Replaying the Utah church ball game that ended in a prison riot — literally

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• In 1957, a Utah church basketball game at the state prison with the Granger 2nd Ward ended in a riot.
• Inmates took hostages for 12 hours, causing chaos and national media attention.
• The incident prompted the governor to investigate prison conditions and inmate grievances.

SALT LAKE CITY — If you're an over-35 Latter-day Saint church ball veteran, you can likely tell a few tales about that cultural phenomenon that spawned the phrase, "The brawl that begins with a prayer."

But can your own wacky church ball stories match the hardcourt adventures of the 1957 Granger 2nd Ward M-Men's squad?

On Wednesday, Feb. 6, 1957, the Granger 2nd Ward hoopsters were playing a game when an unconventional "timeout" actually forced Utah Gov. George Clyde and dozens of police officers into action.

It snagged national headlines and was even covered by the iconic Life magazine.

That attention-grabbing church ball basketball contest began, typically, with a jump ball.

Nothing else that night could be called typical.

For starters, the Granger 2nd Ward wasn't playing at the local stake center or even against another ward. Their venue that night was an indoor basketball court at the Utah State Prison. Their opponents: a squad of inmates.

The church ballers were leading their incarcerated rivals 49-37 when a prisoner halted the game, shouting: "This joint's been taken over by the convicts!" the Feb. 18, 1957 Life magazine article reported.

The inmates took the Granger 2nd Ward players hostage "and for 12 riotous hours, with weapons wrested from guards, roamed through the cell blocks, smashing windows and drinking the dispensary's rubbing alcohol."

In his book "Utah Politics: Principles, Theories and Rules of the Game," Jon Cox offered this punchline: "The irony is not lost on Utahns that the biggest riot in state history would take place in the middle of a church basketball game."

Goofballs, mayhem and drinking

It is tempting to guess the church-ball-game-turned-prison-riot was triggered by shoddy refereeing and maybe a few reckless elbows.

"In fact, the prisoners' demands were fairly routine: Better food ("No more cold potatoes!"). A new parole board. And a hobby shop."

The inmates launched their 12-hour prison riot around 6 p.m., grabbed dozens of hostages and "wrought damage from one end of the institution to another," the Deseret News reported.

Mayhem defined the night, as colorfully described by one inmate: "Once the riot got going it got out of hand. The guys started drinking alcohol and taking goofballs and happy pills. Some of them got high and tore the place up."

Anarchy ensued. A corrections officer was stabbed when he attempted to prevent the inmates from taking over the prison. He would recover from his injuries.

And what of the Granger 2nd Ward basketball bunch?

"The inmates later bragged that they treated the hostages extremely well — giving them food, television, and chess for entertainment," according to the Deseret News. "When released, the 29 hostages verified the prisoners' claims."

Live television captures riot

"The Great Church Ball/Utah Prison Melee of 1957" happened at a time when live television news coverage was taking its maiden steps.

In 2019, veteran Utah television reporter Craig Wirth dug up decades-old live TV coverage of the riot — filing a "this-actually-happened" story about the oddest 12 hours in Latter-day Saint church ball lore.

Rioters were actually at the news broadcast mic — "Cue the prisoners" — airing their grievances during the live coverage of the ongoing riot.

"The other night we ran out of potatoes — we had to serve cold potatoes on the mainline for the fellas," said an inmate who worked in the prison kitchen.

Once order was restored, Gov. Clyde formed a bipartisan committee to investigate conditions at the Utah State Prison, discuss inmate grievances and review criminal evidence following what was called "the worst riot in the institution's history."

The Granger 2nd Ward hoopsters returned to their homes with tales to tell — and bragging rights. The church ball team was winning when its game was interrupted by a prison riot.

There was no rematch.

Photos

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Jason Swensen

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Jason Swensen is a Deseret News staff writer on the Politics and the West team. He has won multiple awards from the Utah Society of Professional Journalists. Swensen was raised in the Beehive State and graduated from the University of Utah. He is a husband and father — and has a stack of novels and sports biographies cluttering his nightstand.