The 1941 Flint Northern High School state champion basketball team
Over the last century, there have been great high school teams in Flint and Genesee County – starting with the great Flint Central football teams of 1923 and ’24, led by the incomparable Lloyd Brazil and Herm Young, who took back-to-back state titles. In truth, by the time he got to college at the University of Detroit, Brazil was comparable only to the legendary Red Grange according to sports writers of the time.
This incredible stat exemplifies just how good Flint teams were: between 1923 and 1960, Flint Central and Flint Northern won nearly 60% of all mythical Michigan Class A, big school division state titles. Multiple players from that era went on to compete at the highest levels in college and the NFL. From Flint Central, that included Lloyd Brazil, Lynn Chandnois, Don Coleman, George Guerre, Hank Minarik, Tony Branoff, Joe Ponsetto, Clarence Peaks, Jesse Thomas, George Hoey, Reggie Barnett and Steve Bograkos.
Subsequent Flint Central teams would add to the lore with state titles in baseball, and in football again in 1947 and 1958, with another near state title win (losing in an upset to Flint Northern on Thanksgiving Day) in 1970. Teams led by Joe Eufinger in the ‘80s and ‘90s flirted with football state titles, losing in the semifinals in 1984 (with a team featuring future Major Leaguer, Sullivan Award winner and Olympic Gold medalist Jimmy Abbott) and a great run in 1993 led by future University of Michigan football star and New York Giants player, Andre Weathers.
Most consider the 1976 Flint Southwestern squad the best overall high school football team in Genesee County history. That team was led by head coach Dar Christensen, featured Jimmy Buterakos at QB (who still holds city passing records); future NFL stars Booker Moore and Brian Carpenter were also leaders. In one of the greatest injustices in area high school sports history, the ’76 Colts team was ranked No.1 in the country, but didn’t make the state playoffs in Michigan because of an ill-conceived computer ranking system.
As for basketball, the debate rages over who the “greatest of the great” was. Many claim it was the Flint Central 1981 team with Eric Turner, Keith Gray, Marty Embry and Mark Harris leading the Tribe to an undefeated 28-0 record and state title.
Others claim it was the 1984 Flint Northwestern unbeaten state champs with Glen Rice, Jeff Grayer, Anthony Pendleton and Andre Rison.
In baseball, Class A mythical titles were won by Flint Central and Flint Northern in the pre-playoff days, both teams featuring players who would go on to the Major Leagues.
Between 1923 and 1960, Flint Central and Flint Northern won nearly 60% of all mythical Michigan Class A, big school division state titles.
Grand Blanc and Flint Powers both put state title teams on the field recently; Flint Central narrowly missed a state title shot in 1975 with a team featuring two All State players in Mike Phipps and Bob Grandas, both who would go on to play professionally, and Flint Southwestern won the state title with a juggernaut squad in 1978.
“Wonder Boy” Len Sweet (#80) runs with the ball. Flint Northern Coach Guy Houston called Sweet the most talented of the famous foursome.
All great teams, led by outstanding coaches and magnificent players.
But there is one school, and one “core four” group of talented athletes that stand above the rest. The Flint Northern basketball players who became known as “The Wonder Boys” put together a three-year run that has never been matched at the big school level, and likely never will be touched.
The athletes who earned that moniker were Ed Krupa, Len Sweet, Bob Holloway and Dick Holloway. The Flint Northern yearbook in 1941 described them this way:
The greatest combine of athletes ever assembled at any Flint school have now passed from the halls of Northern. Though there have been great athletes in the past, the records show that these Vikings, Eddie Krupa, Len Sweet, Bob Holloway, and Dick Holloway (cousins), eclipse the star studded annals of Northern’s history.
Dubbed “The Wonder Boys” by “The Flint Journal”, nothing short of superlatives can describe their success. Not only have they fought their way to fame in basketball, but they have never been in a losing game in Scarlet and Gray.
They have played a great part in bringing Northern’s record string of basketball victories to 36 consecutive sines, a feat which no other Class A high school in Michigan has ever equaled.
