It wasn't too long ago that Carson High won the state title in boys basketball. At least it seems that way.
Actually, it was 30 years ago. "I thought it was only about 10," said Mike Longero jokingly.
Longero was the leading scorer on that 1975 team which pulled off that unexpected run to the state crown.
"I remember it was a close-knit team, a close-knit community, a close-knit school," said Longero looking back on the state title run. "All the things worked out right. You've got to have a lot of breaks to do something like that. The community was so strongly behind us."
The run to the state title - at least mentally - may have begun the year before when Carson advanced to the state tournament in Las Vegas. While the Senators lost to Valley in the first round, it was a close game.
"It was as if they weren't untouchable," said Longero, commenting on how the Senators began to believe that they could compete - and beat - the Southern Nevada schools.
Another important wake-up call came in the 1975 Northern zone finals when Wooster upset the Senators. "I think that straightened our heads out a little bit," Longero said.
Longtime Carson coach and athletic director Tom Andreasen, who was the coach of that team, admitted his team may have looked past the game against Wooster. "They were looking forward to the state tournament," Andreasen said.
But Andreasen said he would have still ranked his team third going into the state event behind defending state champion Las Vegas and Clark. Las Vegas was unbeaten, but had been taken to overtime twice by Clark.
"We knew that we had a chance," Andreasen said. "No one from the South thought we had a chance."
Carson came out like gang busters in the first round, routing Bishop Gorman 72-36. "We did OK against Gorman," said Longero in an understatement.
But the win over Gorman was also a confidence-builder. "There was a little bit of hope in the back of everybody's minds," Longero said.
Still there were skeptics, especially from the South. Andreasen said an official who worked the Gorman game told him afterward, "Wait until Vegas gets a hold of you."
The Senators weren't intimidated against 25-0 Vegas. Andreasen said that game was his team's best of the year as Carson won 60-55.
The two teams came in as two of the top scoring teams in the nation, but it was a relatively low scoring game. "It turned out to be a defensive battle," Andreasen said.
Andreasen said he was concerned about what his team had left against Clark. "It took a lot out of them," said Andreasen about the game against Vegas. "But they had enough left."
Against Clark, Carson led throughout and even tough Longero and another key player, Don Crossley, fouled out, players like Steve Rasmussen and Jimmy Salazar picked up the slack. Clark scored a meaningless basket at the end, but the Senators held on for the 67-66 win. "They couldn't catch us," Andreasen said.
An overflow crowd of 7,000 watch the championship game at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center and the celebration continued well after the contest.
"The whole town was behind us," Longero said. A long line of cars followed the team bus back to Carson High after the game where a large number of fans were waiting.
"When the clock ran out it was hard to believe that actually happened," said Longero about winning state.
Longero gave much of the credit for the state title run to Andreasen. "I think Tom Andreasen did a great job getting us ready," he said.
Andreasen and Longero also credited the team's chemistry for its success. "They were just a lot of neat individuals," Longero said. "It's rare to get that kind of chemistry."
Longero ended up being the state most valuable player and Paul Gray was named to the all-state first team.
About Crossley, Andreasen said, "He probably had the biggest heart and maybe the most court sense of all my players. He did a lot for us."
Andreasen compared Crossley to Nevada's Kevinn Pinkney, saying that Crossley served the same role as Pinkney serves now for the Wolf Pack.
There was also 6-2 Robbie Young, who Andreasen said, "could jump right out of the gym. We had great leapers."
Others on the team were guard Morey Cresnit, defensive specialist Billy Nagle, Mark Amodei, Reese Bostwick and Dana Winkleman.
Along with being champions on the court, all of the players became champions off the court as well. Longero went on to play basketball at Nevada and to be a teacher and coach. He now teaches at Carson.
Gray is building his own legacy as the boys basketball coach at Reed where he has turned the Raiders into a Northern 4A power. Young also went on to an athletic career at Nevada and Salazar went on to have an outstanding career at Eastern Montana. Rasmussen became an Air Force pilot and Amodei also had a distinguished military career and is now a state senator.
While it's been 30 years, Andreasen had the word he liked best to describe that team. "Unforgettable," he said.
