Armour's girls basketball program is one of just three in state history to win five straight state titles. From 1983 to 1987, the Packers were the top dog in 'B' girls hoops. It was one of the original true dynasties in South Dakota sports history. Former players Dana (Nielsen) Honner, Theresa (Wetham) Skinner, Candi (Nielsen) Musiel, Jodi (Pipes) Altenburg, and Wanda (Hornstra) Dally joined 'In Play with Craig Mattick,' along with former coach Ron Weber.
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Dana (Nielsen) Honner - Former Player
When I talk about those five state titles in a row, what first comes in your mind about that time in the '80s?
Oh gosh, it's been a long time since I thought about it, but every once in a while, it pops up in conversation when you run into people and they hear you're from Armour, and then hear who you are, the name rings a bell. During that time, it was just a great time. I don't know many people that could say they belong to sports teams that were just they got along well. I mean we just expected to win. We have that in our blood. It was a great time. It's fun to reminisce about it.
I haven't thought about it for a while because I'm getting up there in my age, but it was a really special time, and I think I didn't really fully understand how cool it was to be a part of that until now I'm older and I've got daughters myself that have been on teams too that have been very successful, but haven't quite gotten five state championships. You just really realized how special it was I think I realized as I got older.
There's only one other school that comes to the top of my mind that won five in a row, and that was the Roosevelt girls. They won five straight titles, but I don't think there was one member of that team that won five. You won five because you were on that team in '83 as an eighth grader. How much involvement did you have that year as an eighth grader? Your sister Candi played a big part in that title.
She did, she did, and I'll say I might have gone in a couple times, but I was more sitting on the bench watching and hoping and praying that my sister didn't get into foul trouble because when she did, then it was my turn to get in. As an eighth grader, I was pretty nervous about that, but yeah, I wouldn't say I had a key role that year. Maybe a key role in practice trying to beat up on my sister or anybody else playing defense, but I was on the bench for a lot of it. I did get in here and there, but still feel part of it. I was glad that I could be a part of it with my sister being a senior. We've often said, "Wouldn't it have been fun if we were born just a couple years closer together and could have maybe enjoyed playing in Armor and then later on at Augie together?" Yeah, it was fun.
How much of an influence did your dad, Mack, have on you? I know that Candi has said that your dad was pretty special. He was a coach for you guys when you were growing up, but how special was your dad when it came to basketball?
Whenever I think back about basketball, I never think about it without him. We spent countless hours in the gym with my dad rebounding and talking to us about our shots. It wasn't like I might get into trouble here, but there are some parents that are super involved now and you know that it's maybe detrimental to the relationship of their sons or daughters, and that was not the case. My dad was so key in our skill development. Like I said, countless hours, we would get the key to the gym, we'd go in shoot an hour or two. If we ever did have a bad game or if we ever had a game that we weren't super proud of, when we came home, we knew it was a safe place. My dad or mom, they never got on us. There was never pressure.
It was all just what we did as a family for fun. It was we grew up in a town of 850 people, and that was our entertainment. There wasn't a lot to do and that was the thing that we bonded with my dad over. Having girls, I mean maybe some girls don't get a chance to bond with their dads in a way that we did, but he played college basketball, and I think he was probably pretty excited that his girls all took a liking to the sport and wanted to put the time in, because he was always happy to go to the gym and rebound for us. If we were having trouble with our shot, he always had just a little fix for us and yeah. I can't think about those years in Armour without thinking about my dad and how special that was to have him, just always there supporting all the time.
It was a very healthy relationship, very encouraging and yeah, I wouldn't have gotten where I was today without him and all the time he put in and the support for sure and my mom too, just in a different way.
When you're a freshman, what was that team built around and were you guys expecting to continue maybe winning another one when you became a ninth grader?
Well, you're asking me to go way back in my memory, but I mean I guess as an eighth grader, I was part of a team that was very successful. When I was a freshman, we still had a lot of those players on the team and I was more comfortable just having that year of varsity experience and getting on the court. Maybe my freshman year didn't feel some people if they didn't get that extra year, I felt pretty comfortable. I don't remember being real nervous as a freshman. On the court was my happy place. It was my comfortable place, and things just came naturally. When I started playing, I felt comfortable, my nerves went away. Like I said, we didn't graduate many that year with my sister. I knew that we were going to be a force to be reckoned with.
Well, things just get better. In fact, eventually Armour wins 47 games in a row. They win five straight championships. Who are some of the other players that played a big part in your championships, probably more looking at your senior year and knowing that you had won four already and you had players back, but who were some of those players that helped out at number five?
Right. Well, let's see. I think it was after my freshman year, Jodi Pipes was in Lake Andes and we needed a point guard and she ended up moving to Armor. She and her family moved to Armor, and that was a really key piece. She went on to play at USC after that. She's in the hall of fame there. She was a very key player. We've got to have somebody at point that she could score, she could play great defense, she could assist. Then there was Theresa Whetham, Wanda Hornstra, Dawn Hornstra, Krista McFarland, Meg Nase, Sarah Nase, Nicole DeVries, Michelle Kelly. Oh now, I hope I'm not forgetting people, Rita Freidel. She was part of the whole Freidel clan, Peggy Leonard. I said Lisa Leonard, Barb Whetham. I mean just yeah.
Was it all feed Dana, feed Dana, just give Dana the ball?
Well...I don't think so. I mean I do remember that my dad used to say before every game, "Shoot every time you get the ball," and I do remember shooting a lot I think. Gosh, I probably was a ball hog, but Jodi Pipes scored a lot. We did get scoring from our other players too, but I'm sure it's much a lot of teams whoever has the hot hand at the time, you just feed them the ball, and I guess that was my role. I wasn't a great ball handler, and I could shoot. I think that was just my role and I think people accepted that and knew that. That's not to say that other people couldn't score on the team because we just had a lot of scores, a lot of talent those years.
You still have the record for the most points in the class B championship game, 32 points against Wakonda in '85. What do you remember the most about that game? It was against Wakonda too. I mean this is just prior to the Becky Flynn time here.
Right, right. I just remember them being a really good team, and we knew we had to get up for them. To tell you the truth, you would have told I don't remember that I scored 32 points in that game, and that's funny that that record still stands. I have a feeling it'll probably get beat. There's some good players coming up, but yeah, I just remember the state tournament being a time where we had a lot of confidence. We really had a lot of confidence in each other, and I don't want this to come off cocky, but we had the expectation that we were going to win and we weren't going to settle for anything less. I think it was just a given, you just knew. We just didn't know anything else. It would have been devastating.
