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SPORTS
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Photos by TIM MANDELL
Above, Owen County junior Shea Green shoots a 3-pointer over Williamstown’s
Amber Vance on Jan. 18 at Eminence High School. Green made the
shot and finished the game with 9 points, as Owen County won 50-35.
At right, Owen County sophomore Kendall Cochran looks for room
to get around Walton-Verona’s Rachel Crothers Friday during
a 67-41 loss to the Bearcats. Cochran scored 14 points in the
game.
Basketball
Girls
fall in All A
Rebels
ready to roll
Boys
reach final last year
Basketball
Scores
Gym
walls tell a story
On
the Sidelines
Tim
Mandell
The banners and paintings on the walls of gyms always tell a small
part of a story.
History written on the walls, or hanging from the walls, or enclosed
in a glass case with a team photograph.
Every gym has the school’s history on the walls.
Memories of teams that won a district title, a regional title,
a state title.
All the good memories.
Every time I enter a new gym, I always scan the walls to examine
the school’s history, wanting to engulf as much of the history
as possible, considering they’re just numbers, and the whole
story is written somewhere else, or remains only in the minds
of those that were there when the history was created.
The girls Region 8 All A Classic was held last week at Eminence
High School, and like most gyms, the school’s history was
written on the walls.
Never before had I seen numbers that dated as far back as 1929,
which seems like a million years ago.
If you look into the Kentucky High School Athletic Association
(KHSAA), the governing body of nearly every high school athletic
program in the state of Kentucky, KHSAA state championships date
as far back as 1918, when Lexington defeated Somerset 16-15 in
the boys basketball state championship game.
Two years later, Paris won the first girls title, beating Nicholasville
32-10.
Baseball records only go back to 1940 and football to 1958, leading
up to most recently, when girls soccer became sanctioned by the
KHSAA in 1992.
It’s just as hard to imagine people playing high school
basketball 88 years ago as it is to imagine that girls soccer
wasn’t sanctioned until 14 years ago.
The past, the present and the future of sports are always amazing.
To think what people accomplished one hundred years ago, what
they’re accomplishing now, and what they might accomplish
in the future.
That the stories of today will one day be written on the walls
for future generations to see.
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