Bellevue News-Democrat
October 4, 2007

Wally Spiers

New book chronicles 1940 hoops state champs

"Men of Granite" is the story of how a group of kids who were
second-class citizens in town helped give Granite City the 1940 state
high school basketball championship.

The book, written by Dan Manoyan, a sportswriter for the Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel, is scheduled for publication in November and some
people in Granite City want to make it a bestseller.

"I’m not doing the book, I’m just trying to hustle it," said Babe
Champion, former Granite City coach and sports official and community
activist. He spoke to the Granite City Rotary Club Tuesday about the
book.

Champion wants civic clubs and organizations and other groups to buy
and sell the book as a fundraiser. The book will retail for $24.95.

"I promised to sell 1,000," he said. "But I hope we do a lot better
than that."

The book is the story of the 1940 Granite City High School basketball
team that won the Illinois state championship, the isolation of the
immigrants in town and how the team, with seven first-generation
Americans, came together to win and make a town proud.

Manoyan said the stories in the book are great, such as future NBA
star Andy Phillip getting his first pair of sneakers at the Lincoln
Place Center and they didn’t even match.

"But his wife said he kept them all his life," Manoyan said. "The book
is not only about the team, it’s about how their families happened to
come to the town, what they left behind, and what they faced when they
got there."

Manoyan was a sportswriter for a Waukegan newspaper in 1980 when he
had time to look through an Illinois High School Association record
book on a rainy spring night when all the baseball games were
canceled.

He came across this team from Granite City with all these immigrant
names. It attracted him because he is part Armenian.

But it wasn’t until a year and a half ago when he was driving through
St. Louis and saw the Granite City sign that it clicked in and he made
time to stop and look around.

He was able to get in contact with surviving team members Andy
Hagopian and John Markarian as well as the relatives of some other
players. He also talked to a lot of Granite City people including
Champion, who sent him all the newspaper stories about the team and
other items.

The team had four Armenians, a Hungarian, a Yugoslavian and a
Macedonian, Hagopian said. He said they had an advantage on the tip
offs because he could talk to former center George Gage in Armenian
without the opponents knowing.

He also recalled some of the adults who didn’t know English listened
to the game broadcasts with an interpreter at the Lincoln Place
Center.

Champion said he couldn’t be more impressed with the book.

"This is something Granite City needs to know about that time in
Granite City and a lesson for now," Champion said.

For more information, you can send e-mail to champion@granitecity.com
or write to: Men of Granite, P.O. Box 1493, Granite City, IL 62040.

Wally Spiers’ column runs five days a week. Have a column idea? Call
Wally at 239-2506 or (800) 642-3878; or e-mail: wspiers@bnd.com