The Four-Overtime Classic
On a late-February afternoon in 1988 at Temple's McGonigle Hall, in front of 4,000 people who could barely believe what they were watching, Vince Miller's Frankford Pioneers beat West Philadelphia 71-64 in four overtimes to win the first Public League basketball championship in Frankford High School history.
Four Frankford starters fouled out. Wing guard Nate Emons went with 0:43 left in regulation. Swingman Jamie Ross went with 2:03 left in the second overtime. Center Carlin Warley followed with 1:59 left in the same period. Lead guard Rodney Roach went in the third overtime with 0:52 left. Frankford was without its starters for a combined 22 minutes and 37 seconds of game clock. They won anyway. They finished the season 24-1. The best basketball team in Frankford history had finally come home with the championship.
"He Was My Fan When I Didn't Have Anyone Else"
What the 4,000 in McGonigle Hall mostly couldn't know — as they watched Miller break down in tears in the hallway outside the Frankford locker room afterward, and then again in the locker room itself — was that his father had died five weeks earlier. Reuben Miller Sr. passed away on February 13, 1988, at age 85, after two years of failing health. He had been a fixture behind Vince Miller's Frankford bench for the first 15 years of his son's coaching career. The 1988 season was the first in which he was almost entirely absent — he'd made it to just one game, a December opener against Ben Franklin.
You'd see me on the bench, and you'd see him right behind me.
To lose my father this year, then to win a championship — it means a lot. He was my fan when I didn't have anyone else. This is for him.
