What's on this page:

• Photos and postcards of Freeland area basketball teams
• Team mascots
  

• Penn State League (Basketball)

1900s

1910s

1920s

1930s

I was looking at photos from your website about Freeland High basketball teams from the 1930’s. My father and three of his brothers all played for Freeland in the 1930’s and one younger brother played for Freeland in the 1940’s, and I believe another brother for MMI in the late ‘40’s. My father, George ‘Juddy’ Mischissin was a 1339 graduate and his three older brothers played on earlier teams, Johnny, Mickey and Nick. Some of these teams were quite successful.

My father spoke very highly of Coach Herb Rathey, who coached both basketball and football in Freeland and I believe was a Freeland HS graduate himself. My father said he also was a good teacher. I researched the Hazleton newspaper, The Daily Standard, and in 1938, an October issue was about how little coach Rathey was paid. In 1938 he had an annual salary of $1,780, much less than other teachers who were paid up to $3,500 annually according to this article.

One story that always stuck with me that my father conveyed was that the Freeland football team traveled to Bethlehem to play a football game. I am not sure if this was regular season or a scrimmage game, or the exact year; but it may have been 1938. The Bethlehem team, maybe Liberty HS, was a better team with a much larger enrollment. After the game my father spoke with the Bethlehem players, who had won. They said they were concerned about the Freeland team before the game, so they brought in several ‘ringers’ to play. These ringers were in fact steelworkers from Bethlehem Steel. My father told them that Freeland too had brought a ringer, I believe it was his brother, Johnny, to play because they knew Bethlehem has strong players. Johnny had been the center on the Freeland High basketball team and a 1938 graduate.

I discovered reading the Hazleton Daily Standard that Liberty HS played at Hazleton HS in October 1938 and Hazleton won convincingly. It was a very well attended game, drawing over 5,000 fans, many coming from Bethlehem, and covered in quite detail by the paper.

Basketball and football meant a lot to players back then, and Freeland, for its small size, put together good teams under Coach Rathey. My father and his three older brothers all went into the Army after 1939 and served in Europe during the war. My uncle Nick Mischissin was killed in action in November 1944 in Belgium, where he was buried. His infantry division, the Blue and Gray, was involved in D Day invasion in France, then the push towards Germany in later 1944. My uncle Johnny continued to play in town basketball leagues after the war. Their youngest brother, Steve, captained the Franklin and Marshall college football team in the early 1950’s. My grandfather was an immigrant (Slovakia area) and worked as a mine mule driver in Drifton.

They were the greatest generation.

1940s

21st High School Invitation Basketball Tourney, 1948 - (PDF file size = 1.9 MB)

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s