Farnam Honors Basket Ball Team
Thursday evening, March 21, 1921 was a great occasion in Farnam; not alone because it was the memorial of St. Patrick’s victory in Ireland but because of the victory of the Farnam High School Basketball Team in the cage tourney at Lincoln recently.
The boys had played so well and had done so much to put Farnam on the map that the business men thought it was only fitting that they show the boys their appreciation. The plan of giving them a banquet was suggested in a meeting held Friday night after the news has been received that the boys had won their third victory in their battle against Cortland. Carl Tanner, Walter Pollard and Clyde McElmoil were appointed as a committee to make all possible arrangements. An invitation was accordingly extended to the first team, who came so close to winning the championship cup, and also to all the boys on the second team and to the girls who had played basketball during the year. The teachers were all invited to be the guests of the business men and tickets were sold to anyone else who cared to attend at a dollar per plate.
It is only fair to state that the arrangements committee outdid themselves in their effort to make the evening’s spread bespeak to the team the appreciation of the businessmen. Everything had been arranged to the last detail, even to a green shamrock embedded in the ice cream.
The color scheme left nothing apparently to be desired. The colors of the school, voted on in a recent assembly of the high school, are deep green and white. It was therefore thoroughly appropriate that the day selected should be that for the “wearin’ of th’ green.” Appropriate also was the place chosen for the banquet, the hall which saw us in many games, not one of which was in our opponent’s favor. The basketball goal had been placed in one end of the hall in its usual position and very daintily trimmed in the school colors, with F.H.S. in green against white above the basket. Even the light protectors were in place, trimmed to harmonize with the color scheme of the evening, even the chairs of green catching the whiteness of the table cloth. These decorations, which were arranged by the high school girls, thus served as one means of showing our gratitude as a school for the cordial goodwill of the town.
The tables, which were placed so as to form the three sides of a hollow rectangle; were decorated with white carnations and green sprays. In the center of this hollow rectangle another table was placed for nine people, at which were seated Mr. Crossgrove and Mr. A. McNickle with the seven boys of the first team to keep them apart.
Merely to say that the supper, served by A. B. Carman, assisted by an efficient corps of young ladies from town and school, was a success is putting it mildly. Simply to hear the unstudied comments of the school boys and girls concerning it would seem proof sufficient, but actually to see Parker, Crossgrove, McNickle, Chitty, Bloom, Dowers and even Tanner stowing away potatoes, gravy, meat, olives, salad, bread, coffee, ice cream, endlessly, endlessly, with so little available space apparent, is to completely silence the opposition without further argument. One hundred and eighty pairs of feet were counted fortunate to find a place under the spacious tables. County Judge Nisley, upon entering the hall, remarked: “You will never be able to fill all those seats in a town of this size,” not knowing that the overwhelming majority of the seats had been spoken for at least 24 yours beforehand. Farnam showed everyone what can be done. While this is the first banquet on this scale that Farnam has ever given, it is to be hoped that is shall not be the last, and it is a source of self-congratulation that it was given under such worthy auspices and for so worthy a purpose.
This main purpose of the banquet was well brought out in the various speeches, even Chitty reluctantly consenting to act as toastmaster. Superintendent Bloom spoke first on the value of athletics to a school. County Judge Nisley spoke on what he stated as Pessimism, but which proved to be an argument strongly in favor of athletics in school life because of its training in the fundamental requirements of citizenship.
Dr. A. E. Reeves, who examined the boys physically in order to comply with the laws of the tournament, paid a high tribute to the parents for the splendid physical condition the boys were in. Professor Dowers then spoke of the admirable spirit of loyalty and obedience to necessary restrictions which the boys had maintained at Lincoln.
Mr. A. LaBounty was then called upon to speak in behalf of the business men. After commenting on their appreciation of the combined skill and manhood shown by the boys, he presented each of the seven boys on the first team with a card which entitles them to a handsome, beautifully engraved medal bearing the owner’s name and some mention of the achievement at Lincoln. This will serve as an endearing token of the good will of the community and bespeak our appreciation of the worth-while results of athletics in the school life.
It is hoped that the high school ideal thus set by the boys, of team work, hard play but always fair play, and thus concretely approved by unanimous voice of the town and community, shall continue as an abiding standard for all teams in succeeding years.
The school keenly appreciates the backing thus accorded the school by the community and wishes especially to thank the business men for their active part in bringing it to pass. It is hoped that the cordial realtionship thus established shall have been permanently established and may hereafter more than ever before be the customary, usual and unbroken relationship of town and school.
