Even though he didn’t make a shot, grab a rebound or fight for a loose ball, Butch Clark played a memorable role for the 1971-72 Montgomery County boys basketball team that won its first and only state championship.

Clark, who was then a senior and a journalism student, got to cover the Wildcats for his school newspaper and yearbook as well as area newspapers such as the Montgomery Standard. He got to cover the team in the Class M state championship game in Columbia.

“It was a blast,” Clark said. “It was pretty cool because I got paid mileage to go to that game I was going to. They covered my expenses.”

Now, Clark is trying to contact members of the team to get them to attend the MCHS Class of 1972 50th year reunion, which is scheduled for Sept. 10 at the High Hill Community Center. Among the players he contacted were Sterling Green, Jim Niedergerke, Frank Schlanker and Bruce Brown.

“We’re trying to make contact with everybody,” Clark said. “Some of them are slow to respond. You can lose contact after 50 years.”

Robert Boehmler, John Cunningham, brothers Gerry and Tony Marteen, Jeff Hadfield, Bobby River, Michael Bradford, Steve Deering, Daniel Green, Neil Wehrman, Steve Steffan and Sterling Oliver were the other members of the Wildcats, who went 29-4. Bill Ballew was the head coach.

Cunningham, Green, Wehrman, Schlanker, Deering, Brown, Niedergerke and Tony Marteen made up the senior class. Marteen was the Wildcats’ top scorer at 16 points per game and earned all-state, all-district and all-Eastern Missouri Conference honors.

MCHS came into the ‘71-72 season with high hopes after finishing 23-6 the year before, the program’s best record since the 1958-59 season.

“Everything started the year before because we had a really good year,” Green said. “We just missed going on to the Final Four. We got beat by Hermann.”

During the ‘71-72 season, the Wildcats lost to Hermann twice during the regular season before beating the Bearcats 46-40 in a Sweet 16 game. They beat Palmyra in the Elite Eight to advance to the Class M Final Four.

After knocking off Willard by eight points in the state semifinals on March 3, MCHS cruised to a 68-48 win over St. Pius X of Kansas City in the finals the following night.

“We had a much easier time with them,” Green said. “The game went so well for us that the third string got to play in the state championship game, which was really a great thing because they worked so hard all year long with the starters and making us better during practice.”

The Wildcats earned a share of the EMO championship with a 12-2 record. They also won two regular season tournaments.

MCHS advanced to the Sweet 16 by beating Duchesne 74-68 in the regional championship game at Troy.

“That regional was loaded,” Clark said. “Back then, it had 16-team regionals. They had four of the top 10 in the state in that regional.”

In the contest against Duchesne, the Wildcats got a clutch performance from Gerry Marteen, who passed away in July.

“Gerry did something amazing when we were in the regional tournament and playing in the final game against Duchesne,” said Green, who worked as a superintendent at the Russellville and Butler school districts before retiring in 2008. “He hit 15 out of 17 free throws in that game and 13 out of 14 in the final quarter. We went on to beat them. Hadn’t he hit his free throws, who knows how that would have turned out? Ballew said he was cool as a cucumber.”

Clark is now the head coach of the Liberty Christian Academy girls basketball team. After graduating from MCHS in 1972, he decided he wanted to be a coach instead of a journalist.

“When I was in high school, I wanted to be in journalism, teach and coach basketball,” Clark said. “But I never made it to journalism school. The coaching part ended up working out. It’s a funny thing. On my girls team, we run the same sets the guys ran 50 years ago.”