CELTIC-NATION
You were born on August 27^th, 1929, two months before Black Thursday and the onset of the Great Depression.  Please tell me a little about your childhood.

ERNIE BARRETT
I was born in the small town of Pratt, Kansas.  My father was a railroader for the Katy Railroad, which was also known as the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad.  We didn’t live in Pratt for very long, because my father’s work moved us around quite a bit during that time.  From Pratt we ended up in Blackwell, Oklahoma, which was another small  railroad town located just across the Kansas-Oklahoma border.  Then, just about as quickly, he went to work for the Santa Fe Railroad in Wellington, Kansas.  So I spent most of my childhood growing up in Wellington.  I went to high school there, played basketball there, and still think of it as home.

CELTIC-NATION
You were an All-State basketball star at Wellington High School.  What memories of that experience have stayed with you through the years?

ERNIE BARRETT
We won the state championship in 1947, which is still the last time a team from Wellington has won a state title in basketball.  That ’47 Wellington squad had plenty of talent, fine players like Harold Rogers who went on to play for coach [Henry] Iba at Oklahoma State University.  Our coach was John Floyd, and I credit him with all of my success as a basketball player.  He was the person who taught me the fundamentals, and the one who really helped me to improve my shooting.  I was a 6’-1” center in high school – that should tell you about the height we had on that team – and I went on to play guard at Kansas State.  I probably wouldn’t have made it as a college player if Coach Floyd hadn’t worked with me on my outside shooting.  Even back then you just didn’t find many 6’-1” centers playing major college basketball [laughs].  K-State had a 6’-5” guard that first year I was on the team, and the Boston Celtics had players like Bob Donham who were bigger than me.  So learning to play away from the basket was a tremendous help, and Coach Floyd was the person who had the most to do with that development.

CELTIC-NATION
You captained the 1950-51 team that opened one of America's most spectacular basketball arenas -- fabled Ahearn Fieldhouse.  Please tell me a little about the atmosphere in that arena, and also compare it to where you played professional basketball – the fabled Boston Garden.

ERNIE BARRETT
When Ahearn Fieldhouse opened on December 9^th, 1950, it was the second largest facility of its kind behind Jenison Fieldhouse on the Michigan State campus.  It was a multipurpose facility, designed for basketball and other sports such as indoor track, volleyball and various intramurals.  It had an original seating capacity of 11,700, but there were always 12,500 fans packed into the stands for our home games [laughs].  Every game was a sellout.  It was extremely noisy, which gave us a great homecourt advantage.

It’s hard to compare Ahearn to the Boston Garden, or to any NBA stadium for that matter.  NBA arenas like the Boston Garden were entertainment facilities.  They were built to accommodate anything from basketball games to ice shows to music concerts.  So it was hard to match the excitement that you’d find in a true basketball stadium like Ahearn Fieldhouse.

CELTIC-NATION
You earned All-America honors for that 1950-51 season.  What did this award mean to you then, and what does it mean to you now?

ERNIE BARRETT
I was the captain of that team, and the success that we had during my senior season had a lot to do with  my being honored as an All-American.  It meant a lot to be selected, but we had five or six guys who scored in double-figures.  It was truly a team effort.  And while we had a great season, a lot of what we accomplished was overshadowed by the 1951 point-shaving scandal.

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