Marshall University Athletics
COTTON: 30 Years Later -- A Trip to the Dance
2/27/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Note: This story originally appeared in the February issue of Thundering Herd Illustrated, the official magazine of Marshall University athletics. The complete digital issue of Thundering Herd Illustrated can be viewed here.
By Steve Cotton
The game is over! Marshall has won it! Their third Southern Conference championship, 66-to-64 the final ... From the Asheville Civic Center in Asheville, North Carolina, Marshall wins the Southern Conference final.
That's how Jim Thacker finished his ESPN telecast on March 1, 1987, as the video showed Thundering Herd fans rushing the court in celebration -- fans whose $2 bills are remembered to this day even by those who, 30 years later, might struggle to recall that Davidson was the team the Herd beat in the championship game.
Coach Rick Huckabay's Herd was 22-5 on the season and went into the tournament as the No. 1 seed thanks to a 15-1 league record, one game ahead of Tennessee-Chattanooga, the only team to have beaten Marshall. The Herd Faithful, disappointed by a first-round tourney loss to ETSU the previous spring, felt their team had a good chance to repeat the tournament titles of 1984 and '85.
Marshall athletic director Dave Braine hatched the idea for Herd fans to flood Asheville with those $2 bills, to make sure their impact was noticed by the locals. In the days leading up to the tournament, Huntington banks dealt out an estimated $32,000 worth of deuces.
As Friday's first round games played out, one restaurant already had a stash of $1,200 worth of the unusual bills in its tills after Herd fans celebrated a 76-71 first-round win over Appalachian State in the day's first game. They partied even more when Western Carolina upset Murray Arnold's Moccasins in overtime, and when Davidson knocked off always-dangerous VMI and league Player of the Year Gay Elmore.
"There was a lot of pressure on us in Asheville," said Brian Fish, then one of the Herd's top reserves and now in his third season as the head coach at Montana State. "We had great talent -- Skip Henderson was as good as anyone in the league. Tom Curry was a dominant force inside. Rodney Holden could go get rebounds with anybody.
"We had all that and we knew we deserved an NCAA bid, but we knew that we wouldn't get one unless we went there and won three games."
So there was pressure to win, but Marshall felt at home in the Asheville Civic Center. Holden, a first-team All-Conference selection along with Henderson that season, remembers the tournament as practically home games.
"The Civic Center was the Henderson Center away from home for us," Holden said. "Thousands of fans just made that a part of their season and we packed it out down there."
All five Marshall starters scored in double figures during Saturday's 77-64 semifinal win over Furman, with forward Dwayne Lewis topping the team with 18 points. Davidson beat Western Carolina in the nightcap, 85-76, behind 34 points from guard Derek Rucker, and Sunday afternoon's championship game was set.
Even more Herd fans made the trek down U.S. 23 to Asheville for the battle, while it's said that one of those already in the city settled his hotel bill by counting out 75 of the Thomas Jefferson notes to the desk clerk.
Former WSAZ-TV sports director and radio "Voice of the Herd" (1954-67) Jim Thacker was at the television microphone, while the studio host was an ESPN rookie named John Saunders.
Both of Marshall's regular season wins over Davidson had been hard-fought -- a 9-point win in Huntington and a 6-point victory on the Wildcats' court just a week earlier.
It was more of the same in the title game. Marshall held the lead late in regulation, but Henderson uncharacteristically missed three one-plus-one free throw opportunities and Davidson's Chris Heineman hit a layup with four seconds left to send the game to overtime.
The Wildcats' Mike Gynn scored to tie the game 64-64 with 30 seconds remaining in the extra session. After a Marshall timeout, the Herd's Lewis missed a turnaround jumper with the clock winding down, but Henderson atoned for his missed free throws by tipping in the rebound to give Marshall the league crown and NCAA tournament bid.
"Of all things, what I remember when we won the game was the John Marshall character leading everyone onto the court," Holden said. "It was a Huntington attorney who dressed up as John Marshall -- black robes, wig, gavel -- and he's on the court leading this giant celebration."
Davidson's Rucker was named the tournament MVP, but he was held to 14 points in the championship game when Marshall singled him out for box-and-one defensive coverage from John Humphrey. Henderson, Curry, Holden and Lewis each received All-Tournament honors.
One week later, on Selection Sunday, Marshall learned that it was returning to North Carolina for an NCAA tourney date with No. 19 Texas Christian University. The Horned Frogs, led by the high scoring backcourt duo of Carven Holcombe and (current TCU head coach) Jamie Dixon closed Marshall's season with a 78-60 win in the Charlotte Coliseum -- and a final record of 25-6 after what remains Marshall's last NCAA tournament appearance.
"(Jamie Dixon) and I have become friends over the years and still talk about that game when we see each other," Fish said. "That's a special time in your life, and even though I haven't been back to Huntington in probably 25 years, Marshall is still my school. I think about things there and people there all the time.
"Now I'm here at Montana State in the Big Sky Conference and every time we go to Pocatello to play Idaho State I think about Coach Chaump and the football team playing there for the national championship in '87."
Holden on the other hand -- an Atlanta native -- never left the Tri-State after marrying a classmate from Wheelersburg, Ohio, Tamala Conley.
"Marshall prepared me well for my life after basketball, wherever I went, but I met my wife in class at Marshall and went into the family business in her father's trucking company," Holden said. "So I've been able to spend all these years close to Marshall, a great place to raise my family and keep up with the Herd."
Fish also considers Marshall the place that made his career possible, even if he didn't fully appreciate it at the time.
"When you're there in the middle of it you sometimes don't realize what's happening to you and for you," he said. "I remember at one point in my senior year sitting down with an academic counselor and them telling me I had just these few classes to take, a few hours to graduate. I just laughed because I didn't even realize that.
"It hit me that I had all these people taking care of me as a student-athlete and how fortunate I was. Then Coach (Dana) Altman came in and he and (athletic director) Lee Moon gave me the chance to start my coaching career and that's the path I took.
"I'm always appreciative of what Marshall did for me as a student and in getting me ready for what I've done since then."'
Holden, too, remains involved in basketball. He is the head junior varsity head coach and an assistant for the varsity team at Wheelersburg High School.
"The staff at Marshall instilled in us to give back to our community, especially to kids," he said. "So I've always tried to do that, and one way has been through coaching.
"This community has supported my family and me and coaching is a way to repay their support, to show them how to use the gifts God has given them to grow and do great things, through sports or however they do it."
When his teams' schedules allow, Holden still makes his way to the Henderson Center to cheer on his alma mater, and like other Herd fans he dreams of another championship celebration.
"I had Coach Huckabay and my teammates sign one of those $2 bills and I still have it today," Holden said. "Those are great memories.
"Coach D'Antoni is doing all the right things to prepare us to get back there again in the near future. It won't be Asheville or the Southern Conference these days, but I can feel the fan base getting excited for those same things again."
