Editor’s note: We first wrote the following article in 2016. Because it is now the 50th anniversary of Wellington girls basketball and the latest version is going to the state tournament tomorrow, we thought it was a good time to repeat it. We’ve updated it, but the article’s integrity is still intact.

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By Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — It was a great year for the 2015-16 (and the 2023-24) Wellington girls’ basketball team — an undefeated season, a No. 2 ranking in the state, and team records falling like rain. People wonder how far this group can go (they finished third at state with Lauryn Snipes hitting a game-winning 3-pointer to end the season).

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Actually, you don’t have to look too far in the past when the Wellington girls basketball program struggled in an endless era of losing seasons that had gone on for three decades.

And in 1973, the year when Richard Nixon was fighting for his political survival with the Watergate scandal, Wellington started a girls’ basketball program.

To say it captured the town’s attention would be an outright lie.

Members of the 1973-74 team included: front, left to right, Linda Pfalzgraf, Geri McGillicuddy, Lannie Dawson, and Shari Ryker. Back, L-R: Betty Zeka, Vicki Huntzinger, Sena McClung, Diane Cypert and Debbie Popham.

“Basically, we played in front of parents,” said Betty Zeka, a member of the first girls’ basketball team.  “That was it. Nobody else was paying attention.”

Perhaps the first team photo said it all. There were nine girls on the team. Lannie Dawson had the No. 25 on her jersey. It also appeared Debbie Popham had a number, but we couldn’t tell by the picture what that number was. The rest of the girls had no numbers at all. This makes us ponder, surely they had numbers on the back. How else would scorekeepers keep track of fouls?

Girls’ Basketball was a new concept not just in Wellington but across the country. Title IX became law in June 23, 1972 stipulating that for every male sport there needed to be an equivalent sport for females.

Zeka, though, thinks Title IX was only part of the decision-making process in Wellington. If it weren’t for her parents, Frank and Ethel Zeka, not broaching the subject at a Wellington school board meeting, perhaps it would have taken much longer for Wellington to start a program.

Zeka was the seventh of nine children and had played basketball at her home in Canton, Okla. In Oklahoma, girls’ basketball was immense. The state played a different variety of basketball – 6-on-6 in which girls played half-court ball – three on one side and three on the other. It was a sport many Oklahoma schools played up until the early 1990s.

Kansas had no girls’ basketball, or very few schools played in the early 1970s. The KSHSAA had not crowned a state champion until 1972-73 before Wellington started a program.

Wellington did have a girls basketball program in the 1920s, but that was disbanded long ago.

Zeka wasn’t sure what school was playing and what school wasn’t. But from the start, Wellington appeared to be a step behind.

Wellington girls played in front of sparse crowds in those early years.

The first year

When Betty Zeka and Diane (Cypert) Crittenden were at the Wellington library this week, they tried to remember their first-year head coach. They finally concluded it was a woman who worked at the high school.

In Wellington’s first three seasons, the “Crusaderettes” as they were called back then had three different coaches. That isn’t unusual since the Wellington football and volleyball teams have experienced such a fate in just this past decade.

But this was different. A new coach meant some teachers got summons from the hallway. Whether they knew anything about basketball was optional.

“Those first two seasons, the players knew more than the coaches,” Crittenden laughed. “And we didn’t really know what we doing.”

As a result, Wellington got into the vicious circle of losing, something that took them more than three decades to break out of.

During that first season, Wellington girls had to get on a school bus and travel to an unheated Mayfield gymnasium. They started practice at 6 a.m., and it was cold. The boys’ teams had access to the high school and junior high gyms.

But still there were enough to field a team with nine players, and the girls got a couple of wins: one against Elk Valley, a tiny school near Howard, 25-23; and against Wichita Collegiate 22-20. The Crusaders would bow out to Nickerson in the regional tournament.

Crittenden said the girls would pretty much set their plays. They would make sounds on the court like “psst” or quick whistles to call a certain play.

When the season was over in Wellington, the girls put up their uniforms and set their sights on track. Was there any off-season training for the girls’ team?

