Tag: Seggerson

The curtain closed on the 2022-23 OHSAA basketball season this past Sunday with four state champions crowned. I’ve been attending these tournaments the last 6 decades and consider it the Mecca for true basketball fans. This year might have been the most impressive lineup of teams and talent in the 101 years of the tournament. Most of the games were very competitive and came right down to the wire. The level of talent was off the chart and featured numerous players who will be playing at Division I colleges and no doubt a few will eventually land in the NBA. The problem is that many of the most gifted athletes were playing on the same teams together. This trend of top talent migrating to one school is growing and is reflected in the fact that we are seeing many of the same teams back in the state tournament year after year. It is another reason that attendance continues to decline.

When I began my 40-year high school coaching career in the Fall of 1970, I entered a profession that had already witnessed plenty of changes over the years but nothing like what was looming on the horizon for coaches and athletes. And the most impactful transition for both coaches and players over the decades has been in the investment of their time.

Long-time readers of my column know that I hold a special fascination for athletes who competed during World War II. The generation of my parents has long held my admiration. They battled courageously through the Great Depression and a World War and handed the generations that followed a better world. We are still reaping the benefits from their sacrifices.

Tyler Ulis and Tre Cobbs first met years ago as very young teammates playing midget league football together on the “Gators” here in Lima. But it would be basketball that would chart their future.

When looking back on the basketball talent that our area has produced over the years, it’s possible to identify talent rich era’s that featured gifted individual players who led their schools on deep tournament runs to state. It appears that there is another strong wave of very young athletes on the horizon ready to make their own impact on our basketball history.

There are a lot of great shots to choose from when examining Kalida’s rich history of basketball success, but for shear mind boggling, impossible feats, the finish of the 2008 sectional final between Kalida and Pandora Gilboa takes the cake.

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