For sixty-seven years, student athletes from the Livingston Manor school participated in team sports against neighboring high schools as part of the interscholastic athletic organization known as the Western Sullivan League. Throughout that period, in the spirit of competition, friendly school rivalries, lifelong friendships, and glory-day memories were established amongst the competing high school athletes and throughout neighboring communities. For the most part, these Western Sullivan League teams were relatively evenly matched, regardless of the size of the school. One school’s success on the athletic field, dominating the league in a particular sport for a short period of years, would soon be felled by an equally competitive team from a neighboring school, and so on. During the winter of 1962, the Livingston Manor Central School’s basketball team was the league’s dominant team as the boys attempted to capture their third straight Western Sullivan League’s basketball championship.

Led by the on-court generalship of Johnny Dumond and high-scoring center Richard Robinson, the Manor Wildcat basketball team captured the WSL championships and Section IX titles in grand style during both the 1959-60 and 1960-61 basketball seasons, going undefeated in both campaigns as the team rung up an impressive thirty-eight consecutive victories. With the graduation of Dumond and Robinson, along with fellow classmate Charlie Banks, the Manor 1961-62 basketball team was now led by high-scorers John Hoos and Richard Welch along with the strong underneath presence of Harold VanAken. But with the loss of Robinson and Banks, along with tall Carl Eugeni, Manor’s continued dominance on the basketball court was not a sure thing for the 1961-62 season. Other teams in the league also had talented players, as well as holding a height advantage over the Manor five. This became apparent with the first head-to-head meeting with arch-rival, the Roscoe Blue-Devils, led by their big center, Bruce Lamb. On the evening of December 19, the teams played an overtime thriller with the Blue-Devils finally coming out on top. The Wildcat’s winning basketball streak ended at 42 games, one win short of the then scholastic record.