“Oh, no. That wasn’t a concept yet,” Zeka said. “When the season was over, it was over.”

The 1974 school yearbook, which are usually completed in May, had an interesting statement. It stated:

“Any girls interested in trying out for the girls basketball team is to report to the junior high gym on Friday, Nov. 16 at 7 a.m. Yes, the girls had been elevated from the Mayfield to the Wellington junior high gym.”

During Wellington’s second year, uniforms were bought, and an official Ark Valley League schedule was established. Wellington had trouble winning but did get a victory over El Dorado.

The Crusaderettes also had a new coach, who was short and always mad. Zeka said he didn’t really know much about basketball either.

By Zeka’s senior year, Wellington had a full schedule much like it plays today. Cypert did not play her senior year.

“I think I had terrible problems with blisters on my feet,” Cypert-Crittenden said. “My parents were always working but could not afford good shoes so I didn’t play.”

Let’s think about this. During the first two years, Cypert was the leading scorer for the Crusaderettes, but as a senior she was not going to play because of foot blisters? Today, it would be unthinkable. In 1975, people just shrugged.

In Wellington’s third year, the Crusaderettes would go 4-13. Nevertheless, the yearbook called it a great season and the girls basketball page was featured just behind the Wellington boys sophomore basketball page. Scores of all the sports were in the back of the yearbook, except the girls’ basketball team. It was clear, WHS girls basketball was an afterthought.

And interesting enough a pecking order was being set that would last for years. Newton and Hutchinson were the top-tier teams. Wellington, El Dorado and Ark City were always near the bottom.

In 2016, Wellington girls have been playing to capacity crowds.

The years that followed

And so it went. Wellington girls fell into a routine of losing lots of games. There have been various reasons for this.

•The best girl athletes simply didn’t go out;

•When the school left the Ark Valley to play in the Chisholm Trail League in the early 1980s, it actually hurt the girls’ programs more because they were competing against suburban schools that had players who specialized in basketball;

•Wellington was always playing catch-up. When it was time to hire a qualified basketball coach, the other school had already done so years before. If a traveling team was formed, the other schools had been doing it for years.

•Winning in girls’ sports was never a priority to the community for way too long.

Oh, some good players went through the WHS program – girls like Kristin Scheufler and Lyndsie Davis. And from time-to-time the Lady Crusaders would sport a winning record. But overall, it never changed. Wellington teams were usually relegated to the league’s bottom tier and made quick post-season exits.

That is until the turn of the century. For years, the Wellington Rec Commission had youth co-ed basketball leagues because there were never enough girls for a league. That usually meant little boys not throwing the ball to little girls. But once there were enough girls playing with other girls, so did the interest in the game.

Soon, a lot more parents were playing their girls in traveling leagues. Wellington parents were becoming as obsessed with their little girls’ sports as the boys.

That eventually carried through into the Wellington Middle School where a new group of coaches were awaiting them including current WHS Coach Eric Adams who was the eighth grade girls coach for many years. WMS teams soon were competing for Pioneer League titles on a regular basis.

Then in 2007, two things happened: 1) an exceptional group of freshman basketball players were coming into the high school and 2) former WHS principal Dale Liston hired a college basketball coach named Kevin Hackerott.

Those years became known as the “Charlie Angels”years – with Dani Anderson, Ashley Whaley and Erianne Adams leading Wellington to respectability and to new heights including a state tournament berth in 2012. Since then, Wellington girls basketball has had more success than any team sports program at the high school.

The AV-CTL Div. IV sign was placed on the wall at the high school the day after Wellington clinched its first league title.

Now, it is 2016 and the current girls team, has become the obsession of the town. And, last week, after 42 years, Wellington finally secured a league title. A championship sign was finally placed underneath the lonely red Girls Basketball sign. The Lady Dukes didn’t wait long. The sign went on the wall the day after the league championship-clinching win against Circle a week ago.

It took the town awhile, but Wellington discovered it could play girls basketball with the best schools. Perhaps, we should all nod at those nine girls in 1973, who loaded a bus at 6 a.m. to practice in a cold gym in Mayfield, for they were the one’s who laid the foundation.

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