My senior year, I think I remember being a little bit nervous thinking, "Gosh, we've won four. It would really stink if we lost this last one," and we just were able to put it together every year with a lot of special girls, special coaching staff and just yeah, a lot of things fell into place to make that happen.
You stopped Jefferson's 67 game win streak back in 1984. That was a state title game 39-38. Any memories of that one?
Oh, yeah. What I remember from that game is that my dad was coming from... I believe he was coming from an Augie game, and I believe there was a blizzard that night. He missed that game and was listening to it on the radio, but I remember it going into overtime, and I just remember the daily twins. I mean Jefferson was very, very, very hyped up, but now that you bring that up, that probably was one of the games that maybe I didn't have quite as much confidence for, but I did know that we had the talent to do it that year, and I know we were pretty pumped up because Fred Tibbetts has always been a coach, respect him, but he was always pretty confident and was talking pretty big around the hotel.
It had gotten back to us. I think that fired us up to really go out and get them that game, and that was a fun game. I do remember that one, and we watched it several times after the fact, but that was a sweet victory for sure.
Dana, when you won your fifth title as a senior, what were the thoughts going through your mind? You'd won five state titles in a row, 47 games in a row, but your high school career was over. What was going through your mind that evening?
Yeah, I remember feeling emotional. It's always tough... Armour was a very close-knit town and like so many other small towns are and we always had a lot of support. Whether it's just on the basketball floor, anything we did, the town rallied around their youth, just around if something happened in the town, just like a lot of small towns like I said. Everybody rallies around everybody and I'm a homebody. We had a very close family and just being part of Armour, I grew up there. It was emotional knowing that I was done, but thinking ahead, knowing that I was going to be going to Augustana, my sister had been there. Augustana felt like home. It was leaving one home going to another.
It was mixed emotions. It was hard, but yet, I know I was looking forward to the next part of my future as well at Augie.
You were South Dakota's miss basketball in 1987. By the way, you were 123 and four as a 4-year starter. Which one of those losses hurt the most?
Probably when we lost to Corsica because Corsica is about eight miles away from Armour. I think every team has one of those teams that is just their rival that they just oh and don't tell me... I don't know why, but Corsica was always our big rival. I didn't really know those girls very well, but you didn't want to lose the Corsica and we lost to Corsica one year, and that was devastating to us. That wasn't even in a state champ, a state tournament or anything of course, but it hurt. We didn't like to lose. We did not like to lose.
You didn't miss a beat at all going to college, I mean at Augie. I mean you four-time, all-conference, and all-time north central conference scoring leader at the time and rebounding leader. I mean you were averaging 17 a game. You're like you were still playing with the Armour Packers. You didn't miss a beat, did you?
Well, ironically, I sat out my freshman year. I had my son, my freshman year in college. I sat out and I'm thinking maybe that first year just not going right from high school into college. I don't know would I have been ready or what I've been a little more scared, but I think sitting out that year really made me hungry, it made me work harder. I was ready to play that second year at Augie and also, again I don't know many players that can say they went from a high school team where the girls were so close and got along so well, and then to have that again in college. Coach Krause came my second year. When I first started playing, that was his first year of coaching. He was a great coach, we got along. The team just gelled.
We all got along. There wasn't anybody out for themselves. We wanted to win, and I was just really, really blessed to be part of another team that was okay with a freshman coming in and playing. There wasn't any drama. There wasn't any hard feelings. We just all wanted to win, and we played really well together. Again, it was a small community. It felt like Armour and I was just really blessed to have that.
Dana, you're in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame, the Augustana Hall of Fame, South Dakota Basketball Hall of Fame. We see the athletes today, some of these ladies, they don't take any time off. They're playing in the summer, they're playing in the off season all the time. Is that something that you did? How much basketball did you play in the summer?
Oh God, that's funny because they didn't have these traveling teams or if they did, we didn't know about them. Things are so different with social media and just even computer, emails, internet. Sounding really old right now, but we just didn't. What we did was we would scrim it, like Sundays my dad or someone would open up the gym and there would be boys, girls high school all the way down middle school, some elementary kids. I just remember playing for a couple hours. There would be all kinds of kids and I'm sure when I first started, nobody probably passed me the ball. I just ran up and down the floor and tried to be part of it, but eventually, high school boys and girls, we would play together.
Then again, just the shooting and the dribbling, and I know my husband and I have had conversations with our girls like, "Do they need to be part of summer basketball, or is it enough to just work on the very basics?" I mean my husband said, "How many times are you really going to touch the ball when you're playing all those games in the summer time? Would it be better to just go to the gym and get 200 shots up or more a day and work on your ball handling?" We struggled with that a little bit, but a lot of it is just the entertainment for the girls. We let the girls tell us what they want to do, and they want to be part of a team, but we did not play like that.
We did not play that many games this summer, and it was mostly just shooting and dribbling in the gym during the off season, and some pickup games maybe once a week, but it's crazy, but I also don't remember and maybe I don't know. Maybe my memory isn't serving me right, but I don't remember all the injuries and ACL tears either. Sometimes I think, "You know, I don't know if it is all that good. I'm still torn," but we did it. We did it with our daughters. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I'm telling you these women athletes these days are doing things that I don't think we did back then as far as skill wise and just the moves and the shots. I don't know if I could play with them in this day and age.
You talked about your daughters. Well, your one daughter Danny, she won a state high school basketball title at Harrisburg. That was...that's been eight years or so already? That was in Watertown, where you won a state title. Did that bring back some memories?
It totally did and I told Danny that too when we went up there. I said, "Boy, this brings back memories. I want a state title here, no pressure or anything." That was pretty sweet because it was the first time Harrisburg had ever been to a state tournament, and it was their last year in class A. For them to win it and for Danny to be a part of that was really, really special.
That was huge for Harrisburg for that town and then of course now, they're in double A, and you've got one left, right? One left in high school?
Yeah, he's got one year left, he's got to do it this year. We were thinking yes, last year, we could hopefully give O'Gorman a run, but I don't know, there's just a lot of talent in double A right now. It's up for grabs, so why not? Harrisburg has as good a shot as anybody. Yeah, it would be sweet, but it's not the end of the world, but it would be fun to be able to share that experience with her too.
As an eighth grader, you had Jerry Altenburg as your coach, but then it was Ron Weber. What did Ron Weber mean to you as your girls basketball coach?
