Victor Pearn

Point Guard Victor Pearn

Gary loved to play basketball from the first moment his hands touched a ball and he dribbled up and down his stairs. He always dreamed of playing point guard on the high school varsity team. Flustered by fights with the town bully, and conflicts with a coach who never gave him a fair shake, Gary transferred to Ashland High for his senior year.

Ashland was a sleepy little farm community in Illinois, it was the place where he had been born. Gary wasn't treated like a new kid at all; he was a wayward friend who'd finally returned home. Everything began to click with his new coach and teammates.

At a time for hot rods, tiny Nash Ramblers, and long black hearses, Elvis had the top hits on radio and the juke boxes. Magically, all the dreams for the purple and white Ashland Panthers basketball team began to come true. Point Guard is the story of how it happened way back in 1957.