Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
4 | August 23, 2018 | The wilmette beacon news<br />
wilmettebeacon.com<br />
Basketball film was ‘labor of love’ for Wilmette couple<br />
Hilary Anderson<br />
Freelance Reporter<br />
Wilmette resident and<br />
filmmaker Rino Liberatore<br />
read a newspaper article<br />
that piqued his curiosity.<br />
Little did he realize<br />
it would begin an exciting<br />
journey for him and his<br />
wife, photographer and<br />
filmmaker Jill Dunbar.<br />
The article stated Chicago’s<br />
Loyola University’s<br />
Ramblers basketball<br />
team, which won the 1963<br />
NCAA tournament, was<br />
the greatest sports story in<br />
the last 50 years.<br />
Fifteen years later, Liberatore<br />
and Dunbar premiered<br />
the film they made,<br />
“Iron Five,” about the<br />
famous team and why it<br />
was so special at the Black<br />
Harvest Festival, held at<br />
Chicago’s Gene Siskel<br />
Theatre, Aug. 11.<br />
“My wife and I are huge<br />
sports fans,” Liberatore<br />
said. “When I read that<br />
comment, I became curious<br />
and began investigating<br />
why.”<br />
When the couple was at<br />
a United Center basketball<br />
game, Liberatore asked<br />
a group of fans what Illinois<br />
team won the NCAA<br />
basketball championship<br />
about 50 years ago in<br />
1963. Only one knew it<br />
was the Loyola Ramblers.<br />
“I wondered why this<br />
amazing story was not<br />
known by Chicago basketball<br />
fans and began<br />
researching information<br />
about the team and the<br />
situation at the time,” Liberatore<br />
said.<br />
Dunbar and he found<br />
details they never expected.<br />
There were two main<br />
reasons why the Loyola<br />
team’s win was so noteworthy.<br />
“First the basketball<br />
team was from a small<br />
school,” Liberatore said.<br />
“Second it broke down<br />
racial barriers making the<br />
team. In a sense it was a<br />
civil rights issue.”<br />
Prior to this time, basketball<br />
was considered<br />
predominantly a “white”<br />
sport.<br />
“It was kind of an unspoken<br />
rule that college<br />
basketball teams did not<br />
have more than two black<br />
players on it,” Dunbar<br />
said.<br />
George Ireland, the then<br />
team coach, disregarded<br />
Mayor Daley greets the champion Loyola Ramblers as they arrive in Chicago in 1963<br />
as shown in “Iron Five,” a new film made by Wilmette residents Rino Liberatore and<br />
Jill Dunbar. Photo submitted<br />
that rule and decided he<br />
would put together the best<br />
players he had, which predominantly<br />
were black.<br />
“Ireland changed<br />
things,” Liberatore said.<br />
“It was a struggle with<br />
civil rights. His idea was<br />
Please see couple, 10
Change language