Girls basketball in Illinois is starting practices this week. It is an exciting time for many female basketball players as they anticipate the excitement of games, conference championships, holiday tourneys, and the IHSA State Series. There is much to look forward to.
During the 1971-2 school year, a group of Galesburg girls had a similar excitement as they looked forward to their basketball season. There was to be no conference championship, no holiday tourneys, and no IHSA State Series. That didn’t matter- for the first time ever, sixteen Galesburg girls in 1971-2 had a team and were going to get to play games vs. other schools.
The GHS Reflector described the origin of this team by saying, “The reason for organizing this group was a very high interest among the administration, faculty sponsor, and the girls of GHS.”
Supt of Schools Barney Parker was a strong backer of tennis, and is considered the force behind the tennis courts at GHS. His son, David won the Illinois State Championship in singles tennis. George Miller, the principal was on the first IHSA Advisory Board for Girls Track in Illinois. Tennis and track were the first girls sports to start IHSA championships in 1972-3. It presumed that both Parker and Miller were supportive of starting girls sports programs, whether it was to be a slow start or not.
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| Coach Terry Swackhamer |
Terry Swackhamer was hired as a recent graduate of the University of Missouri to teach PE, and to coach many of the girls sports starting up. She eventually coached volleyball, field hockey, basketball, and softball. Her first year at GHS was in the 1971-72 school year. Swackhamer had played basketball on some level in college, so it was a natural for her to start up the GHS basketball team.
When the girls tried out for the team, they were told that they would only play a two game schedule. So as not to interfere with Silver Streaks boys basketball’s normal practice and game routines, the girls basketball team held their practices at Hitchcock School.
In the early days of girls sports, girls basketball was the one sport that created conflicts that administrators everywhere were not sure how to handle. Girls and boys golf could practice on different courses in Galesburg, girls and boys tennis could be relegated to different seasons, volleyball could be inside while most boys sports were outside.
Like many schools, Galesburg had only one gym, and both girls and boys basketball would be the same season. The 1971 IHSA report on the boys basketball State Series shows that boys basketball was the marquee sport for the IHSA. Schools throughout Illinois were not sure how to handle girls and boys basketball.
In sending the girls basketball to Hitchcock, the girls team did not interfere with normal routine of the sophomore and varsity boys teams at GHS, and they did not interfere with the JH teams at Churchill or Lombard. Hitchcock had once been a JH school so it had the fourth best basketball court in Galesburg, even with the warping of boards produced with age. So the start up girls basketball team got to use of the fourth best court at Galesburg.
The previous experience of female athletes had been with the GAA programs. The after-school intramural program did have postal competition with other schools in things like archery, swimming, bowling, and shooting contests. And GAA had advanced by the early ‘70’s to have “Play Days.”
For Play Days, a maximum of ten athletes per school were allowed to go to another school to play various sports. There might by 40-50 girls from several different schools, going to one school to play. The players were mixed with athletes from other schools to avoid any sense of it being school vs school competition.
This is the atmosphere of high school sports in Illinois High School’s when Galesburg formed its first team in January of 1972. It should be recognized while it seems a pretty meager thing to form a team and schedule only two games, GHS was one of the leaders among downstate high schools in Illinois. Not many schools were forming teams in 1971-2 and scheduling games.
There is little doubt that the girls were excited for the opportunity to be coached, to practice, and to play other schools. Many of them had never played in any organized, competitive sport outside of PE classes. There was no YMCA basketball for girls at this time, and there were no girls travel teams, this was these girls first organized basketball activity.
After practicing and preparing, the Streaks girls basketball team faced disappointment. Evidently administrators in the state, and the IHSA thought things were moving too fast.
The GHS Budget (school newspaper) had the headline, “IHSA Bans Girls Basketball at GHS.”
The games scheduled by Galesburg could not be played. The ban on girls basketball was not just Galesburg HS, it was state wide. The IHSA was telling schools that they could only:
Play Competitively in- Golf, Archery, Badminton, and Tennis
On 4 Sports Days Play Competitively- Field Hockey, Volleyball, Softball, Swimming, Track, and Bowling.
The IHSA declared that for 1971-2, schools could not schedule basketball games and could not play basketball games on the “Sports Days.” It is interesting and surprising to note that the IHSA was allowing games in some form to be played between schools in 10 girls sports but not at all in girls basketball.
For the new Streaks girls basketball team, it did not dissuade them from continuing to practice under the direction of Coach Terry Swackhamer. The girls did play intrasquad games during the half-time of the boys sophomore games. So one can assume that these scrimmages were limited to probably 7-8 minutes.
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| 1971-2 Galesburg Girls Basketball Team |
The IHSA also released the plan for the 1972-3 school year. Girls high school basketball teams would be allowed to play on a maximum of 4 Sports Days during that season. In other words, the IHSA announced that girls basketball teams could play a maximum of four games in the 1972-3 season.
Some of the original 16 Silver Streaks of 1971-2 girls basketball team were able to play in the 1972=3 season. The 1972-3 and 1973-4 Silver Streaks girls basketball teams both went undefeated in their limited schedules. , The Streaks were 4-0 in 1972-3 and 6-0 in 1973-4.
In write ups of these undefeated seasons, some of their success is credited to the girls opportunity to get a jump on other schools by practicing in the 1971-2 season.
In 1972-3 girls in tennis, bowling, and track were all allowed to play competitively and have State Tourneys. Girls Volleyball and Field Hockey added State Tourneys in 1974-5. By 1975-6, Girls Golf, Swimming, and Softball all had State Tourneys.
The IHSA did not start a State Series in Girls basketball until the Spring of 1977. By that time, 8 other girls sports had been running State Tourneys, some were in their fifth year.
The delay in girls basketball was not just an IHSA thing. In the Western Big Six Conference, girls conference championships were conducted in some girls sports as early as 1976. A conference championship in girls basketball was not conducted until 1978.
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| Caption from 1971-2 scrimmage May say it all when it came to early Girls sports. |
An Illinois basketball historian told me that some conferences did not start conducting girls basketball championships until later in the 1980’s. When I asked why, he replied that he was told, “There were just too many conflicts with boys basketball, there were administrators who just hoped girls basketball would go away.”
Sadly, the 1971-2 GHS girls basketball team didn’t get to play their two game schedule. The 1972-3 was limited to a 4 game schedule on “Sports Days.” And the first five GHS girls basketball teams (‘72, ‘73, ‘74, ‘75, ‘76) never got a chance to play in a State Series, while school administrators in Illinois and the IHSA were trying to figure out how to fit in girls basketball and not interfere with boys basketball.
The ‘73 and ‘74 Streaks girls basketball teams went undefeated, and some of them formed the core of the Carl Sandburg College team in ‘76 that won the Illinois State Championship.
In Illinois, football did not start a play-off system to determine a State Champion until 1972. Over 70 years later, Galesburg people look back on the undefeated ‘56 Silver Streaks football team and label them the “Mythical State Champions.”
In girls basketball, the ‘72 Streaks team was never given a chance to play games or play in the IHSA State Series. The ‘73 and ‘74 Streaks teams were both undefeated and never given a chance to play in the IHSA State Series.
The success of the great Streaks girls basketball teams of the ‘90’s and today was built on the sacrifices of the young women of the ‘72, ‘73, and ‘74. Just as the ‘56 Streaks football team, these three teams were “Mythical State Champions.”
We are left to wonder- “What if?”
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