It was a big day in 1954 in Battleboro, a town about seven miles north of Rocky Mount, when the local midget league all-stars hosted a basketball tournament to christen the school's new auditorium and gymnasium. Country boys always seemed to grow and mature sooner than their in-town brethren, and the Battleboro players preened in their new uniforms, supplied by St. John's Episcopal Church, and bristled with confidence.
"Some of our 10 and 11-year-olds even had hair on their chests," remembers Brent Milgrom, whose father operated a peanut farm just outside Battleboro. "I don't know why, but the boys in the rural areas were very masculine at a young age.