Jerilyn Johnson was a junior on the original team and organized the event. Last year, she learned of another school that celebrated 50 years of girls basketball, and started making plans with some of her former teammates
“We got talking about it last January and said, ‘You know what, let's make this happen’,” she said. “It’s probably the last chance we have.”
The reunion wasn’t just a celebration of the 1975-76 team. Alumni who played on teams in the late '70s, early '80s and late '90s were also there to celebrate how much the sport has evolved over the last 50 years. For Johnson, it was about “passing the torch.”
“We want to get the younger girls, especially those that are in the stands watching these sports, get them excited about basketball,” she said. “Just have a little incentive there, and to show them this history is important.”
They got to “pass the torch” in a more literal sense prior to the game. The former players were introduced, then passed a ball from one end of the court to the other, starting with the original team members and ending with McKenzie English, a sophomore on the current team, who finished the pregame ceremony by making a layup.
The players were recognized again at halftime and had a reception after the game. Some traveled from as far as Georgia, Florida and Washington state to be there, and for some it had been decades since they had last seen their teammates.
“It's just great the way that we can jog each other's memories and bring up all those good times, and even challenges, that we went through together,” said Shelly Garrison, who was a sophomore on the '75-'76 team. “It's just wonderful to have that shared experience.”
In addition to reminiscing about their first season, they were able to reflect more on what being the first to play girls basketball at PHS meant.
“After you go through those years and look back, you realize we did make a difference, or we made an impact,” Johnson said. “So that's very satisfying.”
The early days of girls basketball at PHS
It was noted during the pregame ceremony that there had been girls basketball at PHS in the early 1900s, but that version of basketball was much different compared to how the boys played. Teams had six players on the court at a time; three played offense on one half and three played defense on the other.
There are also few records of girls basketball in the early 1900s at the state level. While the Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) website shows the history of boys state champions going back to 1908, the girls state champions history only goes back to 1973.
The 1916-17 school year was the last time PHS had a girls team playing this modified version of basketball. According to an Associated Press article, a belief began to spread around that time that such physical activity would harm girls and the sport declined in popularity.
Some smaller schools throughout Kansas and in other states continued to offer girls basketball. In the areas where it was no longer played, the memory remained with people old enough to remember it, like Johnson’s grandparents.
“In the back of my mind, I knew that there had always been an interest in girls basketball,” Johnson said. “But for me to experience it firsthand was just definitely a goal. You know, ‘I want to do this. My older brothers got to play basketball, why can't I?’”
Schools started to slowly add girls sports teams following the passage of Title IX in 1972. They weren’t required to, though, because Title IX didn’t originally specify how it applied to athletics. 1972 was also the year that girls basketball became an official sport under KSHSAA, but just 221 out of 395 member schools had a team that season.
At PHS, the first sport that girls had the opportunity to play was tennis. Frances Samuels, the P.E. teacher at the time, then advocated for the addition of track and volleyball, which Johnson got to participate in as a sophomore in 1974, with Samuels as the coach for both sports.
The push for basketball came from Joan Nuzum, who was a P.E. teacher at Roosevelt Junior High. She was eventually hired as the head coach for the 1975-76 season. She coached for eight years in total and led three teams to the state tournament.
“She was a very strong willed, determined person,” Johnson said. “A coach that had high expectations. I can imagine that she had many conversations with the AD, the athletic director, at the time, saying, ‘Don't leave out basketball. We need basketball’.”
13 girls went out for the first team. Johnson can remember being questioned by classmates about why she wanted to play. She was also nervous since she’d never played organized basketball before.
“But after talking with a few other girls that expressed they were interested, I got my courage up and said, ‘Yeah, we can do this. Let's just go for it’,” she said.
Garrison had a somewhat different experience leading up to the start of the season.
“I don't know if I'm the type of person who ever paid attention to rumors very much or got into worrying about what people were saying or thinking,” she said.
She had done track in junior high, and was then on the volleyball and track teams when she got to high school in addition to playing basketball.
“I just loved (basketball),” she said. “It was just a first love. So after that, I concentrated on basketball and just tried to become the best player that I could.”
The team faced a variety of challenges that first season. Mainly, they had to learn the fundamentals of basketball before they could learn anything else.
“It never felt like a bad challenge,” Garrison said. “It just felt like an exciting challenge.”
Garrison also said the team wasn’t discouraged when they only won three games. They continued to work individually during the offseason, either at home or at skills camps during the summer.
“Even though we lost, we didn't quit loving the game,” she said.
The following season, their work paid off. They finished with a record of 17-4 and made it to the Class 4A state tournament. According to Johnson, they were not only better players that year, but they were also able to work better as a team.
“Coach Nuzum was just very good at making that happen,” she said. “We learned more plays, and I definitely remember working a lot more on passes and on defense, so it was kind of an evolution. By the first game of the 76-77 season we had gelled."
Johnson and Garrison both took lessons from their time playing basketball at PHS after they graduated. Johnson used what she learned while working as an agricultural journalist.
“That teamwork mentality helped me in that I knew how to work with others,” she said. “I knew that you have to share credit and you also have to share the criticisms. I think that helped me in my early career.”
Garrison went on to play at the collegiate level, first at Crowder College and then Pittsburg State University. In addition to paying for her education, basketball helped with her confidence.
“It translates into other areas of your life once you're out of school,” she said. “You accomplish things that are not easy, and so then when you enter adulthood you know you got this when something comes up.”
Basketball today
Girls basketball has evolved in many ways over the last 50 years. Now, girls can grow up playing the sport. Tristan Gegg is in her first year as head coach at PHS and started playing when she was in first grade.
“When I was a kid, if I was ever upset or needed to get away, I would spend five hours outside just shooting a basketball,” she said. “It was just my get away.”
Now as a coach, she wants to help promote basketball so girls can fall in love with the sport like she did.
“Now that people are really supporting women's basketball, now's the time, more than ever, to really get into it as much as you can,” she said.
McKenzie English, the PHS sophomore who made the layup at the end of the pregame ceremony on Dec. 6, also started playing basketball when she was a first grader. She also plays on a travel team outside of school and hopes to play in college.
“It’s just always been something that I enjoy doing,” she said. “I just really like playing basketball, and, like I also love to watch it, so I just don't want to give it away if it's something I love and enjoy to do.”
Though Gegg and English got to start playing sooner than Johnson and Garrison did, there are some similarities between the two generations. Like Johnson, English saw her older brothers play before her and knew that she wanted to play, too, and Gegg got an education at Pittsburg State University while playing basketball like Garrison did.
Another constant between the two generations is that support from coaches, parents and others helps.
“Whenever you have more people watching you, it kind of gives you more confidence and just makes you feel better,” English said.
Garrison spoke of this as well, and about how the advancement of women’s professional sports has made a difference.
“The more people you have playing, and the more support parents, coaches and so forth give them, the better the players get. I would just hope for the next 50 years that they would be able to continue to advance as much as it has this past.”
Gegg is confident that this will happen.
“It's flourishing,” she said. “Women's basketball is really, really coming to light. Everyone's watching it now, and we're just lucky to be a part of that generation.”
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