Clock runs out on Panthers

We were bummed last week by the announcement that St. Mary’s High School is ending its athletic program after a century of competition. Beginning this fall the former Panthers will compete as Tornadoes on Storm Lake High School sports teams.

Dwindling enrollment and lack of coaches have made it impossible for the Panthers to field teams.

There’s great affection for the Panthers in our family. The Cullens are proud alumni of St. Mary’s. All five brothers played sports (to varying degrees of success). Sister Ann probably would have too, had she been given the chance, but in the 1960s there were no girls athletics.

Our kids, Bridget and Justin, both played sports at St. Mary’s in the early 2000s.

And our uncle, John Murray, was the first full-time coach hired by St. Mary’s in 1954, and he coached all of the Panthers sports teams for 13 years.

Some of Storm Lake’s greatest athletes wore those Black and White uniforms over so many years. They won state championships in baseball and basketball, were named to all-state teams in a variety of sports, and dozens of alumni went on to play in college. One of them — Ben McCollum — rose to become head men’s basketball coach of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes.

For the past 30 years a few Panthers have competed as Tornadoes in sports that weren’t offered at St. Mary’s, like football and wrestling. The handwriting was on the wall over the past two years when St. Mary’s was unable to field baseball and softball teams and struggled in basketball.

Small schools allow more kids a chance to participate in extracurricular activities like sports. At a big school a mediocre athlete like myself wouldn’t have had a chance to make the team. I wasn’t a star, but I got to play and experience the camaraderie of a team. That helps in social development during those awkward teenage years.

But you need a critical mass of players to make a team work. St. Mary’s high school enrollment peaked at about 200 in the late 1970s but in recent years dipped to around 60 students. That’s tough when some grades have a dozen or fewer students. When I served on St. Mary’s School Board in the early 2000s, we didn’t have enough students to fill out a chorus and band, so our musicians joined the band, orchestra and choir across town at SLHS.

When I was in high school in the 1960s, we had pep rallies before every home game in St. Mary’s gym, before it was called the Panther Pit. During these rallies we got worked up by pep talks from the players and the coaches, yelled our hearts out with the beautiful cheerleaders, prayed the Memorare, and closed it with a full-throated rendition of the Panthers fight song. Let’s sing it one last time!

CHEER, CHEER FOR OLD SMS

(To the tune of Notre Dame Victory March)

Cheer, cheer for old SMS,

We have the team we know is the best.

They are loyal, they are true,

We stand in back of all they do.

They never falter, they never fail,

These are the boys we all proudly hail.

Fight, fight, fight for the Black and White

And we’ll win this game tonight!