Making 100

Women’s basketball has changed significantly over the years.

There have been rule changes, the number of players on the floor at one time and their roles and after five-on-five became established, the sport has revolutionized in its athletic ability.

Gamesmanship has gone up considerably. When girls basketball went to rovers in the fall of 1970 in Georgia high school ball, there were many mentions of how exactly this would work out. Many coaches felt they only had one or two players capable of playing both ends of the floor (two rovers crossed the center line). Rovers went out in 1975. Today, of course, all teams have five players who have to go end to end.

Quality of play is better, but there is something missing from the era of forwards on one end and guards on the other: crazy stats.

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A winning night for Screven County

The Screven County Lady Gamecocks won a basketball game December 27. Screven defeated Portal, 39-23. It was a dominating win for Screven, which was credited by MaxPreps as having a 21-5 halftime advantage.

More importantly for the Lady Gamecocks, it was their first win. Their first win in a long time – February 13, 2013, to be exact. In between these victories were 97 straight losses.

One night in 1966

The January 29, 1966 Tifton Gazette carried Associated Press high school basketball wire scores from around the state.

Football wire scores have been a constant in Georgia’s papers since the mid-1930s. Wire scores were fairly common then for basketball, but the practice has since faded out.

Wire scores for basketball were almost always mundane affairs, mostly limited then to Atlanta schools.

There was something a bit strange in that column, though.

St. Pius X won over Drexel in two games.

Indefensible: Schools closing after winning state basketball titles

A wide variety of Georgia high schools have won state basketball championships.

The GIAA began state tournaments for its league in 1922 and the official Georgia High School Association championships started in 1926. (For reasons unknown the GHSA does not list the 1926-37 champions on its site.)

Of course, in nearly 100 years of tournaments, not all schools are still standing.

The forgotten basketball run of Meson Academy

Headline of the March 20, 1941 Georgia Cracker, announcing a championship for Meson Academy

As the Lowndes Vikettes stood on the cusp of 100 wins in December 1979, the Waycross Journal-Herald looked back at the history of such streaks:

Eugene Cook’s high school football segregation fit

Most basic American history books point to a handful of big cases involving the rights of African-Americans.

There’s the Dred Scott decision. Voting rights established in the Constitution and the couple of Supreme Court cases where you can actually remember both sides: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. (1954).

Plessy v. Ferguson is commonly attributed as being the court case that established “separate but equal.” The latter, the Brown case, is supposed to have ended segregation entirely.

Of course, history is not as plain as that or as easy to enforce.

Bad grades end Toombs Central’s final season early

The gradebook can be a coach’s greatest fear.

It can take perfectly healthy players away, it can ruin state championships.

The 1987 Rockdale County boys had to forfeit their Class AAA basketball state crown because of an ineligible player that checked in as a sub during the state tournament.

The Rockdale situation was the costliest because of grades, but a few weeks earlier, the gradebook had been powerful enough to send one school’s entire season to a halt.

Toombs Central was at the end of its days as a high school in 1987; just a few months later, it was consolidated with Lyons as Toombs County High.

Located on US 1 a few miles south of Lyons, it had an average daily attendance of 97 when the Georgia High School Association reclassified in 1986. The figure was 29 less than what it had six years earlier.

Toombs Central was so small, it was the third smallest non-specialized public school in Georgia in 1986, behind Union County’s Woody Gap and Echols County.

Not surprisingly, its sports rosters were also tiny.

The Yellow Jackets fielded football teams from 1976-86, but struggled tremendously, winning as many as five games just once and finished out on a 1-39 streak.

Toombs Central did better in basketball, finishing as state runners-up in girls Class C hoops in 1958 and making three other semifinals. The boys made appearances in 1960 and 1963, but never won a game in state.

Boys basketball was struggling even more in the final season of 1986-87.

The Jackets were 0-11 in February 1987. The roster consisted of seven players.

But if Toombs didn’t think their situation could get any worse, it did.

On February 6, The Atlanta Constitution’s Steve Figueroa reported, “Toombs Central High in Lyons has canceled the remainder of its boys varsity basketball schedule because four of the seven players fell short of the standards and were declared ineligible.”

The academic rule that claimed the Yellow Jackets’ season was a new one by the Georgia High School Association, Figueroa said.

Students had to be passing five of six courses with a 70 or higher to participate in extracurricular activities.

GHSA executive secretary Bill Fordham said it was a first, to his knowledge, that a season was cancelled for this reason.

Toombs wasn’t the only school affected by the new rule – Rockdale had lost five players at that point – but at the time, Toombs was hit the hardest.

Predictably, Yellow Jackets head coach Wilbur Mallory was not happy with his team.