Yeah, I just remember that first day him coming into practice. We had just won the state tournament the year before, so I can imagine the pressure he probably felt, but I do remember the one thing that he said coming in as a first year coach that we're going to run, we're going to run some more, and then we're going to keep running. I thought, "Oh, I think I'm going to like this guy," but he was always super mellow. I don't ever remember him getting after us, yelling. He wasn't a yeller. That's just what I remember about him being even keeled. He knew his Xs and Os. He was a great coach. I have a lot of respect for him, and it was a fun ride.
What about Armour has co-op now with a couple of different schools, and there's school paraphernalia all over the place with the schools that Armour has been with. How much stuff do you have left over from the days at Armour?
I really don't. I'm not a favor of things. We had a big old house in Armour. My parents have both since passed away, and I have two basketball shirts from state tournaments that are from the '80s, maybe '83, '84, somewhere around there and my daughter loves to wear those. I always tell her just be very careful, please don't [spill] ... do anything that... Yeah, but still wear them to school every once in a while. I love that she does that, but we had some coats. We'd always order jackets after every state tournament, and I don't know where those went. I'm hoping they will show up someday, but I don't know and I think when we sold the house in Armour, I wasn't really in a spot where I was thinking that, "Oh, I really want to hang on to those," because like I said, I'm not a hoarder of things and I guess there are some times where I think, "Oh, I wish I would have had those," because I know my daughter would have gotten a kick out of wearing some of that stuff to school or whatever.
She would think that's pretty cool, but just not a real favor of stuff, and I think I might have given some stuff to our basketball coach maybe, but yeah, I just have a few things other than some plaques and metals and things that I don't wear in a tilt somewhere, but as far as the clothing. I'm going to be better about hanging on to some of that stuff for my kids because I think they might making them into quilts and things that they can have.
What are you doing today? You're a teacher in Harrisburg.
Yeah, I am a teacher at Journey Elementary. I teach in the personalized learning program, so we meet kids where they're at. I switched over to that three years ago and really enjoy it. I coached for a little while, but I found that even though I loved to play the game, I didn't really love the coaching part of it. I just don't think I was very good at it. I stepped down when I had kids and got busy. Now I'm just chasing my last daughter around. Last year, I had two and my one graduated. I've got one more and also, I have two grandbabies that I like to spend time with too.
Theresa (Wetham) Skinner - Former Player
When you look at long girls basketball win streaks, of course Roosevelt with 111 and Wakonda had 88, Jefferson had 67, but you know what, the Armour girls basketball, team they had a 47 game win streak and they also had five state championships in a row. What was basketball like for you before you became a member of the varsity? Was basketball pretty big for you?
It was. When we were younger, we watched the Armour boys team make a name for Armour, so that was a fun thing for all the little kids around town. You couldn't go down a street in Armour without seeing kids outside playing on their dirt driveways with vented rims and bulging basketballs. That was just the thing around Armour, everybody played.
What kind of a player were you?
Oh, I was a role player. I was a total role player. I was a point guard and in fact, my first few years, we had so many good guards in front of us that I was pretty much the scout team for basketball. I just did my role. I stopped whenever they needed somebody to come in and give a release to the starters, and that point guard position, leading the transitions and just being a leader on the team, passing the ball in to Dana and Candi whenever they were open. That was the role I took.
You went through two different coaches though. You had Jerry Altenberg. Well, actually Candi Nielsen says that was the last year that Jerry was the coach and then Ron Weber came in. What was that transition like?
Yeah. Well, that was really interesting. Jerry was just a good old guy around Armour, everybody knew him, he loved basketball. He's the one that set us in motion really and his final year, we finally got a state tournament for him. Then it was a little nerve wracking because we had so many players returning. We knew that there was a passion in the kids, and we knew we could take this far, and we were not sure how that was going to turn out. We got a brand new coach in there. As players, we were a little nervous about it. We wanted somebody that would come in and give us some direction, but also let us do it we knew what we were doing.
Thank goodness, Ron came in and was able to provide that for us, give us that extra that we needed just to keep it going and give us some success those next few years, and he sure did that. Happy to have both. I'm friends with Jerry Altenburg to this day. He's a family friend of ours and comes out and watches my son play basketball. I often tease him about quitting on us a little bit too early. He could have been a golden boy of high school basketball, but...I think he's okay with that.
When you guys were at your best when you were playing as a sophomore and a junior and a senior, what made you click? What was it that made the Armour girls basketball team so good?
I think we just had a bunch of girls that loved being around each other, and we just loved to compete. We love to play. A bunch of these same girls and probably Dana or Candi will talk about this and Wanda too if you talk to her, we were all involved in a swim team in the summers, and there wasn't a lot of other things to do in Armor. When we had an opportunity to compete, that's what drove us. We just loved playing, we loved being together, and we just loved the idea girls could participate in sports, just like boys could. We took advantage of every opportunity that we had, and it wasn't a lot. We didn't have a lot of opportunities in the '80s. We didn't have as many sports in our... we never had volleyball.
Yeah, we just took advantage of it and we loved it. We loved being together. We loved playing a game of basketball.
This was at a time too that remember, there was the jump ball after every tied up possession, and there was no three-point line back then.
Right, and another interesting fact that people might not realize is my senior year was actually the first year that we went to the three class system. Our first two championships were in the two class system. Back in those days, the B tournament was huge. That's where everybody went to, so that was a tough task there for those first two state titles.
Castlewood had won a state title a couple of years before Armour won its first, but I've heard that Castlewood was a pretty good rivalry between Armour and Castlewood. Who were some of the other area schools that really had some really good matches with?
Well, I run into old Corsica players now around Hartford and Madison in that area. We always talk about those days. They were always a tough competitor back in our stomping grounds, and I do remember Wakonda. We played with Wakonda in some state tournament. Bennett County was another one that we played. I remember them being pretty, pretty tough competition, but Platt and Corsica from right around Armour, those were always games that we knew it was going to be a battle There was going to be some bruises at the end of the game.
How has basketball been a part of your life since high school?
Well, I actually coached with the West Central Trojans, the girls basketball program for about nine years with Joe Caffrey and Jamie Nelson. That was huge for me, really enjoyed getting back into it and in that aspect. Then I have three children. My daughter played for a couple years. My baby is now a senior at West Central playing for their basketball team. Man, I just enjoyed as a parent, as a fan, as a ninth grade coach. I really enjoyed having basketball be a part of my life in those aspects.
