“It was just a very special time. I consider it the best day of my life; I’ll be honest with you.”
Ann Rhode, a senior at Roncalli High School in 1975 and one of the starting five of the Jets girls’ basketball team that captured the first state title in the sport’s history.
The Jets defeated Racine St. Catherine’s High School 65 to 62 in Madison on February 22nd, 1975, exactly 50 years ago today. Rhode tells SeehaferNews.com that it was quite the welcome home.
“We had this wonderful police and fire truck escort from Valders out to Roncalli,” she recalled. “Once all the players were back, they lined up, and we walked into a jammed-pack gymnasium. We were introduced, and it still brings chills down my spine.”
The Hangar was packed that night as the Roncalli boys hosted Two Rivers, and for the first time, Rhode truly believed that they were finally getting their just due.
The championship the Jets won was the first held in the WISAA, as the WIAA, or public schools, had not yet instituted a state tournament with competition only through sectionals.
The WIAA’s first girls’ state tournament was held in 1976, making this accomplishment historic. Girls’ high school sports did not exist until the passage of Title Nine in 1972 when it became a nationwide law that treated and gave girls equal opportunities to compete and participate in athletics.
Barb Baryenbruch, Judy Mahnke, Sue Tringali, and Julie Edinger rounded out Head Coach Art Edinger’s starting five. It was a rough go for a while to make girls’ athletics financially sound.
There was no money in the budget to fund them. In Fact, Roncalli’s first head coach, Sue Schneider, according to Barb Baryenbruch-Luhring, had help from a relative to supply some of the basics.
“Her mom came to one of our practices and measured us for shorts and sewed a pair of shorts for us all,” she revealed. “We had some pretty awesome jerseys to wear. The freshman boys were getting new warm-up jackets, so we took them. They had capes on the back, and we called them our Batman uniforms.”
The parents often had to drive the players to road games as there was no money to get them there on a bus.
The Jets were pretty good before winning it all. At one point, they won 31 consecutive games, and the 1973 ’74 team finished undefeated at 17 and 0, with no chance to play in a state tournament.
Edinger was the third coach in as many years, and with no disrespect to his predecessors, Baryenbruch-Luhring said he was a difference-maker.
“We had two female coaches before that, and they prepared us, but when Art became our coach, with previous semi-pro playing experience, I think he brought a certain attitude to games,” she explained. “ We all felt very strongly about that, and I feel it brought us all closer together and was instrumental in winning that championship.”
Coach Art was one to emphasize the basics. In fact, in the ’75 title tilt, Judy Manke hit 16 free throws, which Rhode says they would not have been state champions without.
“She kept driving; they couldn’t stop her, and she kept hitting her free throws,” Rhode recalled. “If they would have given out a Most Valuable Player award back then, she would have won it, in my opinion, because she just kept hitting her free throws.”
Little did these girls know that they would soon become part of national history. Rhode says that later that summer, they paid a visit to her sister in Virginia and, during their trip, stopped at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. They were approached by an employee, and Rhode takes it from there.
“He said, ‘Is there anything you would like to share or tell me why you are here?’” she recalled. “I felt my dad put his arm around my shoulder and said, ‘Yes, this girl is a part of the first-ever girls’ basketball state championship team in Wisconsin.’ He said, ‘Oh really?’ A picture of us was taken. We sent that along with an article about the game to the Hall of Fame, which remains there today.”
Fifty years later, Baryenbruch-Luhring, who resides in Sturgeon Bay, says it seems like it happened yesterday.
“I’m going to be 66 this year, and I still feel the daily excitement and pride that goes along with this achievement,” she explained “The influence of this experience on our lives has impacted who we are as people today.”
Rhode sums up their bond in one word, camaraderie.
The team plans to gather this afternoon to celebrate and later this summer for a several-day reunion.
