They were reunited once again, the entire starting unit from the Muskegon Heights basketball team of They were there to pay their respects and say parting goodbyes to a departed teammate and dear friend, Ron Robinson. Take a look at the picture that accompanies this story. From left to right, there was Dan Wright No.
Wright is perhaps best known around Greater Muskegon as the longtime and very successful basketball coach at Reeths-Puffer. Wright has a very dry, but witty, sense of humor. McCarty was a regular with Robinson on those back-to-back Heights state championship teams in and McCarty is a two-time inductee in the Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame, as a player on the Heights and teams and as an individual in To the right of Robinson is Gene Young No.
Most of our current generation will remember Young as my longtime partner in the broadcasting booth, calling area football and basketball games for more then 30 years. Young was also an outstanding basketball player during his era. Yet another gifted all-around athlete on this Heights powerhouse was Floyd Cook No. Cook was not only a rebounding and scoring dynamo, but he was fast!
How fast? Fast enough that while attending Western Michigan University he won the Mid-American Conference championship in in the yard dash. The multi-talented Cook entertained the large gathering honoring the life of Ron Robinson by playing a solo on the saxophone as a tribute to his lifelong friend. And in the middle of this photo there is Ronnie Robinson No. I first remember Robinson back in as a tall, lean and bespectacled baseball player for a Little League team called Cash Coal does anybody still use coal for heat?
Those were the days when one played as many sports as humanly possible. Specialization in sports was yet decades down the road. Robinson, Young, Cook, McCarty and Wright played sports in all three seasons, beginning with their junior high days in the early s. And how good of a basketball player was Ronnie Robinson?