Is there one game where you performed really well during your high school career that you think about and maybe puts a smile on your face when you think about it?
Well, my senior year, I had a pretty good state tournament and I made the all-tournament team, so that one stands out to me, but living here in Hartford, we go and play Tri-Valley a lot. Every time I walk in that gym, I think about my senior year. Tri-Valley was rated number one in A girls and Armour was rated number one in B girls, and we actually played them. Armour drove to Tri-Valley, and that was how many years ago, 20 some. Oh gosh, probably 30 years ago, but that was the first year of Tri-Valley's new gym and walking in there from little Armour, you see this gym and you think, "My gosh, look at this. This is the nicest thing that there is around." You remember Katie Krause.
She was a sophomore I think that year, and we battled with them and came down to a last second shot that it might have been me. It might have been set up for me to shoot at the last second, and I missed it. We ended up losing the game, but that is one that I think about a lot. That's a fond memory for me just because then I ended up teaching Julie's younger sister Katie at West Central. Great athlete, awesome kid, nice connection there too, and getting to know the parents a little bit just because they were parents of a West Central student, but yeah, those two games, those two experiences have stayed in my mind over the years.
Armour has co-opted with a couple of different schools over the years. Do you still have any of the old Armour colors somewhere in the house?
Yeah, I do. In fact, we had a high school reunion a few years ago, and they auctioned off some of the old jerseys. I have a couple of those, and I have an old letterman's jacket, the mirror and gold and the letter A, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's downstairs in a box somewhere
When you think about the Armour Packer girls when they won five in a row and you were a part of some of them, three titles I think, what is the one thing that you always think about?
It is just the memories of the state tournament with all those friends, and there were quite a few different girls and combinations in there. Just some memories made, traveling on the bus, I don't know, Jerry Altenburg's deathly afraid of bridges. I just think about every time we travel to Burke or out west, he would put his head down. He would think he was going to die. Just some of those fun memories of time with fellow players and fellow coaches, just really great memories from those days.
Candi (Nielsen) Musiel - Former Player
Girls basketball in South Dakota was sanctioned in 1975, and it was 1983 when Armour won their first of their five in a row. Candi, when we start talking about what it was in playing basketball back in 1980, what, you'd been a maybe a sophomore in high school, but remind us what was girls basketball like in those early stages of sanctioned basketball in this state?
Well, my memories have always been that girls basketball was the thing. I mean in Armour, we lived in a culture of basketball basically because our boys teams in the late '70s were so awesome. My memories of them are what triggered my love of basketball and my wanting to be a part of something like that. It was just pretty amazing experience that we had quite a few girl athletes that had that same dream, and it was almost a storybook, a deal where we just got to live out our dream there in that little town of Armour.
Before you made the varsity basketball as a youngster, what was basketball like? What did you see in the upper graders knowing that you could be there someday?
Well, my older sister, Carrie, she played basketball as well and she was four years older than I. When she was in high school, I was an eighth grader when she graduated, then I got up to high school then, but I do have memories of her playing under Coach Burnell Glanzer, and that was something a lot of people maybe don't remember that Coach Glanzer coached the girls as well for a while there. My sister had a really positive experience there with Coach Glanzer.
You had Coach Jerry Altenberg as your coach. Tell us a little bit about Jerry, what he was like.
Jerry, he wasn't affiliated with the school. He was affiliated with the bank, and he would work his day job and then put on his whistle, and come over and coach us after school every day. Yeah, let's see, how would I describe him? He was a teddy bear. He could be gruff, but he can also be very caring, and he had a good rapport with all of us. We joked around a lot, but we knew when to be serious and we knew when Coach Altenberg wanted our full attention for sure.
1983, you are a senior and Armour wins its first girls state championship. You beat Bennett County. What was that year like? Did you know early on that year that you know what, maybe you guys had a chance to do something special?
I did. I think we all felt that we could do that. We'd had a lot of experience at the state tournament getting third. I can't remember, it's been a long time ago, but I know that we did get third once or twice maybe, but I just that experience of soaking in that state tournament feeling, and just all of the hoopla and the energy surrounding the state B basketball tournament I think served us well in that year when we won, because we just had been there, done that attitude. We didn't come out on top those other years, but by gosh, we were going to do it this year, and it happened for us.
In that title game against Bennett County, you win at 39-24, and not a lot of points scored. What was that game like?
With all due respect, we all felt that was a very anticlimactic game. We felt that we had won the state tournament the night before against Renee Ruesink and the Castle with warriors, that they were always the team that we wanted to beat. We always just fought to the end with them, and we ended up beating them in a very exciting game from the semifinals, and then Bennett county. Of course, we had to come back and be ready for that. I don't know if we didn't score a lot because we had just laid it all on the line the night before or what, but it didn't have the energy that we had had the night before.
Your younger sister Dana was just an eighth grader that season when you were a senior. How much playing time did she get?
Oh gosh, she'd get in some. I don't think a lot. Boy, I just have this vision of her sitting there and just as excited as I'll get out to get into the game. She was always jumping up and down and excited about everything, but I do remember her getting in. I remember my sister more getting in with me in competition on the track because we did run some relays together, and I have very fond memories of that, but Dana got her chance the next four years, and she sure made a statement.
Was it a deep roster that year when you won it all in '83?
I want to say we played about eight, nine.
What was it like going back to Armour the night after you win the state title? First one for the girls.
Oh, boy. We were in a cloud, and I remember the homecoming, we had a big homecoming. We got back to Armour in the gym, and the news was there and interviews, and just everybody in their packer gear and our fans. I mean the town was just... Our town, that little town of Armour from when the boys were on their run in the late '70s and then when the girls started to take off, our fans were just amazing. I mean it was just everybody rallied around the school and the teams, and that was just what we did. That gym door was just barely hanging off the hinges, and it was a revolving door of kids playing pickup ball and encouraging each other. We'd have anywhere from a 7-year-old to a senior in high school playing basketball, just because that's what you did in Armour, South Dakota.
What do you remember the most about your career at Armour, and what has stuck with you ever since?
Oh boy, I just remember, and my friends and my former teammates, we continue to talk about this to this day, that we were so fortunate to have amazing adults in our lives to help us reach our goals; coaches, teachers, parents. I mean it was a village raising kids, and now that I'm an adult and my own kids are going through, I realize how... and they have great people in their lives too, but it was just different and I don't know if it was small town stuff because I live in a bigger city now or what, but the thing that I will always cherish forever is the adult tutelage that I received in sports and in my education.
