Not too long ago I wrote about North Park College’s 1985, senior-laden men’s basketball team’s journey to the school’s FOURTH national championship. Coach Bosko led that team in his first year after working as the top assistant coach for many years. Preparing for the 1985-86 season, Bosko now faced fielding his first recruiting class as a head coach.
Several JV players returned. PG Mike Parker was the only varsity returnee who saw regular playing time the previous year. Bosko landed a boatload of talent for the Vikings! Sophomores Mike Barach, twin brothers Michael and Myron Starks, Paul Heesch, and junior Ron Stagger arrived on campus to lead the storied program.
With one year together, the Vikings started the 86-87 campaign with a bevy of talent that included the “big three” core of center Dan Mulkerin, power forward and All-American Michael Starks, and shooting guard Mike Barach. And Mike Parker, the team’s leader, was certainly no slouch! This season represented the first year the NCAA adopted the three-point shot, which we would see Barach excel to complement his strong skill set.
As the season began, returning starter Heesch had gained too much weight since the previous year and became a non-factor. Ron Stagger became Option #2 at small forward, but he quit the team. JUCO transfer Tyrone Thigpen replaced Stagger and quit the team as well. Wade Seifer, Option #4, got undercut during a game at Purdue-Calumet. Wade, I learned a while later as I lived in Minnesota at the time, was hospitalized and survived a coma (he played the next season). So, by the end of the season unrecruited Swede Henrik Gaddefors started at small forward.
Henrik had played basketball in Sweden and as an international exchange student played his senior year at New Trier HS (Winnetka, IL). Other starters included Parker, Barach, Starks, and Mulkerin, while Myron Starks, Todd Mitchell, and Greg Gierke were the top reserves. The team won the conference title with bitter rival Illinois Wesleyan in second place.
North Park defeated Ripon by double digits in the first playoff game. The second round featured conference rival, Illinois Wesleyan; North Park won by seven. North Park defeated Wartburg by 23 to send the Vikings to its fifth Final Four in ten years!
In the semi-final game versus Wittenberg, led by their All American Steve Iannarino, the Vikings trailed by 10 at halftime. Then Option #5 Gaddefors propelled North Park to victory with five treys in the second half, which I witnessed. The championship game against Clark was an absolute rout though the game ended at 106-100. North Park had won its fifth national championship!! (To date, I believe only UCLA has won more. Not Michigan State or Duke or Indiana…) North Park led the entire game, a raucous atmosphere I recall, and sometimes by more than 25. The team basically coasted in the second half.
The tournament named Michael Starks the MVP with his teammate, Mike Barach, also on the all-tourney team. Both Barach and Starks earned All American honors at the end of that championship season. As a side note, I have seen decades of DIII hoops. In this connection, Barach, in my opinion, is the best shooting guard I have ever seen. He could hit the trey, drive to the rim for a dunk, grab rebounds, and hit the 15’ jump shot.
As Mulkerin is credited as saying, this championship, the fifth in nine years, was, “One for the thumb.”
1985 Division III Men’s Basketball Championship Memories With Pix, by Mark Erickson
(All photos were taken by North Park’s legendary, multi-talented, Religion professor, Calvin Katter.)
