Bob Kort was a quarter-mile from his daughter’s home in Cave Creek, Arizona, on Oct. 3, 2014. The 80-year-old pulled off the side of the road, exited his pickup truck and went to place a garage sale sign near the berm.
GAZETTE FILE
The 1952 All-Medina County League first team consisted of, from left to right, Ken Grieve (Spencer), Don Bramley (Liverpool), Dwight Loomis (Granger-Sharon), Bob Kort (York) and Jim Schaub (Spencer).
An oncoming driver was blinded by sun glare, drifted right and never saw Kort. Emergency responders initially believed the impact was going to be fatal, but Kort miraculously survived. Adding to the tragedy, he was robbed of $1,200 while lying unconscious.
The York Township native was in a coma for 82 days. Doctors wanted to amputate a leg, but his daughter Pamela refused.
Kort gets emotional describing the ordeal, but not because of the 29 surgeries and not because he’s still learning to walk again while being tended to at an assistant living center.
He gets emotional because friends like Ken Grieve called him days after he awoke from the coma.
Grieve is neither a family member nor old classmate. Grieve was one of Kort’s rivals on the basketball court whenever York High and Spencer High squared off in bandbox gymnasiums in the early 1950s.
Their bond, along with Spencer’s Jim Schaub, Liverpool’s Don Bramley and late Granger-Sharon star Dwight Loomis, was brought together through fate when the quintet was named to the 1952 All-Medina County League first team following the annual league tournament at Medina High.
“I put it this way,” Kort said. “When you’re competitors way back then, it’s a life different from nowadays. I never looked at another player like I didn’t like him. I looked at him as if he was better than me, I wanted to be as good or better. They were all great people. None of us have gotten in any trouble.
“We ran into each other in Medina and we were always friendly. We all knew we were on separate teams, but we acted like we liked each other. Eventually, I knew that we did. Back then you just respected everybody.”
Kort, Grieve, Loomis, Schaub and Bramley posed for the traditional All-MCL photograph Feb. 22, 1952. They were selected based on season-long performance by the league’s 10 coaches and were, at the time, the highest-scoring All-MCL team ever with a combined 83.9 average.
- Loomis was a versatile center who “was in a class by himself,” according to Grieve. The center averaged 16.5 points for the 17-4 MCL champion Hornets.
- Grieve was a “gunner” at small forward and led Spencer to a 16-4 record while averaging a county-high 20.9 points. As a junior, he pumped in 43 points at LeRoy, a county standard for points in a game for almost five years.
- Schaub was the maestro as Spencer joined Wadsworth that season as the first teams in county history to average 60 points. The 5-foot-10 point guard was a natural athlete who impacted games beyond an 11.8 scoring average, mostly by finding ways to get Grieve open shots.
- Kort’s starpower speaks for itself as the lone member who played for a sub.-500 team. The hard-nosed 6-0 shooting guard averaged 17.9 points for the 8-10 Generals, with a high of 32.
- Bramley was the lone underclassman, posting 16.8 points as a sophomore for 14-5 Liverpool and beating Spencer on a buzzer-beater early in the season. The sharpshooting 6-0 forward was destined to become a 1,000-point man, but a devastating knee injury in football limited him to single-digit games in each of the following two seasons.
The 1952 Fantastic Five soon forgot about basketball, at least temporarily, and went about their lives.
Kort, who nearly made the Kent State varsity team after he got out of the Air Force, became “a wealthy man” after founding Burbank Saddlery, a maker of saddles and other western wear. He also owned nationally recognized trotter horse Baron Lancer in the 1970s, earning $391,172 in winnings.
Grieve bounced around jobs before settling in for a 35-year career at Spencer Tire, and his son, Tom, won a state wrestling championship for Black River in 1977. Loomis became a dentist and served on the Highland Local School Board, Schaub became a minister and Bramley became president at Elyria Savings & Trust National Bank and was on the board of directors for what is now called First Merit.
From time to time, they’d randomly encounter each other around the county and exchange small talk. The conversation often turned to the 1951-52 season because it was what they had in common.
Finally in the early 2000s, Grieve, who naturally is a close friend with Schaub, decided to get everyone together. Every Sunday he and Kort attended Loomis’ church in Granger Township and had lunch afterward until Loomis’ passing in 2010.
Toss in periodic phone calls to Schaub and Bramley, who live in Delaware, Ohio, and Florida — “I was kind of surprised because it’s been how many years ago? 1952? That’s a long time ago,” Bramley said — and the all-county players became friends. These days they trade stories instead of points on the basketball court, and they never forget to talk about Loomis and “what a great guy he was.”
“Sports teams are like family,” Grieve said. “You’ve got to appreciate each other and so forth.”
Grieve and the boys take those words to heart, as all will try to be attendance for a welcome home party for Kort on May 14. More than 70 people have already sent their RSVP for the get-together at Quaker Steak & Lube in Medina Township.
Love, in this case through basketball, conquers all.
“I’m really excited for this,” Kort said. “We stayed in contact the best we could, which is unusual for any all-county team. I don’t think any all-county team has ever did that. (Playing high school basketball) was a great, great experience and I’ll never forget it.”
“I’ll tell ya, you’ve got to stay in touch with your family and friends,” Grieve added. “I’ve had three brothers pass away now — two of them, they just died.
“My recommendation is, tell people that you thank them and you love them. Don’t wait until they die and go, ‘Oh, I wish I would have said something.”’