For those generally not inclined to clicking on links...
at least read what Kirk Wessler says...very nice......
"As Peorians, the Braves are our team. They put us on the map, and they
did so in a positive way.
Then, in the 1930s, in the middle of the Great Depression, multi-sport coach
A.J. Robertson assembled a group of versatile athletes whose basketball
accomplishments ultimately would change the focus, scope and name of tiny
Bradley Tech, perched on Peoria’s West Bluff. The Famous Five, as they
became known, opened our eyes to what was possible. We could dare to
dream big. More, we learned big dreams could come true.
In 1937-38, one season after posting a 15-4 record by beating up the likes
of Knox and Eureka and Coe colleges, Bradley went 18-2, with victories over
Indiana, Nebraska, Utah, Saint Louis and Western Kentucky. The team was
summoned to Madison Square Garden to play in the inaugural National
Invitation Tournament at the end of that season, and the next one, too.
Peoria might have been a vaudeville town, the target of a million one-liners.
But Bradley basketball was no joke. The nation knew it. And Peorians
embraced it. Whether we had attended Bradley mattered not at all. We
didn’t even have to much like basketball. The important thing was this
nationally prominent team was from our town, from our school. They were
our boys.
Doggone it, they were us.
And so it continues, 70 years later.
Bradley basketball has seen better days. Glory days of the type experienced
by few programs. You know how many schools have played in two NCAA
championship games? Thirty, and Bradley is one. How many schools have
finished a regular season ranked No. 1 in the nation by The Associated Press
poll? Twenty-seven, and Bradley is one.
Bradley, though, belongs to Peoria, and the passions here run wide and deep
and long.
It’s amazing. We hear about the Braves’ aging fan base, the loyal “bluehairs”
who have been coming to games since the ’30s and ’40s, and ask, “What
happens when they’re gone?” Then we go to a game, and we see the court
surrounded by children, dressed in Bradley red, waiting anxiously for their
chance to slap hands with a Brave during the introduction of the starting
lineups. And we know. Bradley basketball has been written into Peoria’s
genetic code."
