There are two remarkable aspects tied to Ray Maria's historic night on February 20th, 1962.

The first is that Maria scored a school record 45 points in a 108-57 blowout of Allegheny College. Many players since have come close to that record, most recently Dan Coxon in 1998 when he scored 44 points vs. Wheaton. But Maria's record has now stood an amazing 58 years and counting.

Maria accomplished the amazing feat at Carroll Gym, breaking a record that had stood for less than ten years. The previous standard belonged to the legendary George Dalton, who had tallied 42 points against Valparaiso during the 1953-54 season. As the Carroll News proclaimed, " The pride of Garfield Heights canned 14 of 26 from the field and 17 of 22 charity tosses to establish the record."

The second is that his talented teammate Tom Brazaitis wrote a column about the accomplishment. Brazaitis would later become an incredibly respected columnist and Washington Bureua chief for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In 1971, he joined the Plain Dealer, working his way from the police to city hall beats. he was eventually sent to the Washington bureau in 1974, with his first assignment covering the U.S. House hearings on President Richard M. Nixon's impeachment during the Watergate fallout.

Starting as bureau chief in 1979, he directed his paper's presidential coverage. He sometimes went abroad, including a reporting trip to the Vatican after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. "He survived, and, as it turned out, has lasted in his job longer than I have in mine," he wrote upon retiring as bureau chief in 1998.

He was also a former president of the Regional Reporters Association, which he helped start in the late 1980's to give smaller newspaper bureaus in Washington greater access to politicians.

Brazaitis passed away of cancer in 2005.

His writing acumen is on display in a piece he wrote for the Carroll News entitled "Speaking of Characters" in the February 23rd, 1962 edition:

In the topsy-turviest of all worlds, that of sport, where a 300-game is as likely to be basketball as bowling, and the four-minute mile is as commonplace as a two-base hit, record-breaking performances are losing their long-standing luster.

In the space of less than a year, sports fans have watched Roger Maris whack 61 home runs, Jim Beatty run a sub-four-minute mile indoors, and John Uelses soar over 16 feet in the pole vault, not to mention countless record-snapping performances by lesser-known athletes throughout the nation.

Last Tuesday night, one of the less-heralded records went by the boards when Ray Maria caged 45 points to add a flare of excitement to an otherwise hum-drum contest at the local fieldhouse.

Following the game, athletic publicist John Sheridan turned to page 21 of this year's "Basketball Guide" and with a soft pencil blackened out with the first record in the book, "Most points 1 game (42) Dalton vs. Valparaiso '53-'54."

 There are few Carroll students who remember George Dalton. Sports are like that.

Present basketball coach John Keshock has perhaps the most vivid recollection, for he was big George's teammate and roommate for four years, from 1951 to 1955.

Dalton's basketball exploits are all in the book. At the beginning of the season he held 12 individual Carroll records. Maria already has erased three of those marks.

Only 6-4, Dalton maneuvered against the best defensive men on some of the country's finest basketball teams. He had a phenomenal touch from in close and the maneuverability to score against men far bigger.

In four seasons at Carroll, Dalton scored 2357 points. He was the fourth man in the history of the game to score over 2000 points in collegiate competition and now ranks sixth on the list of all-time scorers.

George, in the words of Keshock, was "intensely proud of his achievements."
               
A mild-mannered exterior conceals the intense competitive pride characteristic of the really great personages in sports. George, as a man, is far more impressive than the records he set.

Today, he works as a production planner for the Cleveland Graphite Bronze Corporation. When I asked him how he felt upon hearing his record had been broken, George replied sincerely, "I'm surprised it hadn't been broken before. I've seen Maria play, and he's a fine ball player, so it came as no great shock to me when he broke the record."

A year, or two, or three from now, someone will be writing a story of a similar nature as this, telling of the night Ray Maria set a record and the man who broke it anew.
               
Sports are like that.