Remind us Candi after high school, what has basketball been like since now that you're a little older and kids, and you're living in Lincoln, Nebraska now? I mean is basketball still... has it been a big part of your life?
Oh, yeah, it really has. I did some coaching after college and really enjoyed that. When we started our family, I decided it was a little too much to balance with my life. We have three kids, we have two boys, now 26 and 24, but played high school basketball, had some state champion or state tournament experience here in Lincoln, so that was exciting. I brought back a lot of memories and it was fun to share that with them. We have a daughter now who is a freshman in high school, and she's in her basketball season right now, a strange season this year, but she's enjoying it very much, getting a little bit of varsity time as a freshman. She's excited. It's just fun to experience basketball through our kids now.
The way she plays, is it more like her mother or more like your sister Carrie or more like your sister Dana? Can you tell the way she plays?
It's a different game now as far as... and we all know if you're following basketball, it's the three-pointer now, and I was never pulled out to the three-point range. We didn't have that. I was a true post player for the most part. My daughter's 5'10, and she's played a lot of summer ball and stuff like that and really has never played post. They play the five out, pass and cut and screens and pop out and whatnot. She doesn't have that post mentality that it was just drilled in me all my years. That part's different, but I tell you what, I'm going to get a hold of her this summer, and she's going to have to learn a little bit about that.
You never played summer basketball?
Gosh, no. I mean our summer basketball was go to camp. I went to Hansen-Anderson Camp, had great memories there, played a lot of games, worked really hard, but yeah, our summer ball was just you went to a few camps, learned some more skills.
Tell me about quickly your coaching. Where did you coach and what was that like?
Yeah, when I graduated from Augustana, I got married to Matt. You saw my husband and first job, Matt got a job down in Bellevue, Nebraska. We ended up moving there right away, and he taught elementary education and coached track and cross country. I got in the next year because the coach at Bellevue West High School which is an A school in near Omaha in Bellevue, their coach just had had an emergency and had to leave. They needed a coach, and my file was there in the district office. They pulled my file and called me in and before I knew it, I was the head coach of Bellevue West High School. I'll be honest with you, I had no assisting experience at all. I was thrown into this. It was quite an experience.
I had a couple of great assistants. I coached there for about three years, and then we started our family. I got out of that, and then I got back into it as a freshman Coach. I felt a lot better about that and had a really nice experience there. Then we moved to Lincoln, I coached for a few years too until 2005 when we had our daughter, then I got out of coaching. Yeah.
What are you doing today?
I am teaching 9th grade English at Lincoln North Star High School.
When you get together with the family, with Dana and Carrie and everybody else, what's the first thing you guys talk about when you talk about basketball?
The first thing we talk about when we talk about basketball? Well, you know what, our father comes up in the conversation. Our dad was our coach before organized sports. I mean my dad spent hours and hours and hours, Mac Nielsen, in the gym with us, shooting and tweaking our shots and teaching us things. That's the connecting force as far as our basketball ties, that's our dad right there.
Ron Weber - Former Coach
We've talked about the Armour girls basketball team. They won five state titles in a row, heard some great names with Candi and Dana Nielsen and Theresa Whetham. What a great run they had, but you know what, they had two different coaches on that 5-year stretch. The first year, Jerry Altenburg, he was the coach when they won that first title, but then the next four was with our next guest the Coach Ron Weber. Coach, you began in Armour in '84. Where were you, what were you doing in '83? Altenburg was the coach of Armour at the time, but what were you doing at that time?
Well, in '84, I just graduated from my USD. In '83, I was a senior in college and '84, I was my first year out at 22 years.
How did Armour knowing the success they've had certainly with boys basketball and then the girls win the state title, the first ever and they hand the reins to you, what did you tell them about what you could do right out of college?
They were taking a chance, no doubt about that, but I had a couple of different opportunities to go some other places, but I was just too hard to pass up to go to Armour. I knew they had a great program boys and girls, and I wanted to start my coaching career. To me, it was just a great, great place to start out.
Coming right out of college to Armour, you had to have some ideas what you wanted to do as a coach. Who were some of the mentors that you had that maybe instilled you some ideas of what you wanted to do as a coach?
Well, I did my student teaching and student coaching under Mark Milley. That's probably a name that a lot of people are familiar with. He was coaching at Salem at the time and Coached my younger brother Rick in those early '80s, and that was a big part of it. Then also with my dad, Dale and all of my brothers and sisters were all involved in athletics. It was just a common thing that I go in that direction.
The Weber family, that is an amazing sports family, whether it was baseball or basketball. Did you think maybe baseball was going to be something big for you like some of the other members of the family, but it was basketball?
Yeah. I mean to be honest with you, I had some very talented brothers and sisters, and I was probably not their caliber as far as talent was concerned. I had to go a different direction. They were all state players in a variety of sports, and they had great careers in high school and college. I just wasn't that gifted in the talent area as far as ability. My only way was to get my name up there was to go with through the coaching ranks I guess.
You coached 10 years, you got four titles, you finished with 176 wins. Where did the run and run and run slogan come from when you went to that first practice for your Armour girls Packers after winning a state title? Where did that come from?
I have no idea really where it came from. You have to have a lot of luck just to win one and to win multiple titles, you have to be very fortunate in a lot of different ways and the ball definitely has to bounce your way. I mean you got to stay away from injuries. Everybody's got to be in the same page, and we had a really a rare combination of just outstanding talent. Their work ethic that those girls had was just unbelievable, and that combination is what really got us the multiple titles. It was just really everybody was playing their roles, and really nobody wanted to let their teammates down.
Was there one or two players who maybe you got on him a little bit, just to show the rest of the team that you needed to do something better? Coaches do different things for motivation when it comes to basketball. Did you have a couple of players that you knew that they could handle a little criticism for a basketball game?
I guess I really didn't take that angle. I guess probably what I probably did more than that. To be honest with you, we just did a lot of conditioning, a lot of running, a lot of drills and we just really stuck with the fundamentals. I mean we had the talent, so I didn't have to be really creative in offenses and defenses and do a lot of special things because we had the ability. I was just there just to keep it simple. We did a lot of conditioning probably was their main form of I guess punishment in a way to not let their heads get too big.
I'm going to mention a couple of players. Tell me what you think of when you hear the names. First one is Theresa Whetham.
Theresa Whetham, just an outstanding player, probably one of the best leaders that I had in my 10 years of coaching girls basketball. She was just unbelievable. Her and Wanda Hornstra were probably two that kept everybody together. Those two were the glue for our teams.
