C.Y. Peters

Blast from the Past

To find out who the tallest player ever in Carter County basketball, you would have to go back to the 1969 season.
I was 10 years old and growing up in the 60’s you played outside, ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and watched one of the only two channels that you got on your television. One of the most famous commercials was the one with the Jolly Green Giant advertising canned food. In November of 1969, I would see what I thought was the Jolly Green Giant in person. My mom and dad had graduated from Unaka High School, and they were big basketball fans. Almost every Tuesday and Friday night we were following the Rangers as we made most of the away games. As I walked into Hampton’s gym, there he was, the tallest human I had ever saw, he had traded his green giant outfit for a Hampton Blue Uniform with a number 43 on the jersey. They announced his name as Kenneth Long, and I watched with my eyes frozen on this tall man with amazement.
Ken Long was one of Hampton’s best ever basketball players and one who would lead the Bulldogs to many wins, he was the talk of the town. Once you have seen him, you would never forget him. Headlines in the sports paper all year long was “Long leading the Bulldogs to victory.” “Ken Long, Hampton’s giant bombed the nets for 19 against the Longhorns.” “Long paces Bulldogs with 21” How could this big man be stopped. Not only was Long scoring in the twenty’s but he was also grabbing twenty to thirty rebounds a night. Teams would get one shot at the goal, and if they missed, the ball went to Hampton. While on the other end Long would rebound giving the Bulldogs two and three tries at a basket.
Back to the game, my team, the Unaka Rangers, had some of the best players in Keith Bowers, Eddie Holly Jr., and Terry Taylor, and I thought they were as good as the Globetrotters. But this night would belong to Ken and the Dogs. Keith Bowers did an excellent job on Long and led the Rangers in scoring with 18, but Long was unstoppable scoring 26 points and leading the Bulldogs to victory.
Hampton wouldn’t lose many games in ’69 not even the biggest school around, the Kingsport Indians, could stop Big Ken Long. He scored 23 of the 56 points for Hampton as coach Jerry Nave’s 20th win of the season came at the hand of Dobyns Bennett. Kingsport’s long winning streak had come to an end at the hands of Ken Long. Capacity crowds and college coaches were filling gyms to see Ken play ball, and he never let anyone down.
Long added another twenty points to his charts in a 68-43 rout of the Happy Valley Warriors for the conference championship. It was the Bulldogs second straight conference title. Larry Glover also scored twenty points in the win over the Warriors. Hampton’s only conference loss of the season came the week before against Boones Creek.
Kingsport would get revenge ending Long’s high school career in the Regional semifinals, a 34-32 loss put the Bulldogs out of the tournament, but what a season the Dogs had. Long would sign a scholarship with the Gardner Webb College Bulldogs in Boiling Springs North Carolina.
At Webb, Long joined a former teammate Len Dugger who played at Hampton the year before. Dugger said, “Ken charmed everybody with his country humor. He was a great teammate and hard worker.”
Another Elizabethton player Ken Napier was on the Gardner Webb team. The three players led Coach Eddie Holbrook’s Bulldogs to become the nation’s highest scoring team averaging 109.9 points per game. They were also third in the country with a 20-3 NAIA record and a 26-3 overall record.
After college Long joined the Carter County Rescue Squad. Dugger said, “Ken always wanted to serve in the Rescue Squad and help his community.”
At that time the Rescue Squad was all volunteer work, and later he was a guard at the lake for the TVA. You know how scary that was taking your favorite girl to the lake at night for a moonlight stroll on the gravel walk road to the dam lookout and running into a seven-foot uniformed guard. That will make you run to your car and not look back as I did once. I still can’t remember how she got home.
But Long was one of the kindest hearted men I ever met. My later years, I would get to spend a summer working with him, and he was as good a boss as he was a basketball player, always professional and understanding. Ken Long the tallest player ever to play basketball in Carter County.