It is a fact that the Dawson High School boys competed in basketball with other schools in the area.  Some excellent research by our good friend Phil Shadid points this out below.  It is likely that baseball and track may also have been offered.  We are searching for the school's team nickname, uniform colors, fight song, coach's names, and season records.  Individual accomplishments are also welcome.

BOYS BASKETBALL: (compiled by Phil Shadid)

Members of the Dawson HS basketball team pictured to the right:

Front row, left to right: Junior Kitchen, Maynard Barrow, BurdetteConstant,
Harvey Davis, James Caldwell.
Back row, left to right: Coach Thomas Scott, Douglas Simpson, Principal
Louis Oder.
Not in picture: Robert Sauers. 

YEAR       WON-LOST       COACH

1933-34      2 - 14              W. L. Garrison

1934-35      9 - 11              Thomas Scott

1935-36 *                          Thomas Scott (*all games forfeited, see story at end of this section)

1936-37    18 - 6                Thomas Scott

Researching the basketball teams showed one very good season, 1936-37, which was also the last year Dawson existed on its own. The newspapers of the day did not always report scores of 3-year high schools, so the records for prior years are incomplete. (See the special story "Dawson's washed out basketball season" at the end of this section.)

1933-34

Coach and principal W. L. Garrison's small squad had a tough season, winning only two games. The team had difficulty in scoring throughout the year, scoring in single digits a couple of times and losing all but one game in the Sangamon County Conference in 12 tries. Only six players scored points during the season, with Castleman and Baugh leading the way (unfortunately, their first names remain unknown).

1934-35

The team, comprised mostly of Freshmen, achieved its first victory over Chatham in 14 years, winning 26-17 on Jan. 16, 1935. Douglas Simpson and Harvey Davis led the charge during the season. The team won the consolation title at the Sangamon County

Conference tournament with a 30-16 win over Rochester. They also managed a split of two games with Springfield Converse, a Freshman-Sophomore team; and lost both games against Springfield Cathedral's varsity. They were not lucky in the Williamsville District tourney, losing to Auburn to close out the season.

But 1936-37, under coach Scott, saw the Dawson boys fashion a record of 18 wins and 6 losses. They played in the Sangamo Conference (formerly called the Sangamon County Conference) consisting of six teams, five of which were 3-year high schools. The exception was Buffalo, which had 7 seniors in 1936-37. Dawson tied for the conference title, winning one and losing one vs. Riverton.

DAWSON WINS 16 STRAIGHT!

After opening the season at Riverton on Nov. 10, 1936, with a 32-17 loss, the Dawson crew went on a 16 game winning streak. This included nine wins in the conference, culminating with a 29-20 victory over Riverton in the regular season's finale before a packed house in Dawson on Feb. 2, 1937. Douglas Simpson and Harvey Davis, scoring leaders the entire season, pumped in 11 points each.

1936-37 SANGAMO STANDINGS, ENROLLMENTS & FATE OF 3-YR SCHOOLS:

Dawson......9-1. 34 students; merged w/Buffalo & M'burg to form Tri-City, Sept. 1937.

Riverton.....9-1. 95; became 4-year school in September 1937.

Loami.........5-5. 40; consolidated with New Berlin, September 1948.

Buffalo.......3-7. 47; consolidated with Dawson & Mechanicsburg to become Tri-City.

Mech'burg..2-8. 31; same as Buffalo & Dawson.

Chatham.....2-8. 44; merged w/Ball Township to form Ball-Chatham district, Sept. 1948.

The Sangamo Conference conducted its annual tournament at the conclusion of the regular season with Dawson and Riverton meeting for the tourney championship. (3-year schools did not participate in the Sangamon County tournament.) The title game of the Sangamo tourney held in Riverton on Feb. 13, was a disaster for Dawson; they lost 29-10. (It was Dawson's first loss since the season's opening day!) Home and away losses to Elkhart in a 3-day span dropped the squad to a record of 16-4.

The Illinois State Journal published a photo of the team in 1937 with the headline " These Youths Put Dawson On Basketball Map," and further noted "they aren't very big and there aren't very many of them, but these youngsters have given Dawson a prominent spot among the basketball towns of Illinois this season."

They won their first two games of the (Glenarm) Ball Township postseason District tournament over Edinburg and Divernon before losing to Girard in overtime, 31-29. Dawson stormed back back from a 24-14 deficit to tie the game in the last few seconds, but couldn't muster enough to triumph. As per Illinois High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) rules in place at the time, the runner-up in the District championship game also advanced to the Regional tourney. Dawson fell to Gillespie in their first game March 3, 1937, closing out their final campaign.