Jodi Pipes.
Unbelievable talent. I mean she was the best point guard that I have seen at the class B level. I still have not seen anybody better than her. I mean she was just unbelievable. She could take over a game by herself, and one of the best ball handlers in the state of South Dakota.
Dana Nielsen.
Dana Nielsen again, she was just an outstanding player. I mean I could go and give you all sorts of stats, but just her and Jodi are of course hall of famers. I mean that's just unheard of in a small class B town to have two South Dakota Basketball Hall of Famers on the same teams. She was rock solid. I mean you could just count on her for 20, 25 points every game no matter who he played, and she shot I believe 60% from the floor for all four years. She was a member of all five state championship teams. She never lost a district game, a region game, or state tournament game in her 5-year career.
Talking with Ron Weber, he was the Coach of the Armour Packers in four of those five state championship games, a 10-year career. That first year, you're the head coach, you're a year out of college, you're back in the championship game, and you're taking on Jefferson. Jefferson was making its sixth trip to the finals in 10 years. Fred Tibbetts is on the other side for Jefferson. You win 39-38. What do you remember most about that game?
Well, definitely, there was jitters. I mean the players had them, I had them. Some of them, they have been there before so I had more jitters than they did, but yeah, you're going up against the legend with Fred Tibbetts. There's no doubt about that, and we were just able to hang with them. I believe we were down by a couple at halftime, and we were able to stay with them. Then Lisa Leonard, she got to the line and made two free throws with a couple seconds left in the game to win it for us. I'll never forget her making those two free throws. It was just unbelievable.
You played Wakonda in a couple of finals too, and Wakanda was getting ready to win three in a row and win their fourth a couple of years later. The Flynn sisters were there. What were those games like with Wakanda and Armour? Mot that far apart playing each other in the state finals.
No. Again, another legend, you got Ron Flynn coaching Wakonda, obviously an outstanding career there. It was always a battle against those coaches because they were just legends. I mean we went up against some of those games. David Cowles, Augustana now was that Tri-Valley and Dawn Seiler was that at Macintosh and again Ron Flynn, Rob Van Laecken, I mean these are all legends- and girls basketball in South Dakota and to go up against those people, it was somebody in their '20s. I mean it was very intimidating. Fortunately for me, I had the talent on my side and that's what prevailed when we went up against those legends.
Why did you coach only 10 years?
That's a good question. A lot of people ask me that, but basically when the season switched, the old days back then, our season was in the fall. I coached 10 years of girls basketball, and then 10 years of boys basketball after that, so you really had basketball for six months out of the year. Well, then when the season switched, then you can only coach one. I just felt that the boys was where I wanted to stay, and I stayed there for another 20 years.
When it comes to the girls side, there was a few of them that dabbled in coaching. I think one of them was... I think it was Theresa. Theresa Whetham was coached... No, actually it was Candi Nielsen that did some coaching down in Lincoln. Did the other girls give it a shot, try to be a coach and would call you and say, "Hey, what can I do about this?"
No, none of them, none of them, none of them did that. Actually, I didn't really realize that any of them got into the coaching profession, but...
What do you think your Armour girls would have been like if they would have been on traveling squads, and they would have been spending a lot of their time playing basketball?
Yeah, that's a good point. Like you said, back in the day, you didn't have traveling all-star teams like you have today. You didn't have team camps like you have today. Back in the day, if you wanted to be good, you had to do it as an individual. We had a lot of them went to individual camps, a lot of our players back then went to the gym quite often. They were gym rats I guess you would call them. Probably one of the best stories that I know of of their dedication and their work ethic back in the day, the winter season was our off season and we had one family that had a basket out in their driveway like a lot of people did, but this was in the wintertime, and it was cold out.
They would go out and play as long as they could under the weather conditions and after a while, the ball would freeze and that they could not dribble it anymore. They would have to take the ball into the house, warm it up, and then go back out and play, and do that multiple times a night. Now I don't know of too many people that would do that nowadays to be honest with you.
What are you doing today, Ron?
I'm still teaching an Armour. I'm a career person here at Armour. I think it's been 30... I don't know, 36 years maybe. I'm teaching business. I'm head boys and girls track, and then I'm also the athletic director here at Armour.
When you hear of five straight titles girls basketball in the '80s, what is the first thing that pops in your mind?
Well, I mean it was a good run. I mean there was again a lot of talent, but again you have to have the ball bounce your way, a lot of effort by a lot of different people. I mean our community was behind us a hundred percent, the student body, the administration. I mean everybody, the players whether they were on the court or on the bench, they all had roles to play. Everybody in the whole community played out their roles, including the parents. I mean they were the best parents that I've ever been involved with. They let the kids play, and they let me coach. That's something that I'll never forget that just everybody had a part of it, and that's what made it so special.
Jodi (Pipes) Altenburg - Former Player
Any relationship between Jerry Altenburg and in that family of last names?
Yes, I'm happily married to his son, Jim so he would be my father-in-law.
How crazy is that? Did you guys go and talk to Jerry about those years of that state title when you were... you were probably what, maybe an eighth grader?
Yeah, I played against Dana when I was a freshman. I didn't play any varsity basketball at all in Lake Andes until I was a freshman. I was definitely a true freshman with zero varsity experience, and probably one of my better memories was playing against Armour in the districts, first round districts. We ended up losing to them by nine points I believe, and Jerry was a coaching Armour at the time. I think that was his last year. I always give him a hard time, and I think he got out of coaching when he heard I was moving to town.
That's right because you moved from Lake Andes and moved to Armour, and that would have been what year? Your...
Oh, that's been my sophomore year, so I've been there in '85. I've been there years, and we moved there.
You were a point guard. Coach Weber called you one of the best point guards he's had, and he hasn't seen another point guard like you. What kind of a point guard were you?
I was probably more of a playmaker, not necessarily the point guards that have a day where they can do pretty much everything. They can shoot the outside shot. I was small, pretty tiny for my age. I didn't necessarily have the strength to make some of those outside shots which the three-point line I don't think came into play until maybe my junior or senior year. We didn't have that until at the end of my high school career, but I was pretty fortunate to be blessed with some pretty good basketball ball handling skills. I think a lot of that had to do with playing basketball all the time with my older siblings and my younger brother. We'd spent a lot of time in the gym in Lake Andes.
