Uniontown’s 1981 team bridged championship gap

The year 1981 was special in Uniontown and around Uniontown High School.
The Red Raiders basketball team had reached the WPIAL and state playoffs a year before with a team comprised mostly of juniors.
Just about everything pointed to the Red Raiders ending a 17-year drought of PIAA championships. Despite the pressure of being favored to win the title, Uniontown went 32-2 and brought home WPIAL and PIAA titles. It was the fourth and most recent of Uniontown’s state titles.
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on individuals, but the community and the fans felt that way,” guard Eric Fee said. “The realization is that it came to fruition, and that’s probably the most amazing thing. Over all those years, you are talking four or five years of preparation before it actually happened. That’s an amazing thing I think.”
The first (1925) and last (1981) of Uniontown’s state championship basketball teams were inducted into the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame last month. There, they joined the other two state championship teams, the 1962 team that was inducted in the inaugural class in 2009 and the 1964 team that followed in 2012.
But the 1981 Uniontown team came along just in time to revive the belief that there was just something special about Red Raider basketball.
“When we were coming through, that’s what everyone was talking about was that ’64 team,” said Craig Harris, a starter on the ’81 team. “We just wanted to be the next team to win it for Uniontown. Actually, I thought we played ourselves a little short because we had a good chance to win it our junior year, but we came up a little short. I think that’s what made our senior year so special because no one wanted to lose it again.”
The 1981 state champs were the only Uniontown state championship team not coached by an Abe Everhart. Instead, the Red Raiders were guided by Lash Nesser, who was assisted by Willie Bryant.
Playing for Nesser was somewhat different than playing for either of the Abe Everharts. But for as gruff as Nesser was on the exterior, he was that kind on the inside. He loved these kids and understood what they could do. There was a method to his madness.
“It was a little different playing for Lash,” Harris said. “If you did something wrong, he let you know about it. When he would get on us and holler at us, no one really took it to heart. We took it that he was trying to make us better. Even our parents didn’t have much to say about it. He could get on you pretty good at times.
“The fondest memories would have to be just the guys. We were mostly seniors, we had a few juniors, but we all came in together as sophomores when Lash used to play us as sophomores. I don’t think a lot of people liked that, but he used to play us as a group. He had us going up and down the highway every summer, we were in summer leagues every year. We became more like brothers than friends because we just spent so much time together.”
“All five starters on the 1981 team dressed varsity as sophomores,” forward Earl Minor recalled. “Coach Nesser would insert us into the game as a group. Coach Nesser saw that the group we had was special and he played us as sophomores.”
Harris was joined in the starting lineup by Minor and forward Brian McLee and Fee and fellow guard Greg Gabriel. Kenner Holt was first off the bench. As juniors, Uniontown lost to Beaver Falls in the WPIAL playoffs and to Erie McDowell in the PIAA playoffs. That Uniontown team also was the first team from the area to travel to Las Vegas, Nev., for a holiday tournament.
“We had a wonderful time out in Las Vegas,” Harris said. “We had such a good time that a lot of their fans started cheering for us because we kind of resembled the (UNLV) Runnin’ Rebels that they had out there. You know how they played? That was our game, too. The people out there enjoyed watching a bunch of small kids come out and play against big guys and just run them off the court.”
“I think our tallest player might have been 6-3 (McLee) and everyone else fell in line there at 6-1, 5-11, 5-9. The thing about our team was everyone could do everything on the court. Greg Gabriel and Eric Fee were our guards, but most of the time, I helped Greg bring the ball up the court, then I went inside to play. We all could play anywhere on the court.”
“The key was we were balanced,” Minor said. “On a given night you never knew who was going to have that breakout night. We had great teamwork on that team. We weren’t very big, but we had great speed and we used that speed to make up for our height disadvantage.”
McLee stood tall, all 6-3 of him, at the induction banquet. He is now Rev. Brian McLee, pastor of Mount Rose Baptist Church in Uniontown’s East End.
McLee told a few stories as team spokesman at the banquet, like the one about when Ray Parson dunked so hard at Grant Street playground that play was suspended because the hoop was broken and a replacement wasn’t readily available.
“When I think of this 1981 basketball team, all I can think of is the word ‘team,'” McLee said. “There was no star player who we depended on. We depended on each other, every game, every night.
“We knew when we got to ninth grade that we were going to be something special.”