There were the usual 18,000 customers inside Williams Arena to watch a state one-class basketball champion determined on March 21, 1970. The unbeaten Sherburn Raiders, from a town of 1,300 and surrounded by farm families, were facing the South St. Paul Packers, so named for the city's stockyards that were distinctive in production and aroma.
Elmer Mulso was a cattle man in Sherburn, and he sent regular shipments of those four-legged critters to South St. Paul to be sacrificed for the taste buds of mankind.
As it turned out, South St. Paul's basketball team was sacrificed to Tom Mulso, the youngest of Elmer's three sons, inside the Barn on a Saturday night a half-century ago.
Mulso scored 39 points, fouled out Packers star Kurt Virgin, and the Raiders put away the big-city opponents in the fourth quarter 78-62.
Roxie Aho wrote the game story for the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, describing Mulso as "a 6-foot-6 forward who likes to shoot from as far as 30 feet out." Mulso's height was inflated by an inch, although not his shooting range.
"I've wondered a few times how many of those would've been threes," Mulso said a few days ago. "I've never gone as far to watch that game and try to figure it out."
The three-point shot became a staple in high school basketball in fall 1987. Change came to the Minnesota boys' basketball tournament much sooner. A month after another eight-team boys' tourney brought huge crowds to a full-sized Williams, the Minnesota State High School League announced there would be two-class tournaments starting in 1971.
Jeff McCarron, Mulso's 6-5 co-star, said: "We did not know it at the time, but to be the last true one-class winner … there's a history to it that makes our championship more significant for a lot of people."