Next month, the National Basketball Association will hold its annual All-Star Weekend, the highlight of which is the wildly popular Slam Dunk Contest that has showcased the likes of Julias “Dr. J” Erving (the contest’s first winner in 1976), Michael Jordan (1986 & 1987), and Kobe Bryant (1997). Sports Illustrated famously called the contest “the best invention since the bathroom.”
“Then I heard my teammates and some people in the stands yelling ‘dunk it!’ So, I went for it.”
It is almost unimaginable that right up until the advent of the contest in ‘76, dunking the ball was not allowed in college or high school. Players would have to lay the ball up or drop it in the hoop if they jumped above it. The 1970s, however, were an era of great change in the game. Big men began to dominate play and the ideas of the “purists,” who said the dunk was “ungentlemanly” and against the spirit of the game, were pushed aside in favor of a more fast-paced, physical – and arguably far better and more entertaining - game.
While the number of dunks at the high school level is, of course, much lower than in NBA and in the college game, that stat is even lower – much, much lower - at Cascade High School. “We’ve actually had quite a few in the past,” recalled CHS Athletic Director Tim Barnes, who regaled on past Kodiak teams with the likes of 6’10” twin towers (two boys on the team who were both just shy of being seven footers) in the front court and “even a shattered backboard. But it has been a while.” Although the school does not keep records documenting dunks, Barnes feels that it has likely not been since the 1990s that a Kodiak has jammed the net – until this season.
Ezra Week (10) put an end to the drought on a dry, brisk late November evening on the hardwood in Sultan High School. “After stealing a pass and being on a fast break, I was thinking layup,” reminisced the 6’3” Week, who continued: “Then I heard my teammates and some people in the stands yelling ‘dunk it!’ So, I went for it.” The bench and stands erupted. “It felt great,” Week disclosed, averring that “the student section was going crazy.”
The first-ever reported dunk in organized basketball occurred in the 1936 Berlin Olympics by US team captain, Joe Fortenberry, a 6’8” Texan who could still throw the ball down into his fifties. Less than a decade later, in 1944, the first college dunk was recorded when the seven-foot center of Oklahoma A&M, Bob Kurland, slammed one down. Like Week’s dunk heard from one end of Steven’s Pass along Highway 2 to the other on the CHS campus, Kurland’s dunk “wasn’t planned, just a spontaneous play.” The date of the first high school dunk is unknown, but likely also in the ‘40s.
“With Ezra being only a sophomore, it’s pretty notable and talented for his age,” relished Barnes. “I’m really looking forward to seeing what he does in the next years as he gets even stronger.”
“I’m hoping for a few more this year,” reflected Week, “and maybe inspire some of my teammates to do the same. Julian [Valdez (12),] for example, is pretty bouncy, like I am.”
Over the decades, dunking has remained a stunning, fan favorite. Week’s thrilling display of athleticism figuratively, and with a little luck literally, has etched his name into the annals of CHS history, as the buzz surrounding his dunk is still in the air at CHS.
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