My dad would open it up and kids would come and keep in mind in Lake Andes, the tradition wasn't to be in the gym and it was he had to sneak in there. We had a few connections where we got in the gym, and we played at all hours. There were pretty heated games and competitive games and pretty much played against the boys every night. I think that had a lot to do with my ability to handle the ball and pass.
Your sister Jamie though also was a pretty good basketball player. Was this constant where you two would play basketball?
Yeah, she was. She was one year older than me. For some reason, I got a little bit more height than she did. I don't know where that came from because we're pretty small in my family, so that helped me with basketball anyway, but yeah, we'd always have very competitive games. If it wasn't in the gym, it was on the driveway and a lot of one-on-one. I think that really developed me as a player. I know a lot of kids put a lot of time in working on their skills, but just in the driveway and we'd do the old Hansen-Anderson rule where you could only have two dribbles, and you had to get a shot off. I think that helped create space for me to either get a shot off or actually make a pass to Dana which was pretty, pretty good high percentage pass to her that was going to go in.
I was probably going to get an assist, so definitely not going to miss any of those opportunities.
What was it like moving from Lake Andes to Armour that year, and maybe that first basketball practice as kind the new kid on the block?
The culture of Armour was just something, it was amazing. We were so fortunate to grow up in the time we did. In Armour, that gym was open non-stop. If it was locked, you just call either Jerry Altenburg or Burnell Glanzer grab key or Coach Weber, and you go up and then play. I remember the first day we moved in, Dana Nielsen, Krista McFarland, I believe Dawn Hornstra, so they'd have been in my class. They showed up at our door, knocked on it and said, "Hey, we're going to gym. You guys want to go?" We're like, "Okay. Mom, we're done unpacking, we're going." They were great, they welcomed us, and it was pretty good deal.
I do remember before we actually decided to move to Armour, we were at the Hansen-Anderson basketball camp, and it was a Theresa Whetham and Wanda Hornstra, they came over to me and started talking to me. I was pretty shy back then and they just started a conversation, wanted to get to know me because the rumor was out that we're probably going to move to Armour. It was like, "You know mom, dad, I think we're ready to go. It's going to be a good fit for us." We did and that was probably the best decision we made.
In that streak of five straight titles, I know you weren't a part of all of them, but three of them, you were. You won 47 games in a row. What made the Armour girls so good when they were winning three state titles in a row as a sophomore, a junior and a senior?
I think we have to give a lot of credit to Coach Weber. We were very organized. We knew the drills were going to do every day. we did fundamentals every day, the Armour Packer chair drill. When I had an opportunity a little bit of coaching at the middle school level. We're doing this drill. You're all going to learn how to dribble the ball because you never know if there's a press and you have to break, it somebody's going to have to handle the ball sometimes. I think he organized this. We knew where our shots were coming from, and we saw a lot of zones. They're pretty quick, a pretty fast team. There's a lot of two three zones we'd have to match up and somehow score against that.
We had plays and we knew where the ball was going to be. I don't know, he organized this and I think that helped produce a lot of success for us. I think a lot of credit has to go to Coach Weber and I was...
Do you remember we came in and said we're going to run, we're going to run and we're going to run?
Yes. Well and we had to because it's crazy, I just got a Snapchat from one of my former classmates. She goes looking at the yearbook, and some of these scores of our games. I'm like, "I know, I can't remember all of them," but he would run us so much in practice because a lot of times, we were done. Halfway through the game, the score was so bad. All right starters are out, so those are got to get you in shape in practice if we do have to go to a game where they're close. We had several of those too, but not every game was cool. Yeah, he would run us and I'm glad he did because we got in shape. I don't ever remember being tired in a ball game and I think today's game I think is a little more physical.
I think kids get a little bit tired, especially at the double A level with my daughter playing, Dana's daughter playing, you can see that, but we're just talking in the night. "I don't remember ever getting tired playing basketball. I think it had a lot to do with Coach Weber, making sure we were in the best condition for it."
Well, Honner goes to Augustana after her playing days at Armor, you go to USD. Were there other schools that wanted Jodi Pipes to play for them?
I went on two visits. I had some other opportunities, but it was SDSU or USD and both my older brother and sister was already at USD and I just felt right. Coach Tibbetts did a great job selling the program, and I just liked his energy. I knew he was going to get me to another level basketball that I needed to get to, and he had a little fear factor there. He definitely raised my game and I don't know, it felt right. You know when you go on a visit where the right place is for you. I think a lot of kids go through that now. They just know, they make a connection with the coach and the program. Of course, Stacy Kraft was there. She brought me on the recruiting trip at USD, and she used to live in Armour.
Her folks moved I don't know maybe in her middle school years, and she always talked about that, "Oh, I wish they'd never moved. I could have been a part of that Armour dynasty." I said, "Yeah, could you imagine if you were?" It's just crazy, but yeah, I just knew that was the place for me.
Well, you're in the Coyote Sports Hall of Fame with your career at basketball. By the way, I did a quick check on this. You'll have to see if I'm right on this. Pipes versus Honner in college, I have Augie winning seven times, USD winning three times when you faced each other. Does that sound about right?
That's probably about right. My best year was my freshman year, and I don't think Dana played that year, so- she won the battle. Yeah, my freshman year, we were pretty good, we had the Dally twins and Stacy Kraft and Diane Lutz. We ended up losing to North Dakota state, and they were the number one team in the nation when we were up at regionals in Fargo. I missed a couple of front ends of the one-on-one there, and we should have won it, but yeah. Every year after that, we just didn't and then Fred resigned after two years and I don't know, it just lost momentum I guess.
What was it like though seeing Honner on the other side when you two had great success, and now you're going up against each other in college?
It was fun. It's just crazy when you go to high school together and all of a sudden, you're competing against each other. Fortunately for her or for me, I should say she didn't guard me. I was guarding one of the guards. It wasn't like we were competing one-on-one against each other, but she's definitely a great player and I was blessed to have her for a teammate. She made me a better player, that's for sure.
Then your daughter's play on the same team in Harrisburg. I mean how crazy was that?
I know. Isn't that crazy? Jim and I, we decided no, I think we're going to make the move to Harrisburg after being in De Smet, a lot of great talent because De Smet reminded us of Armour growing up, a great tradition and culture there. He just needed to change. He was just doing too much as administrator and superintendent, and just a little bit of burnout, fatigue. We thought, "You know what, let's just make the move now. Kids were not happy with us for about a year, but now they say it was the best thing that could have ever happened," and then our daughters end up playing together. I said, "Kyle, isn't that just crazy?" When I told Dana we were coming, she was just like, "This is insane." I was like, "We're rewriting history all over again."
