Hoop Crazy: The Lives of Clair Bee and Chip Hilton

CHAPTER 2: Grafton and Valley Falls

CHAPTER 2 Grafton and Valley Falls 1896–1920 Measured ultimately against the grinding vicissitudes of later life, high school yearbooks often make for poignant reading. These most hopeful of publications can tell tales of dreams dashed, ambitions unfulfilled, spirits crushed. Such was not the case for Clair Francis Bee. “Beezer,” as his Grafton, West Virginia, high school classmates knew him, listed his life’s ambitions in The Mountaineer, the 1920 Grafton High School yearbook, as “Editor, Grafton Sentinel” and “college coach.”1 Prophetically and determinedly, Bee became both a writer and a coach. In fact and checked against the accomplishments of his adult life, Beezer exceeded his ambitions. That he exceeded his ambitions may well be a case of defying the odds, just as it may be a testament to his willpower and talent.To claim that Bee’s presence among the traditional teenagers in his graduating class was both unusual and extraordinary is a colossal understatement. He was twentyfour years old and an army veteran of World War I who saw action in France. He was one of twenty-six boys in the class, and in the portraits of the male graduates that appear in the 17 yearbook, Bee is the only one not wearing a high-collared white shirt and tie. Rather, he is photographed wearing a dark shirt, and if he is wearing a tie, it blends into the darkness of his shirt so that it disappears into the black of the photo. But even in the dated head-and-shoulders shot, Bee’s clothing appears to be of inferior quality; his shirt looks rough-hewn, more like a work shirt than a formal dress shirt.2 Later in life when he was a successful coach at LIU, he said, “I even had to borrow a coat when I graduated from high school. I didn’t have a pair of shoes and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”3 Most likely the oldest, probably the poorest, and certainly one of the most unusual graduates in the class of 1920 —a time when graduating from high school was a real achievement—Bee was, nevertheless, a class leader in everything . He was editor-in-chief of the yearbook, and he wrote most of the sports roundup stories that appear in the book. He is front and center in a full-page photograph of the yearbook editorial board and its faculty advisors, and again Bee is the only male not wearing a white shirt and tie. He was the head of the school’s athletic association. He was captain of the football, basketball, and baseball teams. In the cloying style of yearbook prose throughout time, his “Specialty” is listed as “Ethel-etics,” a play on his athletic ability and ambition and his affection for classmate Ethel Hanley.4 Even in this regard, the pages of Beezer’s senior yearbook foretell much of what was to occur in his life. Bee was married four times—probably. His son, Clair F. Bee Jr., and his grandson, Michael Clair Farley, both say that Bee was married “three or four times.” Clair Jr. said, “Dad didn’t share much about the wives.”5 It seemed as if it were a part of his life that he was able to compartmentalize , experiences he preferred to keep to himself. Consequently, the exact date and details of his first marriage are unclear, but he probably married Ethel Hanley in 1921 when he was living in Mansfield, Ohio. In September 1922 when he applied for admission to Waynesburg College, he listed his address in Grafton as 321 Dewey Avenue, which was where Ethel’s family lived.6 In an article printed in the 18 The Early Years Testimonial Dinner Program for the banquet that honored Bee in 1977, his friend and New York Daily News sports columnist Dick Young wrote: “It can be a little embarrassing pointing to a man in his 80s and saying he was some kind of lover, but I don’t think Clair will mind. Even now, as he turns profile, you can see the Barrymore outline that killed the women.”7 The limerick appearing below his class portrait, though, told only a half-truth. A popular young man is Bee, And very well liked you see, His chief occupation Is Procrastination, His most often used word, “Oh, Gee!”8 Bee evidently was popular and well liked, but if he were...