These boys when on the low end of a score gave everything they had to bring victory for Northern. Even when classed as “underdogs” in valley and inter-state games, defeat didn’t seem a reality to these sports minded quadruplets.
Northern experienced its greatest years in football during the last three years with all of “The Wonder Boys” playing in the Viking backfield and rolling up tremendous scores, especially by trouncing Flint Central 32-0, as well as winning three city titles, three valley headpieces, and three straight Michigan Class A state championships.
Northern salutes her fighting sons.
“The Wonder Boys” won three straight Class A football titles, two straight Class A basketball titles, and in 1939 they added the Class A baseball state championship trophy to the case in the same year, going 32-0.
“The Wonder Boys” included (clockwise from top left):
Dick Hollloway, Bob Holloway, Eddie Krupa and Len Sweet.
Being unbeaten in baseball and football in a single season had never been done before – or since – and only three losses that year in basketball while also winning the state title (before reeling off their 36 straight wins) at the highest levels is simply incredible. No Michigan school has ever done that, and it is extraordinarily unlikely that any ever will.
The Vikings were so good in football and basketball that the baseball team usually gets left out of the conversation – but it shouldn’t. That team was bolstered by a player you could almost call a fifth “Wonder Boy” in Johnny Bero who joined the Holloways and Krupa on the team and also played basketball for the Vikings state champ team. Bero was a pitcher and slick-fielding third baseman for Northern, and team сaptain. He went on to a Major League Baseball career with the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Browns. He was considered to have the strongest arm of any third baseman in the Major Leagues before an injury hampered that, necessitating a move to second base and cutting his career short.
Northern Viking baseballer Johnny Bero went on to a Major League career with the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Browns.
Ed Krupa was the undisputed leader of “The Wonder Boys” and he credited their time spent playing sports nonstop in the North End neighborhood they all inhabited while growing up. During his induction into the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1988 Krupa said, “We were proud to be called North Enders. Berston Field House was the center of the universe as far as we were concerned.” Krupa was All-State in both football and basketball before choosing Notre Dame as his destination for college football.
“We were proud to be called North Enders. Berston Field House was the center of the universe as far as we were concerned.”
Ed Krupa
World War II interrupted Krupa’s football career with the Fighting Irish and he headed off to the Marine Corps where, true to form, he became a platoon leader. He led his Marines on the bloody battlefield of Iwo Jima where he was wounded and earned a Purple Heart. That effectively ended his athletic career. He returned to Flint to coach at St. Matthews and his alma mater, Flint Northern.
“Wonder Boy” Ed Krupa carries the ball for Flint Northern against Flint Central in the 1940 Thanksgiving Day game at Atwood Stadium.
The fellas were coached by legends, too – Jim Barclay in basketball and Guy Houston, both Hall of Famers. Northern’s Houston called Len Sweet the most talented of the four “Wonder Boys.” Sweet went to Martin Elementary and then Emerson Junior High where he met Krupa, who started out at Garfield Elementary. Barclay spotted their obvious talent and put Sweet and Krupa together on the field for Mott Football when they were in the eighth grade. The Holloway cousins were at Longfellow Junior High and not yet part of the quartet. On both the gridiron and the court, Sweet was an unstoppable force.
Sadly, a football injury led to a bone-withering disease that cost Sweet his shot at college and professional fame before he could even graduate from Northern. In fact, he received his diploma from a hospital bed at Hurley Hospital. A career working at Buick followed to pay medical bills and save for college. He eventually did attend and graduated from Michigan Normal (now Eastern Michigan University), and started a coaching career. Cruel fate intervened again when a drunk driver killed Sweet at age 32, a mere 36 months into his coaching career.
With the demise of Flint school sports, population shifts, and the shoddy way the athletic legacies have been preserved (or not preserved is a better way to state it), the amazing run of “The Wonder Boys” has fallen off the radar for most. But it shouldn’t have. Because there was a time when Flint had the greatest of the greats in sports, and among those lived a group of young men so driven, so committed and so successful that it was a wonder to behold then, as their legacy is today.