What is remarkable about the team was that they played with only six or seven players. Five players started every game, with two others seeing action from time to time. The players were: Douglas Simpson, Harvey Davis, Maynard Barrow, Burdette Constant and Junior Kitchen. James Caldwell and Robert Sauers played in a few games each. Simpson and Davis averaged in double figures and Simpson scored the most points in one game: 29 in an 83-17 win over Mechanicsburg on Jan.13, 1937.

The five starters for Dawson for the 1936-37 season also played on the very first Tri-City consolidated team of 1937-38. That team, coached by Louis Oder, also had two players from Buffalo and three from Mechanicsburg. (Tri-City played its home games in the Dawson gym.) The "Tornadoes" had a 21-9 record, won the Niantic District, were runners-up in the Regional to the host school Decatur, and lost their first game in the Decatur Sectional to Monticello. (Runnerup in Regional also went to the Sectional.)

Coach Oder, who was bringing three groups of players together who were rivals on the court the previous year, decided that no one would have to give up their jersey number to another player. He assigned new numbers to the first Tri-City team: 68, 86, 89, 98, etc.

The Dawson boys helped carry the load of Tri-City during its first season, 1937-38, with Davis, Simpson and Constant starting most games and leading in average points per game. Barrow of Dawson and Stanley Ketchum of Mechanicsburg were the other two starters. Kitchen of Dawson was among the first off the bench.

The final home game of the 1937-38 season, and the last high school game played in the Dawson gym, was a loss to Cowden 29-28. Davis, Simpson and Barrow scored 21 of the team's points, with Ketchum and Robert Elliott (from Mechanicsburg) getting the other 7, as an overflow crowd watched the end of an era.

1935-36: DAWSON'S WASHED OUT BASKETBALL SEASON

During the 1935-36 season a Sangamon County circuit judge ruled in favor of Dawson in a triangular legal fight with Buffalo and Riverton over establishment of community high school districts, stating "that Dawson had its district legally organized." Judge L.E. Stone, as reported in the Illinois State Journal (Springfield) Nov. 28, 1935, further said "that organization of the Buffalo and Riverton districts was unlawful." Part of the Buffalo and Riverton districts had overlapped the Dawson district.

This legal battle turned out to be a mute point, because in the Spring of 1937, the public in the districts of Buffalo (with Buffalo Hart and Lanesville), Mechanicsburg and Dawson voted to establish a community high school to be located in Buffalo. The vote in favor was: Buffalo 165-38, Mechanicsburg 26-2, Dawson 94-10.

But long before the voting took place, the season of 1935-36 produced much controversy.

THE GIRLS HAD A BASKETBALL TEAM AT DAWSON:

In the 1926-27 season Dawson High School fielded a girls basketball team which usually played its games just before the boys’ games. Game scores were lacking in the newspapers of the day, so there isn’t a whole lot of information available. But they did take part in the Sangamon County Conference and competed against Chatham, Riverton, Rochester and Mechanicsburg. Dawson also had teams prior to 1926-27.

However, in late 1927, Dawson, along with other conference schools, received a strongly-worded letter from the Illinois High School Athletic Association reminding them that IHSAA rules prohibited girls teams from playing against other schools. The ruling had been passed in 1908, but had not been widely known nor enforced. The association thought basketball was too “rough and unladylike” for girls. (They didn’t prohibit intramural sports, including basketball, they just didn’t want the girls to play the game outside their own school!) Source: article by Scott Johnson of the IHSA, entitled “Not Altogether Ladylike.”

Rather than contesting the edict, Dawson, to be fair to its students, cancelled its basketball seasons for 1927-28, for girls and boys. They never had a girls team after 1927. The IHSA didn’t remove its ban on girls sports until the 1970s.

OTHER SPORTS WERE OFFERED at Dawson, but we have no further information to share at this time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Information was found in microfilm records of Springfield's State Journal and Register, Buffalo Tri-City Register and Lincoln Courier, at the A. Lincoln Presidential Library. A history of Dawson is in the Sangamon Valley Collection, Springfield Lincoln Library.

SPECIAL GRATITUDE:

To a great friend of the Glory Days website, Phil Shadid, who conducted the entire research for this excellent history of Dawson HIgh School!!