| Tournament
History |
Organized in Lebanon in
1924, the Frisco League has held court longer than many
other similar conferences. Its conception most
likely was inspired by a men's summer baseball league of
the same name that was formed in the spring of 1924 in
Lebanon. Teams in that league represented
Lebanon, Stoutland, Richaland, Conway, Niangua and
Marshfield. The president of Frisco League
Baseball, Phil M. Donnelly, was a prominent young
Lebanon attorney and later became governor of
Missouri.
While this baseball
conference was nearing an exciting conclusion, high
school coaches from several area school districts met at
Lebanon on Saturday, September 13, 1924. At that
meeting, they decided to organize an athletic
association consisting of six of the towns represented
in the Frisco League baseball conference- Marshfield,
Niangua, Conway, Lebanon, Stoutland, and Richland-and
tow other communities-Crocker and Linn Creek. They
called it the Frisco High School Athletic Association,
and elected Henry Deatherage of Lebanon, president; R.B
Johnson of Conway, vice president; adn A.Z. Black of
Linn Creek, secretary-treasure.
This association was
composed of those area schools whose major sport was
basketball, but who did not have an indoor court.
Outdoor play meant that all games had to be scheduled
for afternoon competiion. Also, the entire league
schedule had to be played before the arrival of winter
weather. Another requirement was that none of the
conference schools could have a football program because
of obvious scheduling conflicts.
Games were scheduled for
girls as well as boys. So, Frisco League girls'
basketball belived by many to have started in the
1970's, actually began some fifty years earlier.
But, after the years, it was dropped for a long period
of time by schools of the Frisco League.
The first games in 1924 were
played on September 26. In one of the contestes,
the Lebanon boys defeated Conway 38-to-27 in the dimming
hours of the afternoon. Weather as well as
darkness often interfered with the competition on an
outdoor court. For example, the Crocker boys' team
decided not to continue playing in rain that fell during
one of their contests in 1924, and lost the game by the
forfeit score of 2-to-0. Lebanon was ahead 14-to-9
at the time, but the ground was said to have been so
slick that "fast play became impossible."
Frisco high school
basketball was not an instant success with the
fans. Few working people could attend because of
the early times the games had to be played in the
afternoon. In pleading for better attendance, a
Lebanon High School correspondent in 1924 reported in a
local newspaper, "Help us get back in money what we lost
last Friday, when we didn't sell even enough tickest to
pay the referee."
Lebanon won the girls'
championship that first season and received a silver
trophy cup based on having the highest percentage of
wins.
The Frisco High School
Athletic Association gradually became known as the
Frisco League, just like its adult baseball predecessor
had been called. League competion branched out not
only into baseball but into academic areas as
well. From time to time, schools dropped out of
the league and were replaced by other teams. The
association grew to ten teams the second year.
They were Lebanon, Marshfield, Stoutland, Conway,
Richland, Dixon, Linn Creek, Competition, Crocker, and
Niangua. Waynesville joined the league somewhere
in the 30's or early 40's, but dropped out for two
seasons before rejoining it for the 1945-46
campaign.
Currently the Frisco League
consist of the following schools: Crocker, Dixon,
Iberia, Laquey, Licking, Newburg, Plato, Richland, and
Stoutland.
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