38 Nebraskaland • March 2024
im Brogden was browsing an estate sale in Acworth,
Georgia, when he noticed this beautiful trophy. It tells
a story not only of a basketball team, but also of a
generation-long reaction against girls' and womens'
sports.
Brogden bought the trophy and took it home. He knew
nothing about it except the inscription:
O C H S
Invitation Tournament
GIRLS BASKET BALL
1922
Won by Filley
1923 No Tourney
1924 Blue Springs
An online search led him to a History Nebraska blog post,
where he saw his trophy in a series of photos from Blue
Springs, Nebraska. He wondered how a Nebraska basketball
trophy made its way to Georgia, and he began to think that
it belonged in a Nebraska museum. He soon donated it to
History Nebraska. We have pieced together the story of the
trophy and of the girls who won it a century ago.
OCHS stands for Otoe Consolidated High Schools, which
hosted an invitational girls' basketball tournament in
Barneston on Feb. 22-23, 1924. With "very snappy players,
and team work to perfection" in the words of the Beatrice
Express, Blue Springs defeated all their opponents to win
the round-robin tournament. They even defeated a team
from Hanover, Kansas, that had not lost a game in four
years.
With no shot clock and a jump ball after every basket,
games were low-scoring aff airs. Blue Springs defeated
A Trophy
from the Year
Nebraska Banned
Girls' Basketball
Tournaments
By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska
J
Found at an
Estate Sale
