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Five-overtime games exhausting
Published 7:20am Monday, January 25, 2010High school varsity basketball now includes two 18-minute halves, compared to four eight-minute quarters in previous years. Most people enjoy the current 36 minutes of basketball compared to 32 minutes of play in the years prior to 2005.
An overtime period these days consists of four minutes. It was three minutes of overtime in the old days. Exhausting games, to say the least.
One or two overtimes is one thing. But five overtimes can be excruciating.
Just ask current Otter boys basketball coach Dave Rund who played in a five-overtime game in the 1983 region boys basketball finals. Rund played for Ada which lost to Little Fork-Big Falls in the Region 8-A championship game.
This game took place 20 years after another five-overtime game, with Rothsay downing Fergus Falls in the quarter-finals of the old District 23. That game, in 1963, was part of a one-class system of high school basketball.
“What I remember the most is the end of the third overtime in our game in 1983,” said Rund. “Our post player grabbed a rebound and put the ball back up, only to miss. He grabbed his own rebound, missed again, and then made the third attempt.”
Ada fans swarmed the court and thought they were heading to the state tournament. But they weren’t.
“The gym was so loud that you couldn’t heard the buzzer,” said Rund. “The two officials met at the scorers’ table and waved it off. The janitors then had to sweep the floor before the start of the fourth overtime.”
After two more overtimes, Ada came up short against Little Fork-Big Falls. It was a heartbreaking loss for Rund, his teammates, coaches and fans.
Seven years later, Rund was coaching the Pelican Rapids girls basketball team in the district championship against Perham. Before the game started, the two officials come over and introduced themselves.
“They started to walk away, but referee Chuck Evert quickly turned around and asked if I was Dave Rund from Ada,” said Rund. “I said yes, and he told me that he was one of the refs for our five-overtime game back in 1983.”
The other referee in that five-overtime game was John Klinnert.
“I told Chuck that, ‘I have a good memory and don’t forget a face.’ I kidded Chuck to please say that a buzzer beater for Pelican, against Perham in 1990, would be good.”
Rund said he still tells that story and get laughs, even today.
“The game has changed so much over the years,” said Rund. “The athletes are stronger and faster, and today you have the three-point line. So many kids have become so athletic. They do things that catch the refs off guard.”
He sympathized that today, referees have to make quick decisions about violations.
“At times it can be difficult to know who did what,” said Rund. “The job of a referee isn’t easy.”
Evert and Klinnert are members of the Otter Tail Officials Association. The organization has about 30 members who referee football games, 20 who referee basketball games and 16 who work as umpires at baseball and softball games.
Getting back to the 1963 five-overtime game between Fergus Falls and Rothsay, a member of the Tiger squad was current Fergus Falls resident Harold Hexum. That was a classic game during a David versus Goliath matchup. Hexum’s wife, Barbara (Olson), was a cheerleader for the Fergus Otters during that District 23 game.
Rund, Hexum and others who have played in five-overtime games no doubt have life-long memories of those contests.
