In 1959, Wayzata was a small town outside the metro area, with Greyhound Bus and Great Northern Railway providing public transportation to Minneapolis, and its mostly rural school district included seven towns with Wayzata as the commercial center. At the Junior/Senior High School at Barry Avenue and Wayzata Boulevard, boys’ athletics centered on a basketball team that had lost 24 straight games before Jack Thurnblad became coach and appointed Norm Schroeder as advance scout. Thurnblad combined intense determination to win with a warm, friendship-building personality that connected with players, parents, and the greater Wayzata community. In an era before professional teams came to Minnesota and shifted sports attention, the State Basketball Tournament was the year’s premier sporting event, drawing 486 teams statewide into public school elimination tournaments to select eight teams for the state field. Wayzata’s 1958-59 team lacked the height and depth of many opponents, but it kept winning as an underdog, and the Minneapolis press called it “Cinderella” even while favoring its next opponents. After defeating much larger Minneapolis-area schools to earn a regional berth in the State Tournament, the mayor declared that every place in Wayzata would close to support the team. Lake area schools hung banners on Lake Street, merchants painted supportive signs on their windows, and many gave free noisemakers, pompoms, and hats to ticket holders. Demand for tickets was so great that people lined up at 4 a.m. outside the school for the 9 a.m. sale, and as the three-day tournament eliminated teams, Wayzatans bought available ticket allocations and returned them to the school sale, helping give Wayzata the largest share of the 18,501 fans in Williams Arena. In the championship game, Wayzata again came from behind to win 55-41. The next morning, a 1000-car parade met the team at the city limits and escorted it into town, where 2000 fans waited at the school. As the community celebrated becoming state champion, Thurnblad received the keys to the city, banquets were held across the district, and a tradition began that would later include many other state championships in other sports, rooted in his message to the boys of ’59: “Winners never quit!”