We just have just passed the 29th anniversary of the Clarksville senior girls winning the State AA championship and overall State title.
A significant historical note to this achievement. 1980 was the first time girls basketball went to 5 on 5 rules.
Try and explain to your kids today how the girls game in Arkansas was played 6 on 6, which was actually 3 on 3 half court, with 3 players devoted to offense and 3 devoted to defense on each end and you could not cross the mid court stripe.
Clarksville not made the adjustment to win the lower classification AA title, but beat LR McClellen in the overall title the next week. Arkansas discontinued overall state tournaments several years ago, but even by todays standards it would be unusual for a school the size of Clarksville to defeat a school the size of LR McClellen for a championship. A remarkable group of girls.
I didn't realize this until I cut out these articles, that Rita Yates was only in her 5th or 6th year out of college as Clarksville's coach (don't know why it seemed she had been there longer) Through the 1980 championships she had an overall record of 135 and 36 in 4 years, of course 3 of those years with this group of girls.
In my opinion, Dinah Dickerson remains the greatest female athlete of all time at Clarksville. Notice the old school news paper article of her as a sophmore and how she played on the guys teams in the 5th grade AND started! In her senior year, Dinah AVERAGED a triple, double, 22 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists per game. I believe her number is retired at Clarksville and she went on to play for the Arkansas Lady Razorbacks. I look forward to hearing about their 30th reunion next year!
2 comments:
Loved the newspaper posts!! I was so very fortunate growing up in Clarksville with this great group of girls and being a part of this amazing team!! What awesome years we had in jr and sr high basketball. Not to take anything away from Coach Yates, but a lot of credit also goes to Coach Ross and Coach Thompson who began working with our team on the 5-on-5 format and plays immediately after the 1979 season ended. This made us better prepared for the 1980 season.
Keep up the good work Marty!! Thanks for all you do!
Debbie Stepp Conard. Class of '80
They were great times. Again these newspaper articles are beginning to get tattered, I am glad we can save these on line to preserve the memories. The ladies involved with this team should be honored often for their accomplishments.
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