JEFFERSON - In a just-released exhaustive biography the iconic Gary Thompson emerges as more than an Iowa State University basketball headliner. He's an ambassador from a different era in Iowa, the 1950s, a golden time not only for high school and college basketball but small towns. With multiple-source detailing author Chuck Offenburger uses "Gary Thompson: All American" to take us back to the Roland, Iowa of the 1950s, hometown of the celebrated Thompson, the "Roland Rocket," who earned national renown at ISU - beating Kansas and the great Wilt Chamberlain and later appearing with him as first-team All-American on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Offenburger, a former long-time Des Moines Register columnist who to this day carries a reporter's notebook just about everywhere he goes, conducted about 300 interviews for the book - ranging from a call to the nurse who admitted a teen-age Thompson to the hospital following a car accident to the larger-than-life coach Bobby Knight. But in the end this book is as much about Roland, Iowa, as it is Thompson, for it is in a splendid time and place that he came of age. "I probably had more fun digging into the Roland Rockets saga than any other aspect of the Thompson story, and maybe that's my own bias toward small towns, small schools and rural Iowa," Offenburger said. Thompson played for Roland High School from 1950 to 1953 before starring at Iowa State University from 1953 to 1957. He coached and played for the former Phillips 66ers basketball team from 1957 to 1962 during which time he worked with the oil company. He'd use contacts made then to launch his family's successful Ames-based business, Gary Thompson Oil company, which is today involved in both convenience stores and commercial development. Many Iowans recognize Thompson from his long career as a television color commentator for Iowa State and other big-time college games as well. In a recent interview with the Daily Times Herald over lunch at the Peony Chinese Restaurant in Jefferson, Offenburger said Iowa's one-class-fits-all high school basketball tournament of an earlier time and the absence of today's television-addicted culture created the perfect storm of celebrity for Gary Thompson. "It was not like you could stay home and watch 10 different college ball games and pro ball games on television every night," Offenburger said. "That just wasn't there so people went to more basketball games, went to their high school activities." What's more, The Des Moines Register blanketed Iowa with coverage (it had advertisers in all 99 counties at one point) so when a star developed the whole state would really zero in on it. "You don't have that little school sports hero quite like you did back then," Offenburger said. "Iowa was hungry for a small-school hero in that time and Gary Thompson was it." And then there's the fact that he was central in two of the biggest basketball games ever played in Iowa, one with Roland and the other Iowa State. "It was possible to have these giant-killer stories," Offenburger said. In March of 1951 Thompson's Roland High School - with 73 students and just 40 boys - beat Waterloo West in a state tournament quarter-final game before 14,000 people at the University of Iowa Fieldhouse. The Rockets then upset Des Moines East before losing to Davenport High School. "Iowa being mostly a rural state of small towns and small schools, especially then, if you were from a small school and you beat Waterloo West or Des Moines East and almost beat Davenport, I mean the state would bow down to you," Offenburger said. The fact that Thompson was only a sophomore, and stood just 5-6, added ample grist to the mills of sportswriters who published stories with far more passion and lyricism than most newspaper people today. Offenburger says the 1951 state tournament is clearly the defining event in Thompson's career. "Everything that came later in his playing career and in life was based on what came his way after that Waterloo West upset," Offenburger said. In telling us about Thompson, Offenbuger provides great detail about Roland and Iowa small towns in the 1950s. For example, there were never any dances in Roland then, because, as in the Kevin Bacon movie "Footloose," dancing just wasn't allowed. While the community was founded by stoic Norwegians and very much led by the Lutheran Church, the era brought diversity through the small town outside of Ames in the form of Jamaican workers at a canning plant and a band of Gypsies that annually came through Roland. Additionally, early in Thompson's high school career, he was coached by Buck Cheadle, a Chickasaw Indian-philosopher who Offenburger says is a "grand character" in the biography. "On the high school level, going into that kind of detail may have been unnecessary, but by God I think it makes good reading," Offenburger said. Thompson provides an intriguing analysis of why a small-town basketball team like Roland could achieve seemingly outsized success. "My memory is that there was a basket and bang board in every driveway in Roland," Thompson said. "I think one of the reasons we started having good teams was that, growing up in a small town like that, there was never enough kids so that you could play with your own age group. You had to play with the older kids, too." One of the first Carroll-area connections in the book is in 1952, when Thompson's Rockets were defeated in the state tournament by then 21-year-old coach Lou Galetich's Clinton St. Mary's. The Clinton Catholic school won the state tournament that year over Ottumwa. Galetich went on to a nearly 50-year career that included a stint at Kuemper Catholic High School. Another local hook involves Templeton natives, the Penkhus brothers, Floyd and Jerry, who developed Skatelands in Iowa, Texas and Colorado - including one on South Duff Avenue in Ames where Thompson and his wife, Janet, spent much of their teen times. Offenburger interviews both brothers about the colorful business of running a popular skating rink in the 1950s. In the mid-1950s it was Thompson who helped put Iowa State University sports on the map. Until he arrived the Cyclones weren't much good at any sports - although Offenburger notes that ISU had one of the best livestock judging teams in the United States in 1954. In 1957 Thompson would be both an Associated Press and Look Magazine first-team All-American. Offenburger devotes a full chapter to Iowa State's 39-37 win over No. 1-ranked Kansas in 1957. With that victory Iowa State hit No. 3 in the national polls, its highest ranking ever. Younger basketball fans will learn a good deal from a section on Thompson's time with the National Industrial Basketball League's Phillips 66ers in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Safeway, Caterpillar, Goodyear and other well-known companies of the era fielded basketball teams consisting of top college players recruited to play ball and work for the companies. With the National Basketball Association in its salad days the corporate teams were an attractive option for student-athletes of Thompson's caliber. Those interested in business can comb through the chapters of development of Thompson Oil, which Gary Thompson started in 1968. Recently Thompson was involved with the development of a hot retail area in Ames near Best Buy and Borders on South Duff Avenue that includes a Cold Stone Creamery ice cream store and the popular Pancheros Mexican Grill. And, of course, there is much about the business of broadcasting and the stars and commentators Thompson encountered in more than 30 years of calling games. In terms of writing the book, Offenburger inked a deal with Thompson in 2004. Working from his home in Cooper, outside of Jefferson, Offenburger compiled the research and interviews needed to chronicle Thompson's life. He conducted a number of interviews at Thompson's office and house totaling about 50 hours. The project also involved trips to Roland and Iowa State for basketball and football functions. "If you're with Gary Thompson around Iowa with anybody middle age and above he's better known than the governor is," Offenburger said. The real writing aspect of the book started in early 2008 and Offenburger spent most of last year on that. Thompson's friend, Roy Reiman, a native of Auburn and magazine magnate who graduated from ISU in 1957, served as the copy editor of the book published by Hexagon Groudhaven Group in Milwaukee, Wis. To order the book write to: Gary Thompson: All-American c/o Our Iowa Magazine, 2501 North Loop Drive, Ames, Iowa 50010. Checks should be written to Our Iowa for $19.95 per book, plus $3.95 for shipping of one book, or $4.95 for two books or more.
