He Had Game

[BullFrog Dad]

Danny Heater



Wilt Chamberlain never scored 135 points in one game. Jerry West never
did. Julius Erving didn't either. Nobody ever scored 135 points in one
game....except Danny Heater in 1960.




"Son," his mother said, fixing his supper, kissing his forehead, forking her fingers through his
inch-high blond flattop, "if you don't mind, I won't go tonight. This other team's got nothing, you've
already licked them once this season. I'll just sit at home here with your daddy. They probably won't
even need to put you in."


This is the ballad of Danny Heater. He did it 31 seasons ago. He was 17 then and built like a
boneyard. He had a father who was out of work in the mines and a mama named Beulah who sang
beautifully in the Methodist church, and on one improbable howling cold January night, in a little
bandbox country gym that was so small it didn't even have seats, he vaulted up out of his West
Virginia destinies to set-in 32 minutes and four quarters of high-school basketball-what the
Basketball Hall of Fame says is the all time single-game scoring record on any level of organized
play.

At one point they say he scored six points before they could move five seconds from the clock. In
the final 10 minutes, he reached 55. He made three left-handed hooks. This is the legend anyway.
Nobody could remember Danny Heater even trying a left-handed hook before, at least not in a
game. By midway in the second quarter they thought he might break the state record. The state
record was 74. He blew 74 like an 18-wheeler with its hammer down. He even got 32 rebounds and
seven assists. There are West Virginians who'll tell you that in those final few minutes in that old
rocking hotbox basement arena, that was about 17 feet shorter than a standard court, hysteria
began to feel like an inferior emotion.


Burnsville led 41-4 at the end of the first quarter and 75-17 at halftime. Heater had 50 points in
the first 16 minutes of the game. He stayed in and scored 55 points in the final 10 minutes as
Burnsville continued its fast breaks and full-court press--"the only defense we knew," Coach
Stalnaker said.

Burnsville outclassed Widen by an overwhelming 137-43 in action at the small Burnsville
gymnasium. But it was the one-man scoring performance of Heater, a 6-1 guard, that stood out in
what, today, over 36 years later, is a basketball statistic that many hardwood observers feel is
"unbeatable."

Each basketball season, Danny Heater prepares for the end of his reign as the world's all-time
single-game scoring leader, but it never comes. "I say every year, Yes, it will, but it never does."

[Phil C]

I wonder how many more points he would have scored if they had had three pointers back then.

[AggieJohn]

of if he would of been 9'11"

[BullFrog Dad]

One thing for sure, he had a great name to go with that great game!