One of the great privileges I’ve ever had in my life was in 2008 when I was the play by play man for the LADY Jackets when they won the National Championship up in Hope, Michigan. What a thrill it was for me and I could probably say the same thing about the coaches and the girls and the whole traveling party. It was unbelievable and I never will forget the young ladies like Stacey Blalock, Hope Hohertz, Kim Hoffman, Stephanie Brewer, Makiesha Davis, Mionca Hall, Elaine Hobbs, Sarah Pfiester, Daphnie Pippins, Katy Sarem, Tiffany Warner and what was that little short girl’s name – oh yeah, I remember, Meia Daniels. All Meia did was get Player of the Year honors and All American first team. Chris Kielsmeier got Coach of the Year, and so forth and so on.

It was an unbelievable season but we knew it was going to be good. In 2007 we went up to Nebraska to the Regional Tournament and got beat in the last second up there. We had all but one player coming back and Hope Hohertz, a freshman, took that spot. We simply had an unreal year in 2008. Our Regional Tournament was actually held in the coliseum. One of the teams we had to beat was Hope College and they were absolutely terrific. It was a knock down drag out fight! It was won by about three, four, or five points. When that game was over, I said, “We’ll win the National Championship – hands down”, and that’s exactly what we did!

We flew to Grand Rapids, Michigan and then took a bus to the “Tulip Capital of America”, Hope, Michigan. It was a great town. We went up there, won back to back games, and won the National Championship by fourteen. I thought there were four good teams, well, let me take that back, there were three good teams in the National Tournament and one GREAT team! Thirty-three wins in a row! Appropriately named by Derrick Stuckly “The Perfect Swarm”. By the way, we were the fifth team in the nation to go undefeated and win a Division III National Championship. We ended up with a thirty-six game winning streak in the coliseum that covered over 3 years.

We broke the all-time attendance record in the coliseum. The list just goes on and on and on. I think we played like three or four games inside of ten points. The rest of them were comfortable wins. It was just a terrific season!

I remember us flying to Grand Rapids, Michigan and then we bused to Hope. I think that trip was the first and only time Derrick had flown. I don’t know if he enjoyed it but I had a ball. I can remember almost everything about that trip. I can remember where we stayed, where we toured (not much), the lake we went to, and Chris got mad because he didn’t want the girls touring. He told the bus driver to turn it around and get back. We played two great ballgames that were not close. I remember where we ate after the championship game. I remember flying back the next day. We landed out at the Brownwood airport and had a big crowd and I think we went to Prima Pasta and actually ate again before we all departed.

It was a great trip and a great basketball team! I was old enough, and I’m thankful for this, I was old enough to know that those don’t come around very often. I literally enjoyed that team from the regular season all the way to the National Championship game. I was pretty sure I would never see it again.

Until next time, so long everybody.

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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].