One of the highlights of my mom's life was playing guard for Bode High School's team for the last few minutes of the team's state tournament appearance. In those days, girls were allowed just one dribble.
In the years I was a working journalist in Iowa -- and nearly every working journalist in Iowa covers high school sports at some time -- the forwards tended to get all the ink. I knew Lynne Lorenzen when she was an 8th-grader at Ventura. By the time she reached high school, she was such a phenom that, for all the importance of teamwork in a team's success, the fact was, one hot-shooting forward like her could carry a team all the way to Veterans' Auditorium. But by the time Lynne was in high school, I had moved on from covering her for the Clear Lake paper to covering the undefeated Vikettes for the Vinton paper. Vinton won the state championship in 1984 on the strength of a true team effort -- but the leader of the team was a GUARD, Roxanne Wellner, who was named Ms. Iowa Basketball that year.
Nice piece, Jane. I always thought the beauty of the six-player game was the two-dribble limit. Dribbling is one of the more difficult basketball skills to master and the six-player rules took that off the table. The rule put a premium on great passing, which done well is far more interesting than watching time-killing dribbling.
https://www.vintontoday.com/articles/news/article102892.html
One of the highlights of my mom's life was playing guard for Bode High School's team for the last few minutes of the team's state tournament appearance. In those days, girls were allowed just one dribble.
In the years I was a working journalist in Iowa -- and nearly every working journalist in Iowa covers high school sports at some time -- the forwards tended to get all the ink. I knew Lynne Lorenzen when she was an 8th-grader at Ventura. By the time she reached high school, she was such a phenom that, for all the importance of teamwork in a team's success, the fact was, one hot-shooting forward like her could carry a team all the way to Veterans' Auditorium. But by the time Lynne was in high school, I had moved on from covering her for the Clear Lake paper to covering the undefeated Vikettes for the Vinton paper. Vinton won the state championship in 1984 on the strength of a true team effort -- but the leader of the team was a GUARD, Roxanne Wellner, who was named Ms. Iowa Basketball that year.
Nice piece, Jane. I always thought the beauty of the six-player game was the two-dribble limit. Dribbling is one of the more difficult basketball skills to master and the six-player rules took that off the table. The rule put a premium on great passing, which done well is far more interesting than watching time-killing dribbling.
Great article, and brings to mind a photo of my grandmother in pigtails and a black, baggy uniform playing basketball in Fairfield, Iowa.