Vikings celebrate 1,000th win!
As H-F celebrated the historic 1,000th win of the Varsity Boys Basketball team this past winter, we looked back in time to find background on the beginnings of the storied Boys Basketball team.
The Vikings won their very first contest during the 1959-60 season besting Reavis High School by a score of 79-66. The team finished its season with a respectable 8-6 conference record. The Vikes then moved into the regional play-offs only to be sent home by Bremen in the first round.
The first Viking team consisted of several fine players all of whom were transfers to the newly opened H-F from Bloom, Rich South, Bremen and other local high schools. The infamous candy stripe shorts were part of the first uniform, too!
From the humble beginnings of the first basketball team, the program continued to grow into one of the region’s most consistent round-ball threats. Through the decades, the team would be marked by consistency shown by the fact that there have been only seven head coaches in its 50 history: William Burghardt, George Vanderweyden, Dick Schmidt, Don Laketa, Roy Condotti, Jim McLaughlin and now Roy’s son, Marc Condotti.
So cheers to the very first Viking team and to hundreds of players and dedicated coaches throughout the decades that helped grow the Boys Basketball program at H-F!