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CINCINNATI — Growing up on Zeigler Street in downtown Dayton in the late 1940s and early '50s, he had a knack for going places and doing things you might not expect.

"We'd go to the railroad tracks on Longworth and play softball — right there on the rocks," Ralph Wright said. "Where the water drained was home plate and if a left-handed batter turned on the ball and hit it into the trees, well, you didn't have no ball.

"Down the street where Coca-Cola eventually built, they used to have pro rasslin' matches. People would park in our neighborhood to go there. We'd get on the roof across the street from the show and that's how I saw Don Eagle and Nature Boy Buddy Rogers."

The old memories brought a smile and a few seconds of silent embrace. Sitting next to him on the porch of their home in the Kennedy Heights section of Cincinnati, his wife, Janet, prodded him for another story:

"How 'bout you sneaking in the fairgrounds? Don't you think he wants to hear that?"

Wright, who plays it closer to the vest than his spouse of some 45 years, shrugged and nodded:

"When the (Montgomery County) fair was in town, we used to go to the side where that big hill is. We'd put a board against the fence, crawl up, hold the barb wire down at the top and then flip over.

"Always worked 'cept the time one of my friends landed in the wrong stuff. Right where the cows had been."

"Cow dung," Janet laughed.

"My goodness, yes," Ralph said. "But it never happened to me."

He always seemed to land in the right spot, never more so than when he first boarded that city bus at Washington Street and rather than heading to West Dayton and Dunbar High — where some expected he'd go — he headed east to Stivers High School.

So did four neighborhood buddies, and while they were about the only black students at Stivers, Wright, especially, blossomed.

Multi-sport standout

He became a high-flying All-City basketball player, a state champion in the high jump and long jump and a two-year letterman in football.

Those sporting accomplishments got him a scholarship to Miami University, where, once again, he emphasized the success Stivers products had once they left the storied East Fifth Street school.

Today, Oct. 12, Wright and 16 others will be inducted into the Stivers High School Athletic Hall of Fame. The gala celebration — where former University of Dayton basketball coach Don Donoher and Ohio State basketball great Bill Hosket will serve as masters of ceremony — begins at noon at the Presidential Banquet Center.

And while everyone will talk of his sports accomplishments, the 69-year-old Wright especially remembers a B'nai B'rith citizenship award he received at Stivers:

"There was racial tension around the country back then, but I remember some of the students saying something to me to the effect of, 'Thank you for bridging the (black and white) gap. Thank you for letting us know we can get along.' "

At 6 feet tall and 185 pounds, Wright is nearly the same size now as he was in high school. His hairline has receded some, but he still has the same gap-toothed grin and a faint scar from where he cut his thumb ... on the basketball backboard.

As we talked the other day, he had a scrapbook of yellowed clippings in his lap and white, low-top Chuck Taylors on his feet.

"I have pleasant memories of Stivers," he said "A lot of this stuff in the scrapbook came from other students. They'd see something in the paper and cut it out for me."

And there was plenty to clip, especially when he went to Miami. But while continuing to collect accolades as a basketball and track star, his pockets remained woefully empty, Janet said.

When she first met him, she was Janet Dickerson and her family lived near the Oxford campus.

"It was during Christmas time and all the Miami students usually went home, but Ralph had to stay and practice basketball," she said. "I was in high school and we met at this little store called Knox's.

"At that time he was poor as Joe Turkey and he comes out and says, 'Give me 15 cents.' "

She was laughing as she went on, but Ralph just sat in silence:

"I told him 'Get outta my face. I don't even know you, I don't give nobody money.' And I didn't."

Ralph's silence gave way to a shrug: "Well, something musta' worked. ... Here we are."

Janet admitted that as the basketball season had gone on — and Ralph kept leaving tickets for her — she began to show up to cheer him on because no one else was there supporting him.

The Wright family had moved to Dayton from Milan, Tenn., when Ralph was 4 and his parents weren't big socializers, he said.

