'Mighty Midgets' reflect 60 years after one of the most famous games in history

Mar. 6—As a fourth grader growing up in Albuquerque's Southeast Heights, Marty Watts had no rooting interest in the 1962 boys' basketball Class A state championship game in Albuquerque.

In fact, he didn't have much of a rooting interest in basketball at all until the day he was dragged into Johnson Gym and plunked into a seat a few rows from the floor.

It was a simpler time. The Pit wouldn't open its doors for another four years, the tournament wasn't oversaturated with seemingly 160 teams in 10 brackets as it is now, and games broadcast on TV were showstopping events rather than one of dozens of entertainment options at one's fingertips nowadays.

"State was a big deal in its own way in 1962," says Watts, now a sales executive for an Albuquerque-area radio station.

Surrounded by a sellout crowd of more than 7,000 fans, the younger Watts unwittingly joined a countless line of others who have — past and present — fallen in love with a team that never hoisted the championship trophy and yet has somehow cultivated a mythical standing that still exists 60 years after its triumphant failure.

"Looking back, that has to be the most legendary game I've ever seen," says Watts. "It was one of those games you could never sit down because it was so exciting. If anything, it made me want to go out and be a ballplayer. That's really what the state tournament is all about, isn't it? It gives us all a chance to see something magical even from teams that don't win it."

That team capturing the hearts and minds in March of '62 was the St. Michael's Horsemen, a group of Catholic school kids colloquially known as the Mighty Midgets. While the nickname's origins are up for debate, its launch sequence stems from a starting lineup consisting entirely of players 5-foot-9 or shorter.

The surviving members of that team still remain in touch and, when the situation calls for it, get together on occasion to catch up and share a few laughs. All of them are in their late 70s now; a few still live in the area.

Five of the remaining Midgets attended Friday's practice at St. Michael's and talked to the players ahead of Saturday's Class 3A state tournament opener.

"Those boys, they're about to experience something that will stay with them forever," says former Midget Steve Arias. "We were lucky enough to create a lifetime's worth of memories. I can only hope they do the same. It's right there for them."

The Midgets, of course, never reached their goal. Their 66-64 loss to Albuquerque Sandia in what was then the Class A finals was broadcast live on television statewide, endearing them to a bigger audience than any of them could have imagined.

"People came to love us because we were so short, and we weren't supposed to do what we did," says David Fernandez, the team's top rebounder and a multisport star during his time at St. Michael's. "We ran. Oh, did we run. We would press and play defense and go full speed the entire game. People liked our hustle and that's how we won."

Coached by Dick Shelley, the little team that could — and, yes, future Kansas State 7-footer Nick Pino was part of the team but hardly got off the bench — gained an enormous following. In the regular season, it played Santa Fe High before a jam-packed crowd of 5,400 at the Sweeney Center and dealt with raucous crowds in a two-game road trip to Hobbs over the holiday break.

The team even had a game in Roswell where one of the three cars it used to get from town to town caught fire during the game.

"Some of those trips were the best part," says former Midgets guard Ivan Montoya. "That, and being part of something big."

By time the tournament rolled around, seats were hard to come by. The first two rounds were played to full houses at Johnson Gym and the title game was sold out before tipoff.

"My parents couldn't even get in," says Midgets guard Tommy Vigil. "They had to sit in the car and listen to it in on the radio."

All stories need a hero, and Vigil was cast in that role early on. Universally regarded as the worst free throw shooter on the team, he was sent to the line in the closing seconds of overtime against heavily favored Carlsbad in the quarterfinals.

In a huddle before he toed the line, Vigil's coach gave him a kind look and a vote of confidence the likes of which would be a Hollywood producer's dream.

"And let me tell you, none of us thought he was going to make those free throws," says Montoya.

"Nick Pino had this old pickup truck, and he'd give us all a ride after practice, and the last thing you wanted to do was ride in the back during basketball season," says backup guard Connie Trujillo. "Coach Shelley had a thing where he'd make you stay late until you hit so many free throws. Tommy was always the last one out. I don't think he ever rode in the front seat."

Vigil, of course, made both, and the Midgets won in triple OT.

"Remember, that was the best team Carlsbad probably ever had," says Marty Saiz, an Albuquerque insurance agent who is writing a book about the history of high school basketball in New Mexico. "They had big Ben Monroe, the 6-3 or 6-4 future Lobo. St. Mike's had no business winning that game."

