On January 2, this year the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame Museum Board of Directors and the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association met with forty Illinois Basketball historians at Illinois State University.

 

One of our topics of discussion was "Girls Basketball History". We need your help! Since 1977, when the IHSA sanctioned girls' basketball and the girls' state tournament, the record keeping by our state high schools has been erratic at best. In fact when compared to the records for boys' basketball it is dismal. As a result, the IHSA records for girls' basketball are not very accurate. When the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame becomes a reality in 2013, it is imperative that we get assistance from you.

 

The following are ways you can help us:

1. Update your season records for girls' basketball since 1977. Ask your local papers for help if you don't have the information or old scorebooks.
    
2. Request summaries of past years from your varsity coaches or have them turn in the scorebooks or copies of the score books.
    
3. Do not throw out old score books. Put them in storage or have students or community members scan them to computer files or discs. Please share this data with the Hall of Fame.
    
4. Request season ending summaries from your varsity coaches that include school records for teams and individuals on a yearly basis and share that data with the Hall of Fame.
    
5. Do the same for your boys program.

One of the features of the museum will be a display of pictures of the gyms of schools across the state. It will include info about the school such as mascot, enrollment, conference, past successes, etc. Could you please email us a picture of your varsity gym and list the seating capacity. Visitors can then view your school's basketball heritage in our data displays. Preserving your basketball history is important for your school and state basketball fans. The consensus at our meeting was that we need to emphasize to you that past investigation is critical and present and future history needs to be recorded.

 

Please contact us at firchau@sbcglobal.net or call 630-501-5174 if you have questions. You can also use the contact info above to share school data or have memorabilia or items to donate to the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame Museum. We do accept copies of pictures and news articles as well.

 

Sincerely,

Bruce Firchau

Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Chairman for the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame Museum