The Gene Conley Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, May 30th,
2006
You
were born on November 10th, 1930, in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Please tell
me a little about your childhood; your family, your friendships, and some of the
things that led you to the basketball court.
I
don’t think I became interested in sports until the age of eight or nine. That
was about the time that I was able to participate in intramural sports at
school, and in the different things that they offered in the community. I
remember growing up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and one summer a lot of the merchants
sponsored different kids in the various YMCA activities going on at the time.
The programs were geared towards kids who were too young to work and needed
something to do during the summer months between school sessions. There was
swimming once a week, baseball, things like that. And that’s really how I got
involved in athletics – I was sponsored by the merchants, and competed at the
YMCA when I was about eight or nine years old. Mostly it was swimming in the
beginning, but they also had a gym and outdoor facilities, and I just sort of
eased my way into some of the other things that they offered at the time. I ran
track, and I competed in the midget basketball games. That’s how I learned to
enjoy organized sports.
Of all things, swimming was one of my first loves. As a matter of fact, when I was in junior high school – I think I was about thirteen at the time – I was good enough that I was allowed to swim with the high school guys. It was something of an honor, because the junior high didn’t have a team, and the Y sponsored me so that I could travel to Tulsa to compete with the high school team. I remember taking the bus to Tulsa, to a place called New Block Pool. Freestyle was my first event that day, and I thought I was prepared; I had practiced all summer in the Y pool, which was 25 yards long, and then I stood up on the blocks in this meet and the pool was 50 yards long – it was an intimidating sight. I thought, ‘What in the world am I getting myself into?’ And then I looked at the guys I was swimming against, and they just towered over me – I’ll be honest, I never drank so much water in all my life [laughs]!
But that was how I got into sports. I started playing some basketball in junior high, and then we ended up moving by the time I entered high school. We moved to Richland, Washington – my dad was with the Oklahoma Ordinance Works, and they moved him out to the Hanford Engineering Works in Richland. This was when the war was going on, and they were just starting to work on the bomb. That was in 1943 or 1944. He went out a year ahead of us, and then we moved and spent my entire four years of high school in Washington. Boy, I really loved sports, and I played plenty of them during my time in Richland. Those are some of the things that I remember about my childhood.
You were
a three-letter athlete (basketball, baseball, track) at Columbia High School
in Richland, Washington. At that point in your life, were you contemplating
a career in professional sports, and were you leaning toward one in
particular?
Not
at all. I was just a young kid that played basketball. While I was in
Oklahoma, I spent some time with a guy who went to the University of
Oklahoma on a track scholarship – he was a shot putter – and I followed him
around on the track. That’s how I came to compete in track and field. But
no, I just took part in the sports that they offered in high school, and I
didn’t really think ahead to playing professionally.
Actually I wasn’t very big as a sophomore, and I really wasn’t much of a competitor, either. But I kept at it. I played all three sports. I threw the shot from time-to-time, but mostly I high jumped in meets all over the Yakima Valley. Sometimes it was a little rough – sometimes I’d have to go from the baseball field over to the track meet, with no rest and no food in-between [laughs].
You went
to college at Washington State University. As a sophomore, you pitched WSU
into the College World Series, where the school finished second to Texas.
Please tell me a little about your baseball career at Washington State.
As
a sophomore I joined the baseball team, and it turned out to be a pretty
good team. As a matter of fact, several of the players on that team went on
to play professional baseball. We had a guy named Ted Tappe – he was our
first baseman, and he also played on our basketball team, and he was just
outstanding in both sports. The interesting thing is that Ted and I both
signed major league contracts right after the national tournament in Omaha,
Nebraska. He signed with the Cincinnati Reds and I signed with the Boston
Braves. So we both left the team right after that tournament in Omaha.
