Apr, I 25, 1936
THE STATE
Page Three
They
Claim
All
Records
The Bethel High School basketball team for 1935-36. Front row, left to right:
Edith Stamey, Audrey Pressley, Mildred Hargrove, Betty Justice, and Wini¬
fred Rigdon. Back row: Ruth Evans, Junnie Bell Williams, Mrs. Rogers,
(coach), Sammie Penland and Catherine Henson.
AND .so fur as we know,
flieso girls from IKelliel
High School, in Haywood
County, are justified in
their claims.
By ERNEST MESSER
HI (II I scores, “perfect” seasons,
championships, a
и
<1 tourna¬
ment trophies mean just an¬
other milestone to the girls at Bethel
High School, a rural school of two-
hundred pupils, locates! six miles west
of Canton, in Haywood County. Dur¬
ing the last seven years, these girls and
their predecessor» have won 131 of the
141 bit. seket hull games that they have
played; ami have won eight of the
nine tournaments in which they took
part; they won six county champion¬
ships and, in nil, ten trophies, wliieh
achievements give them the most envi¬
able record of any team in their sec¬
tion.
The girls who bore the colors for
Bethel High Sehool this year main¬
tained admirably the records made in
previous years. They did not loss’ a
single one of their 1935-30 schedule
of fourteen games, and in addition
they won one tournament and a county
championship, scoring for the entire
season 843 points to their opponents'
34S.
Started in 1929
Prior to 1929 basketball in Bethel
High Sehool was practically unheard
of. The boys an<l girls played occa¬
sionally, hut the game they played
more resembled football than basket¬
ball. Their equipment was very mea¬
ger, consisting of a lop-sided, much
worn hall and an out-door court. The
players did not even have the services
of a coach. In tournaments and as
champions they were unknown ; by
rivals they were unfeared. It was
from this meager setting that tin- teams
which now are known throughout west-
ern North Carolina sprang.
In 1929 Mr. <>. W. Eaton was in¬
duced to add the duties of coach to
those of teacher, and thus was taken
the first step in producing a better
basketball team. Plenty of material
was nvailiablc. (!irl# there were in
abundance: tall, strong country girls;
small, speedy country girl* indurated
to physical exercise by life on the farm.
Many critics have said that it was the
background on the farm that made
these girls such outstanding athletes.
The records for their first season of
organized basketball are incomplete,
hut in so far as can be determined the
Bethel girls last only two games of
sixteen-game schedule. To climax the
season they entered the Fifth Annual
Invitation Basket Ball Tournament at
Cullowhee, North Carolina, and, to
the surprise of many, they won it.
Winning a tournament, however,
was no outstanding achievement. Many
teams had won tournaments before,
then had disappeared to ho heard of
no more. There is where Bethel dif¬
fered. Theirs was no ephemeral flash
of glory. They came hack to win the
tournament again in 1931, 1932, 1933,
1934, and 1935. Six times in succes¬
sion, a record that, to our knowledge,
no other team in this section of North
Carolina lias over equaled.
Won Other Trophies
Winning these tournament* at Cul-
lowbee, however, did not include the
whole realm of the achievement of
these girl* from Bethel High School.
They won the Covington Tournament,
held at Asheville in 1931. against some
of the strongest teams in west North
Carolina; in 11)33, the season just
ended, they won the first Gold Medal
Basket Ball Tournament for High
Sehool Girls held at the Canton Y.M.-
C.A. In addition they have won six
county championships.
l.nek of opposition did not make the
Bethel girl* champions ami perpetuate
their championship for so long, for
opposition prevailed in ahuudiinee and
in great strength. Two schools,
Wnynosvillc nnd Sylva High Schools,
have each played against Bethel in
Championship games, and Bethel has
prevailed over them each time hv the
narrow margin of one or two point*.
Several times the Bethel team lias
(Continued on piujr Ueniy-six)
