TOWNSHEND-Before the Feb. 25 girls' basketball game between Leland & Gray and Bellows Falls, a special ceremony honored members of the undefeated Leland & Gray girls' basketball teams from 1952 and 1955.
Leland & Gray Athletic Director Tammy Claussen called forward to center court the four former players - Mary Cutts Mewes and Mary Robinson Laitres, who were both members of the 1952 team, and Marty Gould Morrison and Marilyn Bills Chapin, who were on the 1955 team - where they were greeted by the current players and handed flowers and gift bags.
Claussen then asked for any relatives of players on those teams in the stands to stand and be recognized.
The two teams were the only ones in the history of the school - then named Leland & Gray Seminary - to go undefeated under Coach Arlo Monroe, who was also the school's headmaster.
The discovery was made accidentally by Charlie Marchant, president of the Townshend Historical Society, who then began to dig further into the subject and coordinated the effort to honor the teams and their four remaining members.
Not only were the 1952 and 1955 teams the only ones to go undefeated, but since the Vermont Principals' Association started keeping records, which date back to 1972, Leland & Gray has appeared in the finals just two times, in 1978 and 1991, both in Division III.
Along with Cutts Mews and Robinson Laitres, the 1952 team included Annie Abbott, Emma Ameden, Arden Blake, Janet Dauchy, Lois Dauchy, Christine Dewey, Helen Danielski, Beverly Dufresne, Berte Elliott, Margaret Gleason, Millie Hallenen, Doris Hamilton, Nancy Hazlett, Lois Leonard, Kay Lyman, Genie Alice Plimpton, Helen Slanetz, Patty Staples, Phyllis Streeter, and Maija Zvers.
The 1955 team, in addition to Gould Morrison and Bills Chapin, consisted of Ameden, Dauchy, Elaine (Aither) Robinson, Patricia Duby, Patricia Herbert, Adele Graham, Janet (Gould) Stowell, Cynthia Eaton, Marcia (Robinson) Lawton, Slanetz, Jean Grindley, Lorraine Meyer, Stephanie Kearley, Frances (Cole) Lucier, Barbara Brown, and Evelyn Vose.
A different game
There were some significant differences between today's game and the way girls' basketball was played in the 1950s in Leland & Gray's tiny Dutton Gymnasium. One of the biggest differences was that it was a half-court game with three designated offensive and three defensive players. The defensive players were not allowed to score. In fact, they were not even allowed to cross the half-court line.
"The only thing I can remember is [it] being frustrating playing half-court," said Gould Morrison. "You would have to dribble up to the halfway line, and then you [would have] to stop and throw it to somebody on the other side, so it was frustrating."
The women said they were called forwards and guards at that time, the forwards being the offensive players and the guards being the defensive players.
Cutts Mewes recalled specifically a game that the team played against Kurn Hattin in which she got to play on the offensive side of the ball and, while she couldn't remember exactly how many points she scored that game, she said she may have had as many as 14.
'We had come a long way'
For some of the honorees, Feb. 25 marked the first time they had attended a game in a long time. Bills Chapin said she used to attend regularly but hadn't been to one in years.
While the game itself ended in a narrow 41–35 win for visiting Bellows Falls, it began as a time to reminisce.
The opening ceremony and the game itself was particularly special for Robinson Laitres, whose great-great-nieces, Abigail Emerson and Annabelle Brookes, were playing for Leland & Gray against Bellows Falls.
Prior to introducing Robinson Laitres, the last member of the four to be called to center court, Claussen asked Emerson and Brookes to come to the front where they met their great-great-aunt with hugs and presented her with flowers and her gift bag.
While too many years had passed to remember the exact emotions after completing an undefeated season, all four of them remembered being happy about the accomplishment.
"We were just happy that we made baskets at that time and just won because we had come a long way," said Bills Chapin.
For Gould Morrison, she recalled the games as being something that she would look forward to all week. At the time, Arlington High School and Thayer High School in Winchester, New Hampshire, were among the top opponents the team faced, she said, noting that they were always big games.
"Arlington was a tough team," Gould said. "They were dirty players. You had to be really aggressive to beat them. They were good, that's all I remember."
Robinson Laitres said she served as an assistant coach for the Arlington girls team for the 1958–1959 season, an admission that prompted Bills Chapin to jokingly turn to her and say, "Oh, no. You traitor."
Ultimately, though, some of the memories that the players shared from that period of their lives had less to do with their time on the court, the wins and losses or their perfect seasons. It was the ride and the memories made along the way.
The players recalled some of the bus trips with longtime bus driver Ruby Robinson who once got them all home safely from a game against Burr & Burton in Manchester on a night when cars were sliding off the road.
Years after their time as players had come to an end, Bills Chapin recalled, she had an interaction with Monroe, her former coach and headmaster, when she was working at Grace Cottage Hospital while he was a patient there.
"I had to go back and forth through to do different things, and he would sit in his chair," she said. "And this one day, he said, 'Hey, you. Come in here a minute,'" Bills Chapin said.
"I thought, 'Oh, dear.'
"And he said, 'Pull up a chair. We're going to talk about basketball.'"
This News item by Brandon Canevari was written for The Commons.