says. "Somebody said, 'Are you going to sue him?' I said, 'Sue him? I'm going to send him a Christmas card and buy him Valentine's candy.'
"I'm not a guy to say, 'Why me?' With the cancer, I could have said, 'Why me?' But I wasn't saying, 'Why me?' when I made the shot. I wasn't feeling sorry for myself then."
Asked how his life might have changed had he missed the shot, Weaver says, "I think I would have lived the same life. I didn't get richer because I made that shot. It didn't put a dime in my pockets. But the joy, you can't put a price on that. Things are not always dollars and cents."
Weaver has two programs and the original play-by-play sheet from the game and keeps a videotape in a safety deposit box.
Others who witnessed the shot have stored away their memories, too.
"I don't think I've ever been to Beloit," Leipold says, "but I'll bet I've thought of Beloit a million times over the years."