"They never saw me play in person," he said quietly. "Not high school or college. Not even Senior Night. They were proud of me, though, and they'd hear from other people how I did."

Everyone used to marvel at the way he could jump. What began at Stivers — 22 rebounds (and 20 points) against Wilmington one game, 23 rebounds against Dunbar — became highlighted at Miami.

He led the Redskins in rebounds as a senior, averaging 10.2, once blocked eight shots against Pitt and continually stunned taller opponents when he controlled the opening tip.

He outjumped the Miami Hurricanes' 7-foot-1 center at a holiday tournament in Florida in 1961 and twice got the better of the legendary Nate "The Great" Thurmond, the 6-foot-11 Bowling Green center, who became a seven-time NBA All-Star.

"I got the tip on him to open the game and back then we jumped again to start the second half," he said. "So (Thurmond) pulls the ref aside and said, 'Throw the ball ... hiiiiiigh!'

"Me, I was just as jazzy and I said, 'It's not gonna make any difference.' ... And it didn't."

While Wright said he's excited and honored about today's induction, he's saddened, too, because fellow inductee Paul Ginter won't be there.

"He was Ralph's favorite and he died this summer," Janet said. "They played together and he was someone Ralph really wanted to see."

Making a difference

During his four years at Stivers, Ralph said he had no problems, even though he was just one of a handful of blacks in the school. The only racial incidents, he said, came when he was playing on the road in college.

At that Miami, Fla., tournament, he remembers Redskins coach Dick Shrider calling the team together: "He said no one was to go to the swimming pool because we (the two blacks on the team) weren't allowed to go in.

"I remember when we played at Kentucky back when Adolph Rupp was coaching, they called us names. And when we played at Eastern Kentucky it was a small gym and we heard what was said.

"They beat us bad that game, but we had the date circled the next year when they came to Oxford. That's the highest I ever jumped in my life and we gave 'em a licking.

"With a couple minutes to go, Vern Lawson and one of their players got into it and I remember our coach sitting all the black players down for the last minute."

The Redskins had the game won and besides, Wright said, that's not what he was about.

As he proved since, he's all about family and education. After graduating from Miami in 1963, he got his masters from Xavier and taught physical education, health and science for 30 years at Heberle Elementary in Cincinnati.

He and Janet married after college and their daughter Tess is now 43. And her daughter, Janay — their pride-and-joy granddaughter — is a 13-year-old swimmer of note.

Now retired from teaching, Wright said he still hears from former students:

"Some of the most satisfying moments in my life have come when some of them have thanked me for what I'd done for them. They've said I showed them they could do more and go further than they'd imagined."

But then that's the way he did it ever since he was a kid on Zeigler Street.

Stivers Athletic Hall of Fame inductees

Dick Bach (graduated 1954): All City football, basketball, baseball

Si Burick (1926): Long-time Dayton Daily News sports columnist

Milt Caniff (1925): Famed cartoonist whose comic strips included "Steve Canyon" and "Terry and the Pirates"

John Carter (1963): All-City football, basketball, baseball

John "Fuzzy" Evans (1927): National champs football, state champ basketball, baseball, track

George Fryman (1953): Top-ranked Ohio tennis player

Paul Ginter (1959): All-City basketball

Don Lange (1947): All-City baseball, football

Dillis Lee (1954): All-City basketball

Charles "Mickey" Morgan (1957): All-City basketball

Jim Mort (1951): All City football, basketball, baseball, bowling

Bill Mumma (1918): State champ basketball and track, football, baseball

Seymour "Kick" Ramby (1925): National champ football, state champ basketball and baseball

James "Scotty" Reston (left school as senior, graduated Oakwood High 1928): Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

Bob Rolfe (1950): All-City basketball, football, cross country

Gene Seman (1949): All-City basketball and football, baseball, track

Ralph Wright (1958): All-City basketball, state champ track, football