More than half of it came from one man
Nick Denes, the Cluggish brothers and a team that finished with 28 victories brought a Kentucky basketball championship home to Corbin.
- 6'7" in high school
- Kentucky, 1937 to 1940
- New York Knickerbockers, 1946 to 47
- Redhound Hall of Fame, 1982
The final score was modest. The accomplishment was anything but.
Corbin 24. Nebo 18.
In the spring of 1936, those numbers made the Redhounds Kentucky state basketball champions. Coach Nick Denes' team finished its work at Alumni Gym in Lexington, securing a place in Corbin history that would endure long after the players had left school.
Ninety years later, it is easy to reduce that season to a banner, a date or a line in a record book. But behind the championship was a remarkable team: two brothers who would go on to Kentucky, a coach whose accomplishments extended across several sports, and a group that completed its season with 28 wins and just one defeat.
The only team that beat them never got its chance.
Their story also includes one of the most painful interruptions in Kentucky basketball history. The only opponent to beat Corbin never received its own chance to compete for the state title.
Benham had won 27 to 14 on Corbin's home floor. Coached by Milburn Taylor and led by Wyatt "Spider" Thurman, the Tigers finished their regular season undefeated at 22 wins. Then a spinal meningitis outbreak in Harlan County stopped their postseason opportunity. In a 2020 retrospective, the Lexington Herald Leader's Mark Story traced the circumstances through contemporary newspaper coverage and the recollections of Bill DeVary, whose parents had taught at Benham. Health restrictions kept the Tigers from pursuing a championship, leaving their community with a question that could never be settled on the court.
Benham's disappointment deserves its place in the history of that season. So does the basketball Corbin played when its opportunity arrived. The Redhounds still had to advance, still had to withstand elimination games, and still had to finish the tournament.
Champions in three sports, and this was the first.
Denes was the coach responsible for bringing that effort together. His later KHSAA Hall of Fame biography credits him with coaching state champions in three sports. After Corbin, his work at Louisville Male included championship success in track and football. The basketball title was an early expression of the versatility that distinguished his career.
Four wins in Lexington.
At the center of Corbin's team stood Marion Cluggish. Described as 6 feet 7 inches during his high school career, he provided a striking physical presence. His importance, however, can be measured more precisely than his height: he scored 63 points during the state tournament.
Corbin scored 111 points across its four victories. Marion therefore supplied approximately 56.8 percent of the team's offense, calculated from those totals. More than half of the scoring in a championship run came from one player. That figure helps explain why his name remains so closely associated with the season.
Corbin survived its closest state tournament game in the opening round against Kirksey. Three more victories completed the championship run.
The championship scoring shows how the Redhounds finished the job. Marion contributed nine points, Ellison six, Stan five, and Asher and Sampson two apiece. KHSAA identifies Asher as William Asher in its All Tournament listing. Ellison and Sampson appear by surname in the championship box score.
Marion was the tournament's central scoring figure, but his teammates supplied 15 of Corbin's 24 points in the final. Ellison alone accounted for one quarter of the championship total. Those contributions deserve to remain part of the story alongside the more familiar Cluggish name. A championship belongs to the players whose work fills out the box score, too.
Three Redhounds earned All Tournament recognition: Marion Cluggish, Stan Cluggish and William Asher. Their selections gave Corbin multiple representatives among the tournament's outstanding players and reflected the talent Denes had assembled.
- 63 tournament points · 56.8% of the offense
- Kentucky, 1937 to 1940, under Adolph Rupp
- New York Knickerbockers, 1946 to 47 · 54 games
- Redhound Hall of Fame, 1982
- Back from a badly sprained ankle
- 8 points in the 32 to 19 regional semifinal over Bell County
- Kentucky, 1939 to 1940 · Marine Corps captain
- Redhound Hall of Fame, 1995
His brother Stan was another important part of the team. Known as "Little Clug," Stan later followed Marion to Kentucky. Walter's Wildcat World's biography reports that a badly sprained ankle kept him out of the district tournament, but that he returned during regional play and scored eight points in a 32 to 19 semifinal victory over Bell County. That account adds a glimpse of a postseason that required Corbin to navigate an injury to one of its leading players.
For Marion, the championship was the beginning of a basketball journey that reached far beyond Corbin. He played for Adolph Rupp at Kentucky, completing three varsity seasons from 1937 through 1940. Following military service during World War II, he joined the New York Knickerbockers for the inaugural 1946 to 1947 season of the Basketball Association of America, the league that preceded the NBA. He appeared in 54 regular season games that year.
Stan also appeared on Kentucky's varsity in 1939 to 1940. His later life included service in the Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War, eventually reaching the rank of captain. The brothers' lives carried them well beyond the gymnasium where they had helped win a championship, but Corbin remained the starting point of their shared basketball story.
Names matter.
- Nick DenesCoach
- Charles Sampson
- Stanley Cluggish
- Marion Cluggish
- Bill Asher
- Willard Ellison
- Carl LawsonAsst. coach
- John RoseManager
- Herschel Nelson
- Alfred Keck
- Carl Babb
- Gordon Grant
- Robert Sampson
- W.E. BurtonPrincipal
- G.W. CampbellSuperintendent
As identified on the 1935-36 team photograph. Know a name that is wrong or missing? Tell us.
Five plaques. One season.
The community eventually gave the team and several of its central figures formal places in the Redhound Hall of Fame. Marion Cluggish and Nick Denes were included in the 1982 class. Bill Asher followed in 1983. The 1936 basketball team was honored in 1984, and Stan Cluggish in 1995.
Those honors connect the season to the generations that followed. They also offer a reminder that preserving a team's history requires more than preserving its final score. Names matter. The contributions of teammates matter. So do the photographs, programs and newspaper clippings that can restore details a summary leaves behind.
The 1936 Redhounds deserve that attention. Their championship sits near the beginning of the story Corbin fans are still adding to today. Before these players became historical names, they were students representing their school, trying to win the next game.
They won the last one. Ninety years later, Corbin still has reason to remember.
Have photographs, programs or clippings from 1936?
A program from Alumni Gym. A clipping with the box score. A family photo of a Cluggish, an Asher, an Ellison, a Sampson. All of it belongs here, with your name on it.
Share a photo or program → Share a memorySources named in the story: the KHSAA's state tournament results and All Tournament listing; Mark Story's 2020 Lexington Herald Leader retrospective on Benham's 1936 season; Nick Denes' KHSAA Hall of Fame biography; Marion Cluggish's Kentucky and Basketball Association of America records; Walter's Wildcat World's biography of Stan Cluggish; and the Redhound Hall of Fame.
