Public event celebrates 50 years of girls basketball

A celebration of 50 years of high school girls basketball in Creston will be held Tuesday night in the Creston Community High School gym.

The event is open to the public, with a special invitation to all past players, youth players and current middle school and high school team members.

Current head coach Tony Neubauer said the evening will begin with the annual team pictures and individual pictures of current high school team members at 5:45 p.m.

The public event begins at 6 p.m. with a welcome and introduction of Creston Basketball Association youths and middle school players in attendance. At 6:10 p.m., Neubauer will lead a brief presentation on the 50-year history of the program that began in the 1972-73 school year under coach Eldon Gammell.

At around 6:30 p.m., a scrimmage of the original Iowa girls 6-on-6 basketball game with forwards (scorers) on one half of the court, and guards covering the opponent’s forward on the other half. Neubauer said current players and their parents and all former players are welcome to play in that demonstration.

At approximately 7 p.m. the current high school players will be introduced and will conduct a team scrimmage in the current five-player format for approximately 20 minutes.

“They did something like this in my hometown for their softball season last year,” said Neubauer, a native of Cresco. “It’s easy to forget it’s 50 years. I thought it was a neat way to recognize the history of the sport here. We thought it would be a fun way to promote the program’s past, present and future.”

The final year of 6-on-6 girls basketball in Creston was played in the 1992-93 season. That year a group of younger players also entered as Creston in the new five-player format, and the entire program switched to five-player girls basketball in the 1993-94 season.

“We’re hoping our current players’ parents and former players can play in the 6-on-6 scrimmage, with our (current) kids mixed in,” Neubauer said. “Every year at tournament time we hold a brief 6-on-6 scrimmage in practice to show the girls how it was played in the past.”