The town itself was founded in 1906. The local post office needed a name, so the general store owner (and bydefault, the postmaster) suggested “Norman” — his own first name. The service rejected that, but since nearly every local family had a “Joe”, he offered that the place was “a town full of Joes”, and it stuck.

In 1927, Joes High School had a four-year enrollment of 36, including 20 boys, 10 of which played basketball.The tallest was 6-4, but several others were over 6-foot, and generally they were taller than most of the smallschools they played. The “pep band” was so small, two of the basketball players played in it at intermission (on drums and clarinet) while the coach directed.

The new coach, Lane Sullivan, was also the new principal, English teacher, band teacher, and summer part-timewriter for the Denver Post. Oh, and before 1927 he had never coached (anything), nor played basketball, noreven so much as held a basketball in his hands. He got a book on the game, though, from the legendary University of Kansas coach “Phog” Allen, who had actually learned the game himself from James Naismith.

Before the 1928 season, they never had a gym. They practiced daily on an outside dirt court, and twice a week bused 10 miles to the closest gym. They played home games in the local dance hall, which was 20 feet short and six feet narrower than regulation. The ceiling was so low they could not arch a shot. There were no benches for the players or seats for spectators — all 100 of whom stood around the edges or on the small stage at one end. Around Christmas-time that year they got their own gym due to donations of materials and labor. It sat 250 spectators on the sides, but was only 2 feet longer than the court — after a layup players literally bounced off the end walls. It had the lowest allowable regulation ceiling, caromed shots usually counted (depending on the referee), and they were pretty good at it.

Despite all this, the ‘27-’28 team was much better than average. They finished 19-5-1, outscoring their opponents on average 32 to 16. They won their conference, but lost their first regional playoff game to Boulder, 42-18, after an all-night drive in a blizzard in unheated cars.

The ‘28-’29 club, however, really put Joes on the map. They again won their league, this time undefeated, but lost in the league tournament final to twice-defeated Flagler by two in overtime. Two explanations were given: first, that two of the boys stayed out late with Flagler girls and second, that two others stayed up all night playing pool in their host’s home. But, they still advanced to the regional playoffs as the #2 seed. There, they “upset” Denver powerhouse East High School 30-11 — although soon everyone realized it was no upset at all. Ironically, Coach Sullivan had early that season requested an opportunity to bring his kids to Denver and scrimmage with East, just to give them some “big school” experience, but the East coach wouldn’t have any of it. A third victory (in four tries) over Flagler (who had beaten Boulder the night before) sent them to the State Tournament at Colorado Teachers’ College (UNC) in Greeley. Representing the “Denver Region” then were Joes and Flagler and no Denver area team.

Their first opponent was Julesburg — still a small school, but five times the size of Joes. Joes took a 12-7 halftime lead and poured it on in the second, winning 35-7 (yes, Julesburg did not score after halftime). The second round was against Gunnison, who led 7-2 after the first quarter and 8-6 at the half. Again, Joes surged after the intermission to win 30-17. In the semi-final, Joes led from start to finish against Fort Lupton and won easily 36-19. In the championship game, the heavily favored Fort Collins Lambkins were led to slaughter — falling behind 14-2 in the first and 25-6 at the half, enroute to a 37-14 final.

The metropolitan papers who had begun the tournament calling Joes’ victory over East a “fluke” and expecting the “prairie boys” to wilt, were now calling them the “Wonder Boys”. Not only had they outscored their four opponents 138 to 57 (they had one player who scored 56), but the only team they lost to all season, Flagler, also won the consolation crown (5th place out of 16 who started).

But that wasn’t all. Back then there was a “national” championship tournament sponsored by the University of Chicago. As the state champion, they were automatically invited, but had to pay their own way, which wasimpossible for the small, rural town. However, their “David vs. Goliath” story fascinated the state and donations poured in from all over, especially from the northeastern plains. The University of Colorado staged a fundraiser before their next game, with Joes taking on the C.U. J.V. It was a nip and tuck game with numerouslead changes and ties until the final two minutes, when Joes ran off the last seven points for a 39-33 win.Eventually, more than enough was raised to make the trip, with nearly half the town going along, too. For most of the boys, it was their first train trip ever.

While quite a curiosity being the smallest school ever to play in Chicago, no one really expected much from these “hicks” from Joes — even though in 1924 another small Colorado team, Windsor, had actually won the national tournament. In their first game, Laurel, Delaware, looked to be the better club — for about 60 seconds.After that, it was all Joes. Their 41-7 victory turned out to be the largest margin in the tournament, and was just one point over the all-time defensive record.

Their next game was against a better club — Yankton, SD — who was a pre-tournament favorite having attended now six consecutive years and lost the 1924 final to Windsor. It was a tough, see-saw contest, decided 22-20 on a basket in the final seconds.

In the quarterfinal, they faced Jena, LA (yes, THAT Jena famous in the news not too long ago). They were both very defensive-minded clubs and Jena led 2-1 after eight minutes. They started finding the range in the second,with Joes up 10-6 at the half. Finally, the Colorado club went on a 10-0 one-minute spurt toward the end of thethird period to go ahead 28-14. Joes then stalled in the fourth and coasted home 32-20. The coach later explained that he wanted to save something for the next day — these three games had been on Wednesday,Thursday, and Friday, but the Semis and Final would both be played on Saturday.

That night the boys barely slept at all. It wasn’t the pressure, but the temperature and humidity. Saturday wouldbring an all-time record high for the date in Chicago of 92 degrees and the humidity was about the same. These dry-plains, often snow-bound visitors were miserable and still lethargic when the semifinal against Oklahoma City Classen H.S. began at 3 PM. Classen had beaten the two-time defending champion from Ashland, KY in their quarterfinal — in fact it was the only game Ashland had lost or even trailed in for three years. One newspaperman asked the star Joes’ player (Jerry Snyder) if he was concerned about playing a school with 2000students (easily the largest they’d ever played). He replied: “I don’t care if they have 10,000 kids, they can only play so many.”

Classen jumped out 6-0 and led the whole game. Joes closed to within one once but simply didn’t have the horses, falling 29-23. Classen was no schlump as four of their starters went on to play major-college and semipro ball, but they lost 25-21 later that night to Athens, TX, the team in the tournament with the tallest front lineat 6′5″, 6′7″, and 6′6″.

In the third place game, just an hour after losing to Classen, both Joes and opponent Jackson, MI were drained from the heat and their fifth game in four days. After three quarters they limped to an embarrassing 13-6 Jackson lead. However, the Joes club made the last of their patented spurts to take home the bronze trophy 21-17. In finishing as the third best team in the country, they had played 43 games and won 41.