Joey
I finally met Joe Cipriano when our high school basketball teams played each other in 1957. I was coaching Lakeside School, and he was coaching Mercer Island. We mostly talked about his last year in high school at Nooksack in Everson, Washington, a town with fewer than 1,000 residents. It brought back many memories of his outstanding high school basketball career at Nooksack. Joey was one of my high school heroes, and it was a great pleasure to meet him finally.
Joe explained that he worked hard to become the best player he could be that year. He told me that during the summer before his senior year, he locked himself in the gym and spent 3–5 hours a day practicing unorthodox dribbling, shooting, and passing, much like Pistol Pete Maravich did in the pros a few years later. He said he worked on very creative and unorthodox techniques until he felt pretty comfortable with them, such as behind-the-back passes, off-balance layups, and dribbling between his legs. He also worked on increasing his dribbling speed.
Well, the record speaks for itself: these skills allowed him to dominate his Whatcom County opponents from the very first game the following year. Joey averaged just over 20 points a game for the season at a time when other high school players were scoring around fifteen points and 20 on a hot night. The Nooksack Pioneers went through their schedule undefeated. In addition to scoring points, Joey impressed his opponents with his passing, enabling his teammates Michael Hughtink and Galen Ramerman to score well.
At the end of the season, Nooksack performed well in the District Tournament, held at the Bellingham High School gym, and easily advanced to the semifinals. They lost to their county rivals from Lynden, then played against Bellingham for third place and a spot in the State tournament in Seattle. In the battle for third place and the chance to compete in the State Championship tournament, Nooksack faced Bellingham High School. Nooksack had about 200 students from the countryside, while Bellingham had around 15,000 students from the city.
That game was as close as it could be and was tied with less than a minute left. Joey drove the ball down the court, smiling as he often did, then he dribbled full speed through the key area toward the corner, hooked the ball high over his head toward the basket, and disappeared out the exit door! Just after the ball went “swish” into the basket, he came back through the door, grinning from ear to ear. Nooksack won by one point and thus qualified to go to the State Championship Tournament at the University of Washington Pavilion in Seattle.
By this point in the season, nearly everyone across the state had heard about the great Nooksack player named “Joe Cipriano”. Their first game was against a strong team from Eastern Washington. Joey told me that he and his “country bumpkins” were very nervous before the game. Nonetheless, he played his usual comedic self at the hotel the night before their first game, trying to drop water-filled paper bags on people below his hotel window. Deep down, Joey was a joyful clown. He even kept some of his antics going while playing for the University of Washington Huskies in college.
As a Washington Huskie, Joey was a three-year standout. He and his teammates, especially Bob Houbrigs, reached the NCAA Tournament finals before ultimately losing to the University of Kansas. I had the chance to see him play a few times during those years, and he always caused his opponents consternation with his speed and creative passing. These skills were clearly on display throughout his impressive career. His hard work and creativity paid off in a big way.
Well, the Nooksack Pioneers played a good game but eventually lost a close one and were eliminated from the tournament. Joey, however, had a great game, scoring 21 points—his season average—while impressing everyone with his brilliant passing. He and his team stayed to watch the rest of the tournament, and Joey was selected for the Washington State All-Star Team. Even though the fans and sports reporters had seen him play only once, and given his 21-point average, everyone agreed he was of All-State caliber.
Well, it turned out that Joey was just as good a coach as he had been a player, and his Mercer Island team easily defeated my Lakeside team. After the game, Joe and I shook hands and wished each other well. He went on to coach the University of Washington Freshman Team for a couple of years before being called to serve as the head coach at the University of Nebraska. He performed well there for several years, but before long, he was struck down in mid-life and mid-career by a cruel form of cancer. “Slippery Cip,” as the newspapers had come to call him, died.
It was truly a pleasure to learn about and even meet Joey Cipriano in person. In my own way, I tried to emulate Joey as much as possible throughout my career, whether in high school, college, or while playing intramurally against my college friends during my teaching years. His energy and imagination were genuinely inspiring to me, as was his friendly manner and sense of humor.
Coach Joe Cipriano