SPORTS
Straight Outta Compton Hopwood tells legendary 32-0 title team story
BY TOM SCHUMAN
M
Newman taught him the tools he needed to take advantage of his 6-foot-6 size and placed him on a traveling team. “I wanted to prove to the coach who didn’t let me try out that I could play,” Hopwood said. “We worked outside on the courts in the park before going inside. We would be out there sometimes until dark. Coach Newman saw the potential in me when others didn’t.” Another obstacle to overcome was something players don’t even think about today. “I played barefoot a lot. I didn’t have any basketball shoes at first,” Hopwood said. “In fact, I only had one pair of shoes.” Hopwood was zoned for Centennial High School, but he followed Newman when his mentor was offered an assistant coaching job at Compton High School. This was another life- altering decision. Saying his only aspiration entering high school was to “represent my family well,” Hopwood achieved so much more. He was the starting center on the varsity team as a freshman on a team that went 26-4. He knew three of the other players from the traveling team. All the players, he noted, were homegrown — from the Compton and Watts, Calif., areas. In his junior year, the team lost two games, the second to Morningside High School in the state playoffs. Compton players were in the locker room celebrating a hard-fought win when the officials called them back to the floor and awarded the home team two free throws, which they converted for the win. It was the last loss of Hopwood’s high school career. “Coach [Bill] Armstrong told us after that game that if we didn’t want to have this feeling again, we had to be 20 points better than the other team,” Hopwood said. “He said that in the last two minutes we had to be 10 points ahead so they couldn’t take the game from us.” Community pride Compton didn’t let that feeling return during Hopwood’s senior season. The Tarbabes went 32-0 in 1967-68 and won the state and national championships. The team outscored its opponents by more than 31 points a game on average. (The school went 30-0 the
ICHAEL HOPWOOD EXPERIENCED his share of discrimination growing up in Compton in southern Los Angeles County in the 1950s and
‘60s. He wasn’t about to let another inequity 45 years later tarnish the achievements of his legendary high school basketball team. Hopwood, a four-year basketball player at Arizona State University and a teacher at Sacaton Middle School on the Gila River Indian Community during his lengthy career in education, has been a Province resident since 2016. He continues to share the lessons learned — both on and off the court — from a life filled with accomplishments. Speaking recently to members of the ASU Alumni Association, he offered this advice: “Knowledge is currency. Make yourself as valuable as possible. Be prepared for when the next opportunity presents itself. The road of life is always under construction; change your path, change your destiny. “Education,” he emphasized, “is the great equalizer for the underprivileged, the underrepresented and the less fortunate.” Early days Hopwood’s education began on the rugged streets of an unincorporated area south of Los Angeles. He was the oldest boy among seven children (five boys and two girls) and carried additional responsibility as his parents divorced when he was 2 years old. “We enjoyed simple activities,” he recalled. “It was a rough area where we lived. In junior high, I had to fight my way to get on campus for school and to get off campus after school.” It was not unusual at that time for boys to gravitate toward sports. Hopwood tore ligaments in both ankles in football practice, however, putting an end to his first love. Turning to basketball, he was denied a tryout in his final year of junior high when the coach declared he already had his team picked out. Prepared to capitalize on the next opportunity that came his way, Hopwood — during the summer before his freshman year of high school — met Jim Newman, who ran the summer programming at a neighborhood park.
Michael Hopwood points at a high school basketball trophy that he keeps among other memorabilia like signed basket- balls, photos and bobbleheads in his Province home.
InMaricopa.com | February 2025
February 2025 | InMaricopa.com
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