{"id":73,"date":"2011-01-13T16:11:42","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T01:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/?p=73"},"modified":"2011-01-14T11:54:45","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T20:54:45","slug":"ahs-basketball-east-vs-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/ahs-basketball-east-vs-west\/","title":{"rendered":"AHS BASKETBALL: East vs. West"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the Anchor\u2026On the Anchor\u2026!\u201d <\/em>We can all remember the refrains of the melody blaring forth from the AHS band as two basketball teams rushed onto the floor running their warm up drills\u2014one in orange and white warm-up suits, the other in black and white\u2014EAST and WEST\u2014one high school, two teams; ever the twain shall meet!\u00a0 We loved our cheerleaders, majorettes and flag girls as they whirled and twirled.<\/p>\n

During our Junior and Senior years, AHS had grown so large that our school had to be divided into two athletic teams to be fair to the rest of Alaska.\u00a0 The rivalry and the camaraderie were both intense.\u00a0 In the \u201959-\u201960 basketball season, West was picked to win it all, and East was the \u201cCinderella\u201d team.\u00a0 In its first game of the Western Alaska double elimination tournament, East fell behind 16-0 and lost 32-30.\u00a0 By Saturday of the tournament week, East had to play Seward in the morning and win that game to remain alive.\u00a0 Then they had to play West that night, and, if they won, again on Monday night since West was undefeated (just before the Monday night game, there was a power failure, and the teams were still playing at midnight after a long delay).\u00a0 East won both games and the Western Alaska title before going on to Juneau for the state championship where they lost (playing in the cracker box Juneau HS gym\u2014more neutral venues might have helped).<\/p>\n

The \u201960-\u201961 basketball season began with both East and West expected to have strong teams (East was even favored by some to win it all with several returning players).\u00a0 West got off to the better start beating East in the first two outings.\u00a0 East won the next two.\u00a0 But, both teams faltered early in the Western Alaska tournament, leaving Fairbanks, Seward and Palmer to vie for the championship.<\/p>\n

What we remember from the basketball seasons is not so much the details of the games but the sense of togetherness we felt as teams and as a school.\u00a0 Who can forget the train trips to Fairbanks and Seward for the games\u2014rolling parties which lasted for hours and were so much FUN?!\u00a0 We loved the friendly competition in the halls leading up to game days.\u00a0 I can remember some of us trying to jump into our pants with both legs so that we wouldn\u2019t be like other mortals who \u201cput their pants on one leg at a time!\u201d\u00a0 We felt a school spirit unrivaled since.<\/p>\n

We know now that our coaches were trying to build people as much and more than programs.\u00a0 They gave us something very constructive to do (both in practice and at the games) during the long Alaskan winter nights.\u00a0 They helped shape our character and willingness to work and play hard which we would need for the years ahead.\u00a0 We learned to love and appreciate them and each other in the process, and we look back on those times with longing, nostalgia, and wonderful memories.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll share those memories and so many others this June\u2014the more of us there, the more wonderful it will be!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOn the Anchor\u2026On the Anchor\u2026!\u201d We can all remember the refrains of the melody blaring forth from the AHS band as two basketball teams rushed onto the floor running their warm up drills\u2014one in orange and white warm-up suits, the other in black and white\u2014EAST and WEST\u2014one high school, two teams; ever the twain shall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memories","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahs61.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}