“We talked and talked to our kids about their grades, but they didn’t listen,” Mallory told The Constitution. “They’re doing their work now, but it’s too late. Sometimes it takes a cold slap in the face to wake you up, and I hope that’s what has happened with our kids.”

Mallory was also upset for the girls team, which he also coached. Teams did not want to play just one game per night and so several had cancelled games.

“Our girls are really mad at the boys,” said Mallory. “The girls all made their grades and now they’re having to forfeit because the boys didn’t. It’s a breach of contract on our part, so those schools don’t have to play just our girls teams, but I think it’s pretty bad of those who don’t.”

The lack of players prevented Toombs Central’s boys from playing in the region tournament, meaning they didn’t even have a chance of playing for state.

Mallory, who had been head coach of the football squad in 1985, warned the players they were in trouble for eligibility for that sport come fall, but it turned out to be a moot point as Toombs Central closed at the end of the school year.

Sources: The Atlanta Constitution – Feb. 6, 1987; Georgia High School Football Historians Association; Georgia High School Association Constitution and By-Laws 1986-87; Note: Neither Toombs County paper, The Vidalia Advance or The Lyons Progress, covered the Toombs Central grades situation.

A two-city doubleheader and a mystery reference

Tift County Industrial opened its 1950-51 basketball season rather late – January 19 – but the Tigers didn’t hesitate in making up for lost time.

They played a doubleheader on the opening day (and night).

“[T]hey open the 1951 basketball season on the road against Hahira this afternoon and Dasher High, of Valdosta, tonight,” according to the January 19, 1951 Daily Tifton Gazette.

Hahira’s African-American high school closed in 1959 with the opening of Westside. At the time of its closing, it was known as Webb-Miller, but it is unknown if that name was in use in 1951. Dasher ceased being a high school in 1956 when Valdosta city built Pinevale.

Though doubleheaders seem quite rare, even in segregated basketball, this one would have been relatively easy to pull off. An afternoon game at Hahira almost certainly meant that the school lacked a gymnasium. Many segregated high schools played outdoors for that reason.

Dasher, being the nicer city high school, had a gymnasium. If not on their campus, somewhere in the community that allowed it to call home. The ride from Hahira to south Valdosta would have taken less than 30 minutes.

(Tift County’s black community was seeking a gymnasium a few years later, seemingly indicating that Industrial, too, lacked an indoor court.)

There is a bit of mystery from the 1951 Gazette article:

“Both teams will be seeking to improve their last season’s record which ended with the girls taking third place in the state tournament and the boys fourth.”

Neither placed in the Georgia Interscholastic Association’s Class B 1950 state tournament. Industrial played football in Class B, though that did not necessarily mean the high school was; Class C never had enough member schools for its own state tournament.

Being the only black high school in Tift County, Industrial was likely a B school, especially as they made the 1949 state hoops tournament in B. However, no information currently exists about the 1950 Class C boys tournament. The girls did not place in the other half of Class C, though, where the third and fourth place teams were Ellaville and Union Normal (Bainbridge).

Class B girls’ third and fourth squads were Liberty County and a Cordele school (or Carroll County Training – results differ). The boys’ third and fourth were Savannah Street (Newnan) and Lemon Street (Marietta).

Nor did Tift County Industrial place in 1949. The boys were knocked out in the first round in 1949 by Union Baptist of Athens. The girls likely weren’t in the tournament.

It could be that the unknown black correspondent to the Gazette confused district and state. Basketball game results for Industrial are nearly nil, especially during that era.

Among the easiest sweeps ever

Southwood School of Waycross was quite happy with a pair of victories in November 1982.

The Warriors and Warrior Maidens didn’t even have to break a sweat when defeating Pinewood Christian Academy of Bellville on the home courts.

Mainly because Pinewood didn’t appear, according to the Waycross Journal-Herald.

“They didn’t show up,” said Southwood Coach Joby Boydstone. “We called them and they apparently had a mix-up because they said they didn’t even have the game listed on their schedule.”

Southwood’s girls would not need the help during the season. They went on to win the SEAIS Class A championship over Effingham Academy. The boys were eliminated in the region tournament.

Sources: Waycross Journal-Herald – Dec. 3, 1982

 

When in doubt, look to the gym

 

Louisville Academy, the public high school in Louisville, found a way to make their gym even more purposeful in December 1952.

Already “being used as a school building, meeting place and colliseum [sic],” according to The News and Farmer, it picked up another use:

“During the past week “Louisville, Ga.” along with the longitude and latitude of the city, plus an arrow point northward, was painted in bright yellow characters atop the local gym.”

The News and Farmer had heard reports that it was visible from 15,000 feet.

Sources: The News and Farmer – Dec. 11, 1952