Penn, who went on to play for Ohio State, led a fourth-quarter charge to give the Panthers the lead. Both Linden-McKinley and Barberton were 25-0, and Barberton was on a 50-game winning streak when they met for the title. That 1977 undefeated team was led by point guard Todd Penn - a legendary Panther who dropped 38 points on the Barberton Magic during the championship game.
In 19 Linden-McKinley won the AAA state championships. In the mid-1970s, the Panthers dominated the Columbus City League. “So many young men have represented the city, and the area, so very well. “Basketball in Columbus is as good as anywhere in the country, in my opinion,” Cleamons told The Dispatch last month. He went on to win nine more rings as an assistant coach with the Lakers and Chicago Bulls. In his days as a Panther, Young played alongside Jim Cleamons, who later played for Ohio State and won an NBA ring with the Los Angeles Lakers as a player. Greater Columbus Basketball Legends: Hall of fame induction a special night for Central Ohio hoops legends
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Young also played a year of professional ball and was a fifth-round NBA draft pick by the Boston Celtics. Young was one of the first starting varsity African American athletes at Florida State and one of the first Black athletes in the Deep South at a predominantly white university. Skip Young, a 1967 Linden-McKinley graduate, founded the Greater Columbus Basketball Legends Association in 2012 and was a star in high school and at Florida State University. In 1967, Linden-McKinley won the AA state championship before the high school was moved up to the AAA league.
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Throughout the 1960s and into the 1980s the Panthers were a dynamic basketball squad full of talented players that went on to play and coach across the NBA. The height of hoops with Skip Young, Jim Cleamons, Reggie Rankin and Todd Penn 14, 2020, according to an obituary published in The Dispatch. His most-famous role came during the final season of "The Cosby Show" when he played Vanessa Huxtable's fiancé, Dabnis Brickey. He performed in the original production of the musical "Godspell." Thomas also was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for his role as Cool Charles in the 1987 CBS comedy "Frank's Place." The Columbus native was a natural entertainer - from the piano to the silver screen.Īfter earning a degree from Ohio State University, Thomas moved to New York City and eventually became a minister of music at Stuyvesant Heights Christian Church while working on Broadway. graduated from Linden-McKinley in 1965 after his family moved to the city's Northeast Side. Here are a few: From Broadway to 'The Cosby Show' with the Rev. Over the years, the high school has produced its fair share of graduates who have gone on to achieve fame on and off the field. This was by no means the first example of the high school's students beating the odds to make headlines. 'It just worked like magic': Linden-McKinley football's unprecedented turnaround This was just a few years after Valentine first took over as head football coach in 2018 and the Columbus City Schools Facilities Task Force, made up of local residents, recommended that the Columbus Board of Education close the high school after the 2019-2020 school year.īut the board ultimately ruled to keep Linden-McKinley open, and Valentine brought in a culture of positivity and community outreach - the football team started picking up trash around the neighborhood - and, ultimately, brought home a winning season. Linden-McKinley STEM Academy has a history of beating the odds.Īfter more than a decade of dismal football seasons, the Panthers last year qualified for the playoffs for the first time in team history after winning eight games under Coach Eric Valentine.
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