Consider that the state tournament consisted of only two classifications from 1954-63. Schools with more than 500 students were designated for Class A, and everyone else was in Class B.

St. Michael's enrollment was just over 500, thanks to a K-12 curriculum.

"We went into that tournament with maybe one-third the student body of schools like Sandia, but our 500 was a lot smaller when you think of how many elementary kids we had," says Arias.

Part of Saiz's book chronicles the 1962 tournament, one filled with upsets, overflow crowds at Johnson Gym, and an inescapable buzz generated by the Midgets.

Three-time defending state champ Las Cruces, coached by future college hall of famer Lou Henson, lost to Valley in the first round while Hobbs was shocked by Cobre.

Even Santa Fe High got in on the fun. Coached by Salvador Perez, the Demons and future University of New Mexico quarterback Stan Quintana were knocked out by Sandia in the quarterfinals.

Saiz compares the St. Mike's-Sandia tilt to some of the greatest prep games New Mexico has ever seen, like the 1999 final that pitted undefeated big schools Hobbs and Albuquerque La Cueva and the 1981 title game between unbeaten Hobbs and coach Ralph Tasker against a one-loss Albuquerque High and coach Jim Hulsman. He also mentions, to name a few, the 2012 5A finals that showcased future college players Bryce Alford (La Cueva) against Cullen Neal (Albuquerque Eldorado).

The Midgets surprised Valley in the semifinals before running across Sandia and a roster that included a future NBA player in Gary Suiter and 6-foot-7 college prospect Lou Baudoin. Baudoin went on to win a national title four years later with the fabled Texas Western team coached by Don Haskins. He was also portrayed as a supporting character in the 2006 movie Glory Road, which tells the story of that team.

Suiter played one season in the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but he, like a number of other players from that team, has since died. That list includes Jimmy Pappan, a 5-9 guard whose 20-foot jumper with seven seconds left proved to be the game winner. It turned out to be his only made field goal of the entire tournament.

"It was one of those shots where everyone on our side was, like, 'No, no, no ... yes!' " jokes Baudoin. "Jimmy and I had one job that entire game: to get the ball across halfcourt and throw it in to Gary. Jimmy's job was not to shoot the ball with seven seconds left."

Midgets senior Ray Sanchez had a chance to tie it at the buzzer, but his last-second shot from just inside the free throw line bounced off the iron. It broke the heart of an entire city but, even in defeat, etched the team in the memory banks forever.

"For a few years people would stop [us] on the street and say, 'Hey, you were one of the Midgets,' " Trujillo says. "Such a great feeling."

The '62 finals played out exactly the way one might expect. Suiter had an incredible game with 24 points and 34 rebounds — eight more than the Horsemen had as a team. Baudoin was 9-for-11 shooting, finishing with 22 points and 10 rebounds, but the Midgets' quickness nearly exposed a fatal flaw in the Matadors. St. Mike's forced more than three dozen turnovers, many of which helped erase a 15-point deficit.

Fernandez had 22 points to lead the Midgets while the smooth-shooting Gil Gutierrez had 17 and Sanchez 14.

A retired teacher at Albuquerque Academy, Baudoin lives in Corrales and still keeps in touch with a number of the Midgets. When revisiting his earliest memories of that '62 tournament, he can only laugh at his first impression of what was to come.

"First, let me say this: They were the toughest team we saw and they just ran and pressed like no one we played," Baudoin says. "But they didn't exactly strike you as the typical basketball players. Some of those guys, their shooting style was like something you'd find from a guy off the dirt court. They didn't really have that classic style but, yeah, they could play. And their coach, the man was a genius."

A few years ago, the Midgets held a reunion to help raise funds for a scholarship that bears Dick Shelley's name. The Horsemen would go on to six additional trips to the finals before the end of the decade, winning three. Shelley died in 1967 at the age of 39.

When honoring their coach, someone found the original TV footage of that Sandia game and edited the final seconds to make it seem as though the Horsemen had won, that the trophy was theirs.

As fun as it was to dream about a different outcome, the man known as "Freight Train Fernandez" suggested the Midgets were fine with their history.

"We went through a lot together, but I don't think we'd change a thing," he says.

And neither would a city that still carries on the team's legendary status.