She was described in the Reflector this way, “Marge is to be highly complimented on her work. She is a senior this year and when she leaves us, GHS will lose a valuable student.”
As part of the celebration, we tried to reach out to former player and fans to purchase 1,000 win t-shirts. I received a letter ordering a t-shirt from Molly Smith, who graduated from GHS in 1975. Molly attached a note to her order, which read in part,”Making the team back in 1972 changed my life- finally getting to officially play.” Her letter and my curiousity about that first season, led me to ask her to answer question for Massey Basketball Blog.
This photo of Galesburg HS grads- John Tuszinski, Zack Thiel, and Ruben Triplett on the SMU Mustangs’ 1972 basketball team is from the Tom Wilson Collection.
Triplett 18.2ppg, 10.8rpg
Thiel 10.0ppg, 3.4 apg
Tuszinski 5.5ppg, 3.9 rpg
At the beginning of the year, there were high hopes that the Fever might be up challenging New York and Minnesota. As the Fever are only 3 games from the mid-point of the season (right now have played 19 of 44 games), they are not close to being a top two team in the league. Right now, depending if you are a glass half-full or half-empty person- the Fever are either tied for 7th or 9th with Washington and Las Vegas. 9th place would mean the Fever would not make the playoffs. Some may say it is still early and Clark just got back- BUT THE CLOCK IS TICKING.
I have gotten so After The Timeout is one of my go-to podcasts on our dog walks. Some podcasts I listen to for pleasure and some I take a small index card and pen to stop and write some key points down. Their podcast with Jamon Copeland was one where I filled up my index card— great stuff!!
Jamon Copeland is the head men’s coach at Ave Maria University. I want to share just a few of the highlights from the podcast.
Please realize when I post about a podcast or clinic, I am not speaking for that presenter, rather giving my reaction and interpretation.
Here are the 6 most common questions college coaches asked me about my players:
As an Illinois basketball coach, we sometimes played Iowa or Wisconsin schools. When we played the Iowa and Wisconsin schools, it became apparent that different States actually had different rules- such things about whether a players could play in the pre-lim and the varsity game, whether coaches could stand or not, and even whether you had a jump ball to start the game.
Now in retirement, on my visits this winter to Oklahoma I became aware that they organized their state tourney to allow double-elimination in the early tourneys of the series. And in a smaller State, Oklahoma had at least 6 classes.
When first confronted to these difference in other States, my knee jerk reaction was, “That’s stupid” or “Our way is better.” But the more I thought about the differences, the more I began to ask, “Is the way that Illinois runs things the best way?” I began to realize that Illinois could benefit by re-examining historical methods and realize that there maybe better ideas out there.
Justin Shiltz was one of the most successful coaches in girls basketball in the WB6 Conference during his tenure at UTHS. His matchup zone still causes me to wake up in a cold sweat even in retirement. Justin is now coaching in Arkansas and I have maintained contact with him- picking his brain on a variety of topics for my blog posts.
