OCR Text |
Show Cleo Petty to Retire After Long Career of an offensive game than when I played and coached. The players are taller and they shoot better. Defensively, Defen-sively, they are about on a par with my day. The game is much more 'run and shoot,' and it's much rougher.. .more physical. "I think a major reason that baseball is so much better now is the youth ' program. Also, the kids nowadays can watch professional players on television and learn the game. The equipment is also constantly improving." Petty was a major influence in-fluence in creating Cedar City's youth baseball program, and his third place national finish was one result of his efforts. "Recruiting problems are about the same now as in my day," he says. "It may be a little easier for us at SUSC now that we are established in a four-year program ; now the junior colleges sift some of the talent for us, and we don't compote as directly with junior colleges for talent. "Today very few kids will 'walk on' and make a college squad. Nearly all the players that have the ability we need will receive some sort of financial inducement from some institution." Petty plans to enjoy his retirement and to stay close to athletics. He's an avid (and very capable) golfer; he 1 loves to fish; and he vows to attend every available SUSC athletic event. started on the basketball team at Utah State. It was in a game in Los Angeles against Southern California; an injury to one of the players allowed me to get into the game. I had a good second half--18 points or something like that-and it was good enough to got me , on the starting five." Petty was a starter for the remainder of his career at i . ml i AAU play with the Antlers Hotel of Colorado Springs. Those were the days when amateur basketball was at its pinnacle. As a coach, Petty has taken two teams to national playoffs. In 1952, the latter part of his first year at SUSC, his junior college basketball team finished in sixth place in the National Junior College tournament at Hutchinson, Kansas. Among the members of that squad were Boyd Adams, now coaching at SUSC; Ted Smith, basketball basket-ball coach at Roy High School; Reese Naegle, living in Tremonton; Bob Crane, living in Las Vegas; and Don Marshall, killed several years ago in a truck accident. ac-cident. It was in the late 1950's that Petty took his baseball team to third place nationally in the junior college tournament held at Grand Junction, Colorado. That squad included nearly all Utah players: Steve Cahoon, Kent Smith, Denny Slack, all from Cedar City; Gordon Loveless, Payson; Johnny Paez, Salt Lake City; and Son Sudbury, Magna, among others. One of Petty's amazing traits is the ability to remember each of his past players . and his peculiarities. "The players in both basketball and baseball are getting better every year," Petty observes. He ought to know; he has been observing them professionally ' for a long time. He has served at SUSC for 28 years as baseball coach, 10 years as a basketball coach, 12 years as athletic director, and 16 years as chairman of the department of physical education. "Basketball is much more It takes an extended conversation with Cleo Petty, retiring personality and baseball coach at Southern Utah State College to really appreciate the man. Who would have suspected, for example, that he almost won a basketball game because he consented to letting two of his players be hypnotized, or thaj he 'was 4 an interstate champion luba ' player, or that he was team captain of a basketball team which almost became the United States Olympic entry one. year? Petty is strictly low key;he doesn't mind talking about his experiences and accomplishments, but he doesn't volunteer much. Over the past 50 years, Petty has added plenty of leaven to sports throughout the intermountain area as high school basketball four-year four-year letterman, two-year team captain, and standout player (for Utah State University) , and a college basketball and baseball coach (for Southern Utah State College.) He retires from active coaching effective this spring, but he will stay on the SUSC teaching staff on an emerittus basis for at least one more year. Cleo's first real claim to fame came not as an athlete, but as a musician. And there are still people who would rather hear Cleo play the piano than watch a dozen basketball games. In 1931, he won first place for a tuba solor in the Utah-Idaho Interstate Contest in Music. He was a state basketball scoring leader for Juab his senior year and was "recruited" to Utah State. "Actually, recruitment was somewhat different then, " Petty recalls. "E L. 'Dick' Romney wrote me one letter inviting me to go to 'the AC I guess I really got more encouragement from a Professor Christiansen in the music department who invited me to come and play in the band." The only scholarship Petty received was "a house to live in for being in the band. I never received anything, except help finding a job, for my athletic participation." "It was a lucky break that allowed me to really get i n i-i ii ii Cleo Petty USU. He was elected captain both his junior and senior years. "We had rather mediocre seasons the first two years I was there, but the last two years, we did real well," Petty recalls. The team won the Rocky Mountain Conference during Petty's junior and senior years. In his senior year, the Aggies won two of three games from one of Phogg Allen's highly regarded Kansas University teams and moved to New York City's Madison Square Garden for an eight -team tournament to determine the team which would represent the United States in teh 1936 Olympic Games. Petty's team lost to an ASAU team the first round. Individually', Petty did well his last two years at USU. He was named all-conference all-conference as both a junior and a senior and earned honorable mention all-American all-American accolades as a senior. He followed up his college career with two years of |