You're in the South Dakota Basketball Hall of Fame. What does that mean to you?
It was an honor. I was surprised when I got the call and yeah, I was truly blessed to get it. It has everything to do with Armour, just being in that culture. Like I said in my hall of fame speech, the senior leadership, their first year there, my sophomore year with Theresa Whetham and Wanda Hornstra, I've never seen seniors, captains that well composed in just the culture that they brought to the team. Dana and I, we were both sophomores and a little bit young yet. The way they would Coach us on the court was just... it's something that stuck with me and I wanted to continue that as I got older and became more of a leader. I don't know, it was just a great place to be. It was definitely basketball heaven in Armour.
Jodi, Dana Nielsen Honner has told me that she doesn't know where any of her jackets are that you used to order after winning a state title. Do you have any of yours still available?
Thank goodness my mom keeps everything because I do. I actually have them in our closet and Jim, he doesn't have state titles, but he has some grandpa's got a couple. It's crazy how our kids like to wear that stuff. They don't wear the jacket, but they wear the old T-shirts and I'm glad we kept it. Yeah, I do have it. I don't wear it, but it's neat to look back at it every once in a while.
Wanda (Hornstra) Dally - Former Player
Wanda, thanks for the time and when I mentioned those names of Nielsen and Whetham and Nielsen and Weber and Pipes, what does that mean to you when you hear those names coming back from the '80s?
Well, first and foremost, we were all just really, really, really good friends from the time we were little, until we finished high school. Candi and Dana just lived a block down the road from me. I spent many nights over their house, and they spent many nights over at my house. We were more sisters than we were friends.
Coach Weber gave the story of it was somebody who would be out in the winter playing basketball until the ball froze and then they had to go in and warm it up before they came back out and continued to do that. Were you a part of that?
Well, yeah, we just played everywhere. We played inside, we played outside. We had a basketball in our hand anytime we could.
Let's go back to your years. Where were you as far as class wise with Dana and Jodi on that basketball team?
I was right between Candi and Dana and Jodi. Candi graduated in '84, I graduated in '86. I was a classmate with Theresa, and Dana and Jodi were two years below me.
What were you thinking after you've won a couple of state titles, the talent just kept coming? What was life like in Armour after winning two titles in a row?
We look back at that, and we just are amazed. We were pretty humble I think about the whole thing. It just was what it was, and it was the best of the best. We just kept doing it, and we really didn't know how good we had it and how good we really were I don't think.
What was your role on the team, Wanda?
Well, I started playing on the varsity team when I was an eighth grader. Jerry Altenburg brought me up, and I was able to play. We went to the first state tournament where we got third when I was an eighth grader, and then I was a forward. I just worked with Candi all the time from eighth grade, until she graduated and then Dana filled her slot, and we continued from there. I was a forward, they were centers, and we worked really well together. Growing up, I mean on the team, it was whatever it took to win the game. Nobody really was afraid to score the most, or nobody took offense if somebody had all the points. It was a matter of winning the game and if Candi or Dana scored all the points, then I got all the assists I guess.
1984, it's the first year for Coach Weber. He's a year out of college, the coach for the packers and you're playing Jefferson in the championship game. Yes, Jefferson. Fred Tibbetts and the crew from Jefferson had won titles before, and they were making their sixth trip to the finals in 10 years, and you played Jefferson for the title, a one point win for Armour. What do you remember from that game?
It was very nerve-wracking. I know they had the Dally twins, and they were really good, but we practiced and we practiced and we practiced those sinking free throws, and it proved to pay off. It was nail biting there, but again, I was always the underclassman. I just had confidence in my team, and I just knew we were going to pull it out.
Did you play any other sports, or was it basketball all the time?
No. Growing up, there was a group of us who started out with ballet lessons, and then we were pretty much the whole team swam in the summer swimming league, where we got to be teammates from eight years old on up, until we were about 14 or 15 and started playing basketball. We had been teammates, we've been friends, I mean grew up in the same town all the way through. Everybody knew what everybody was going to do or say, or how they handled every different situation. It ended up paying off in the end.
It was so dominant, five straight titles, 47 wins in a row during that streak as she joins us on In Play. What about after high school, how important was basketball for you then?
Well, I went to USD along with Theresa Whetham and Theresa's sister Barb and Theresa, and we played intramural sports. In fact, we won several intramural little championships down there.
How come that doesn't surprise me?
Yeah, and multiple sports. We didn't have volleyball in high school then, but we had volleyball intramural. We did softball, we did co-ed softball, we had co-ed volleyball. We even did a thing of water polo I think. It was a fun time, and we just had that athletic gene I think. Again, we knew what the other person was going to do, and we could always rely on each other.
What are you doing today?
I'm still living in Armour. My husband and I, we have three children. I worked as a medical technologist down in Wagner though.
Are the kids basketball players?
My oldest son was and my daughter is. My middle son was not. He was more on the fine arts side.
What do you most remember about the time at Armour, small town growing up and being a part of a pretty special basketball team?
I look at some and I hear stories from different towns and different parents and things like that about all the drama that their kids have to go through and when they're playing sports. We just didn't have any of that. We truly were all friends, and then we enjoyed each other's company. The parents were our friends as well. We had several parents that would even come up to the gym. We went up to the gym every Sunday all year long and played basketball, and several of the parents would come up and help us out, rebound free throws, whatever we needed. It really truly was a community effort as well, and we had the total support of the community and the school.
You just couldn't ask for a better time and looking back at it, we didn't know how good we really had it. There was no drama, everybody got along and things just always fell into place for us.
Is there one game that you remember that you were outstanding in your field, or had a special night that you think about once in a while?
Well, I don't know. One game that sticks out for me is we played against... I believe it was McLaughlin and Kelly Sandland was a player for them and she was super tall. I had to guard her. Also, we double teamed her. I was in front of her, Candi was behind her and it looked like a dancing sandwich, I don't know. I can't remember, we held her down. She was a pretty high scorer, and we held her, so not very many points that night. I got interviewed at the stage bees after that by some newspaper I think for doing that, but...
Well, you still live in Armour, do you see any anything in the school that says that the Armour girls won five titles in a row, anything left over?
Yeah, we have banners up in the gym, and all the trophies are in the trophy case. Things have come, things have gone, but Mr. Weber is still here, so that helps to keep those memories alive.
