Fort Loramie to celebrate 50 years of girls basketball
The Fort Loramie girls basketball program will be celebrating its 50th birthday on Jan. 16, a home game against Ottawa Glandorf.
“I’d say we’ve been thinking about it for quite a while,” said Ann Chaney, a member of the first Lady Redskins basketball team. “Because of all the success we’ve had, it just seemed like we should celebrate it at 50 years. It’s been in the back of a few peoples mind for years.”
Organized by a committee that has a representative from each decade the program has been around, they met over the past few months and came up with a gameday celebration and program to honor all of the program’s success.
With assistance from current head coach Carla Siegel on a game that would work, the committee has planned the event with COVID restrictions in mind.
“Because of COVID we are restricted, the CDC guidelines will be followed and each alumni player will receive one ticket to get into the game free,” said Lisa Reed, another alum involved in the planning. “We are live streaming it through the NFHS network and SCORES broadcast will be announcing.”
“We’re limited on guests for sure,” added Chaney. “That’s why we’re making it just alumni. We’ll see how it goes because people are cautious and we’re trying to stay within the guidelines. We’re hoping everything falls into place and we can have our day. We want people to come out.”
NFHS is the streaming site that Loramie athletics has used this year for community members to be able to watch games if they are unable to attend due to the limitations on spectators. The commemorative program planned for the program includes pictures, stats, trivia and tidbits of past girls teams along with a list of all the girls that’ve played for the program in its history.
Chaney told the Community Post that there are over 260 girls that’ve been involved with the program throughout its existence and on addition to recognizing the players, that all past managers, coaches, trainers and doctors will be recognized as well.
“(Lisa and I) have been fortunate to be involved from the beginning ,we played in the very early years,” said Chaney. “It’s been fun for us; we’ve gotten to watch our daughters play. We were fortunate enough that they got to go to and play in Columbus.”
“We’ve witnessed the success of the program and watched it grow from the beginning,” added Chaney. “I’m fortunate enough to have a granddaughter, two of them, coming up through the program now. I’m the old person in the program, starting our third generation now. It’s been good, Lisa and I have been very active in watching the girls.”
Chaney and Reed both told the Community Post that they’re always ready to watch the next team of Loramie girls basketball and that it’s always exciting to see the girls tip off in November.
“You just don’t lose that enthusiasm,” said Chaney.
The committee is also having a t-shirt sale that they designed for the event, showing all the success the program has had on the back, that is being produced by local designer Studio Eleven.
To find out more information about the event, search “50 years of Fort Loramie Girls Basketball Celebration” on Facebook.