Jackson Center Standout - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Jackson Center Standout

During halftime of Friday’s live stream of the Russia-Jackson Center boys basketball game, Fish Report announcers Craig and Ken referenced several scoring records for the Jackson Center Tigers over the years. Included in their rundown was the fact that the 1967 team still held the scoring record of 122 points in one game. The SCAL was much more run and gun in those days compared to today, and as Craig pointed out in his commentary, the cracker box gyms were a lot smaller back then.

One of the standouts on that JC team was longtime Russia resident and businessman Dale Nichols, who also happens to be Craig’s father-in-law! I had the pleasure of playing against Dale back in my Ft. Loramie playing days. He was a tough rival who could score and really run the court. Dale was the best foul shooter in the county, having hit 31 in a row at one point during the season, which is also a school record the still stands. Like a lot of my basketball competitors from around the county, I quickly became friends with him off the court.

After games on Friday night, many players, cheerleaders and fans from nearby Loramie, Russia and Houston would congregate at Louie’s in Newport where Scudzy's in today. I had written about those times in this previous blogpost. Well, Dale would trek all the way from Jackson Center after his game and join us at Louie’s for a cherry coke or some such beverage. Because of the long drive, he'd arrive late and would invariably work the room, connecting up with all the players to chat about the results of the games around the county.

Dale would inevitably end up at a booth where a special Russia cheerleader named Kathy was seated with her friends. According to legend, a year earlier, cheerleader Kathy had spotted Dale at an early season Jackson Center-Russia game and declared on the spot that he’s the guy she was going to marry. And if you know Kathy like I and so many other people do, that’s exactly what she did a few years later and they’ve been happily married ever since. And now she’s Craig’s one-of-a-kind mother-in-law and also mother and grandmother to the crew pictured above! Kathy and I both worked at Frigidaire in Dayton one summer during college, and I recall her trying to set me up with a younger cousin of hers, but I headed off to college before the blind date could be arranged. As it turned out, her cousin is now my wife! We eventually met on a double date with opposite partners, and the rest is history, but we often wonder what would have happened had we met at that earlier time.

Dale continued to play basketball even after high school with some new Russia teammates

Speaking of high school basketball back then, it was great to read in Fish Report about the tribute Wapak High did for the old Buckland high school, which was consolidated into Wapak in 1965. I recall playing Buckland before the consolidation. They also had a team in the uber-competitive Tri-County basketball league I played in after high school. The old high school was refurbished and converted into an elementary as pictured here. Buckland was consolidated about the same time Fairlawn high school was formed out of several smaller schools in southeastern Shelby County. After those consolidations, there always was a fear that local schools elsewhere around the county would be combined. That fear thankfully motivated a lot of successful millage votes over the years to keep the individual schools funded as recorded in this previous blogpost. Long live the SCAL!

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