Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times

During a tour of the old gym, former cheerleader Tina Thomas shows former player Anthony “String” Harris some old photos she saved of the basketball teams and cheerleading squads.

NORTHFORK, W.Va. -- The Northfork High School gym is padlocked with a heavy chain. Someone has thrown rocks through the windows.

Inside, the floor is buckled. Paint is peeling from the walls. Rain runs through the roof like water through a drain.

The gym was the home of the Blue Demons, a team of mostly miners' boys that won 10 AA basketball championships from 1971 to 1984, including an astounding eight straight titles from 1974 to 1981.

Like the gym, most things in the self-proclaimed Basketball Capital of the United States have since deteriorated.

The high school closed in 1985, and the students were bused 13 miles away to a consolidated high school in Welch.

By 1991, when a New Jersey Catholic school won nine straight titles and broke Northfork's record, most of the coal companies that made the town prosperous and most of the people who lived there had already left.

Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times

Raymond Lee unlocks the rarely opened gym. His family owns the old school and gym and are seeking donations to save the building.

But in a community of about 600 with little more than a hard-wearing sense of pride, "the streak" still means everything, especially in March.

"We were clicking, like clockwork, a smooth engine, fine-tuned, running as if it were effortless," said Anthony "String" Harris, a lanky 49-year-old middle school teacher who played for Northfork from 1973 to 1975. "Coal miners would miss their shift when Northfork was playing at home."

Harris was eating a Demon Burger at the Coffee Shop, one of two restaurants in town. A picture of the 1976 team hung on the wall. As Harris ate, he explained how homespun earnestness and discipline led the Blue Demons to the title match year after year.

The Demons played a speed game of fundamentals: pass, pass, pass, shoot from below the basket and you'd better use the backboard if you know what's good for you, Harris said.

There was no three-point shot when Harris played. Slam dunks and finger rolls were Globetrotter tricks kids tried at practice when the coach wasn't watching.

Coach Jennings Boyd, who led the team to all but the 1984 championship, was a math teacher who crunched numbers for fun. Assistant coach Henry Winkfield was a disciplinarian who ruled with an icy glare.

The team arrived at games wearing matching blue blazers and ties. Players and their parents signed a team contract that listed the rules. Curfew was 10 p.m. on weeknights.

Boyd and Winkfield drove to the players' houses at night, hit the horn and waited for the boys to walk outside and wave to prove they were home.

Courtesy of Patricia Boyd

Lucious Braggs goes up for a shot during the West Virginia state basketball tournament in late 1970s.

Players also couldn't be seen less than an arm's length away from a girl.

Break the rules and you were out, Harris said. It didn't matter how good you were. There were kids just as good dying to take your place.

Tina Thomas, a Blue Demon cheerleader from 1973 to 1976, said she was once inside a ball player's house when the coached showed up. She ran outside and hid in a coal pile.

"The best thing that ever came out of Northfork was discipline," she said.

To prepare for the playoffs, Boyd ran the Demons against larger triple-A teams all season. Usually, they beat the bigger schools, many of which refused to play Northfork at home because the school regularly packed 1,200 fans into a 900-capacity gym.

Harris said the team's strongest opponents were often local schools in McDowell County.

"The Gary Coaldiggers. They were a tough team," Harris said, a shading of fear still in his voice as if he were playing the rivals again tomorrow.

But the Coaldiggers were nothing compared to the Northfork fans.

Coach Jennings Bryant led the Blue Demons to all but one of their 10 state championship titles.

People would stop players on the street to give pointers and criticize their play, Harris said. Once, a group of players stayed out late at a party the night before a game. On the court the next day they were sluggish. The fans started heckling them, yelling "you were at the party too late," Harris said. The Demons won the game but caught hell from the coaches.

Boyd's widow, Patricia Boyd, still gets a stomachache when she remembers the run-up to the championship games. After the first few championships, no one wanted to be the team that broke the streak, she said.

Patricia Boyd waited out the fourth quarters of most of the big games in the bathroom saying prayers.

"I had a Hail Mary for every tile in every bathroom from here to Charleston," she said.

As in other working-class towns, basketball was a way out for kids in Northfork. In Northfork's case, kids wanted to stay above ground, out of the mines. Competition on the court was cutthroat from an early age.

"The kids grew up with basketballs in their hands," said Mark Page, who is now assistant principal at Princeton High School.

From the playgrounds, the kids played organized ball in youth leagues and boned up on technique at the middle schools. By the time they arrived at Boyd's tryouts, there were 60 strong players competing for 12 varsity spots.

Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times

Harris recently spent time photographing the old gym where he played on state championship games.

After high school, many Blue Demons did get out of Northfork. Harris played at Bluefield State College. Russell Todd, a 1979 graduate, played for West Virginia University and the Milwaukee Bucks.

Many of them never returned. There wasn't much to return to.

What's left of the trophies from Northfork's glory days now sit in the Demon Den, a cobwebbed and dank basement museum that once served as the town jail. Many of the Blue Demon's trophies, pictures and other memorabilia were lost in 2001, when Elkhorn Creek flooded the streets and filled the Demon Den.

Nick Mason, the town's 83-year-old mayor, recalled Northfork's boomtown days. There were three meat packing plants, five supermarkets, three services stations, two car dealerships and a movie theater, he said, pointing out at an empty street.

When Northfork High School closed in 1985, the kids were bused to Mount View High School, where two other McDowell County high schools had combined in 1978.

With all the talent together in one school, many thought Mount View would be an instant powerhouse. They have not been.

The mix was broken and the times changed, said Kenny Brown, a Northfork basketball alumnus who is now head coach of the Mount View team.

Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times

One of the two signs at the town limits.

Brown doesn't blame the coal companies or the poverty of McDowell County for the fall. He blames video games, cellphones and all the other diversions kids have today.

"The strongest point on these kids is their thumbs," he said.

Mount View made it to the state quarterfinals for the first time ever this year. In Northfork the season is viewed a failure.

"To be honest with you, it's a lot of pressure. A lot of pressure," Brown said.

Inside the old Northfork High School gym, there is no electricity. Yellowed pictures of the championship teams still hang on the walls.

Harris, dressed in his old white basketball jacket, squinted at pictures searching for old friends.

It was the first time he had been inside the gym in more than 10 years. He remembered the roar, the fans, so many people packed inside that the team couldn't make it from the locker room to the floor.

In the dark, Harris broke into a defensive crouch and swung his long arms in the air.

"Scottie, pick 'em up. Pick 'em up," he shouted, backpedaling down the buckled floor.

For Harris, it was 1975. The cheerleaders were chanting:

"Watch us, we got it. Watch us, we got it.

Outside the gym, the streets were empty.