Once There Were Giants
HOW TINY HEBRON
WON THE ILLINOIS STATE BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
AND THE HEARTS OF FANS FOREVER

Did You Know?

  • Hebron had only 98 students, and only 42 boys, at the time it won the state championship. Its opponent in the title game, Quincy, had an enrollment of 1,035 (in only three grades).
  • Hebron High School consolidated with Alden High School in 1948, so the school's official name was Alden-Hebron when it won the championship.  Hardly anyone outside of McHenry County knew or used the school's real name.
  • Bill Schulz, the 6-10½ junior center who lived on a dairy farm near Alden, had never seen a basketball game until he entered Alden-Hebron as an eighth-grader.
  • Hebron was rated No. 1 in the AP or UP poll in 9 of the 13 weeks that polls were taken during the 1951-52 season.
  • The championship game with Quincy was the first ever to go to overtime.  It was also the first overtime varsity game that Russ Ahearn had ever coached and that the Hebron players had ever played.
  • The title game was NOT the first state tournament game ever to be televised. The semifinal games played that afternoon were also televised.
  • All five of Hebron's starters went to major colleges on scholarships.
  • Many of Hebron's players honed their basketball skills in a grade-school coal room and in a hayloft set up with hoops at each end.