Massey Basketball: Greatest Galesburg Player of All-Time- My Opinion

Over the years, people have asked who would be my all-time starting five in Galesburg girls basketball, or who I think is the all-time best player in GHS history. Usually I respond with something like,”There are too many good players to decide on that.”

After I respond by saying I really can’t decide, they precede to tell me who the greatest player of all-time is, or who the starting five would be. And it is not unusual for them to also tell me who the best GHS team of all-time is. While appreciate their interest in Streaks girls basketball, many of the people who give me their answers are people who probably have watched maybe ten years of GHS basketball.

For me as the coach, I have a bunch of all-time favorite teams and I have a bunch of all-time starting fives. When it comes to all-time best GHS player- it is obvious to me who the all-time best player has been. While I know a coach should not share their opinion, I am willing to tell you who I think is the all-time best GHS girls basketball player!!

Marj (5th from left) & champ team

Marjorie Evans (GHS Class of 1929) is my all-time favorite player. As you can see from the picture- she was a champion. There was not interscholastic girls basketball, but her IM team dominated on their way to winning the championship. In addition to her basketball dominance, she was editor of the GHS Reflector and President of Elizabethian society (debate, speech, and drama group).

Marj’s tourney ticket

Besides being a great basketball player. The ticket stub shows that she was a great basketball fan too. If she was alive, I would ask her why she didn’t get up the Saturday morning games- bad teams playing or Friday night was too active?

GHS Diploma

She was a Gale Scholar before GHS and Knox had the program. Marj’s parents- Herbert and Margaret Evans never attended college. Herbert drove the street car from Lake Storey, up Broad St, down East Main to Gale Lake. Margaret was a stay at home mom. They never owned a car and never owned their own home, but their daughter attended Knox College.

Evan, Marj, & Mark

Marj taught English, Speech, and Drama at Lyons in Clinton, Ia, at Rockford HS, and then at Savanna JH. She got her masters degree in Speech at the University of Wisconsin.

Marj loved to read. She was always reading, my dad was always reading, and my brother was always reading. More than once she would say,”Evan, I don’t know where I went wrong with you. When you were in second grade Mrs. Mills said you were one of the best readers she had ever had. What happened to you, Evan?” I am not a reader. She felt if ESPN had existed when I was in high school, I would never have graduated. If given a choice, there is no doubt my mom wished I would have been more of a reader and less of a basketball enthusiast.

Marj Evans married W.F.Massey in Galesburg. The wedding took place at East Main Congregational Church, and the reception at 153 East North St. Obviously to complete the story, Marj and Ford were my parents. I was named for my grandfather- Herbert Evans. My dad was a basketball coach first at Fulton and then at Savanna when my parents dated and were first married.

My father died when I was 12 years old. When I was in high school my mom did everything to support my interest in basketball. When we spent the summer in Wisconsin, she had a cement court built for me to work on my game. When I was bored, she would tell me to either get a book and read, or go out and shoot. I shot a lot of baskets.

Marj’s Senior Picture

When in high school she went to all of my games. She was blindly loyal to me- like most parents. Once she got in a brief argument with another players father. Evidently the father had constantly second guessed the coach, and then had begun to criticize me as the team’s point guard. When I found out about her going off on the father, I told her she shouldn’t have done that. She explained that she had sat thru hundreds of games as a coach’s wife and had listened to my dad talk basketball for years, and she knew 10 times more basketball than that man. I guess she proceeded to let the guy know how little she thought he knew about basketball. She claimed the guy never sat near her again! Don’t make a mom angry that knows basketball.