With basketball season in full swing and teams headed for tournament time, I was reminiscing about some old school rivalries before consolidation gobbled up most of the former high schools.

I am sure most older sports fans recall the heated games between so many community schools. The gymnasiums would be filled to the rafters in most of these games.

How nice it would be to travel back in time to experience some of the contests one more time.

In Martin County, you only had two high schools in years past. But they were separated by only a few miles and one mountain. How much fun was it for those players, students and fans to see the Warfield Red Devils take on the Inez Indians? There were legendary coaches and local players on both teams.

Like most small towns, you knew everyone and also those players and fans from the other community – which was only a short distance away. You know it was fun and exciting in every game.

I personally experienced one of the great rivalries between the Williamson Wolfpack and the Logan Wildcats. Talk about great crowds. The Williamson Fieldhouse would be squeezed and packed to the ceiling with rabid fans. The gates opened at 5 p.m. and the line to get in and buy tickets would be backed up to the old Dairy Queen location at the mouth of Sunset Boulevard.

Both schools were usually ranked near or at the top of the Class Triple A ranking every year.

Many times, if you didn’t get your ticket in advance, you would not get in the game. There were usually 4,500 fans at the game. (Maybe more than that if they could get by the Fire Marshall’s capacity limit.)

Many other schools had their local rivalries in which the fans came to cheer for their teams.

Of course Williamson High School was forced to consolidate with Matewan, Burch (Delbarton area) and Gilbert to form Mingo Central.

The Kermit Blue Devils had a big rivalry with the Lenore Rangers. Now those two schools are combined into one to form Tug Valley. But in the old days, those old gyms were shaking with the loud noise of the hoops enthusiasts.

Crum High School and Kermit were only a few miles apart on U.S. Route 52. That was also a big rivalry between communities only minutes apart. Crum later consolidated with Fort Gay to form Tolsia.

The Burch Bulldogs had a great rivalry with the Matewan Tigers. Once again, two schools that were fairly close together and where most of the players and fans knew each other.

Also near Martin County was the big rivalry that still exists between Paintsville and Prestonsburg.

I could go on and on with more rivalries throughout the region. But so many of those schools are now gone.

Can you imagine at one time Mingo County had eight high schools? That was back in the day when you still had Chattaroy and Liberty High Schools, along with the ones previously mentioned.

There were great competitions year in and year out when any of these local schools played each other. Some years certain schools had better teams than others, but the battles were always great.

The local sectional and district tournaments were so much more entertaining with the local teams battling it out on the hardwood to try to advance to the ultimate goal of heading to the state tournaments.

Every old school and community loves to reminisce about the year their school advanced to the state tournaments and sometimes even brought back the big trophy of a state title.

Every county had more schools than they do these days, where there is only one or maybe two high schools in the entire county. So many of the schools we grew up playing for and against are long gone.

It is sad to me that these great rivalries and community schools no longer exist except in our memories.

The younger generation has no idea how great it was to have those match-ups. It even bled down into Buddy League (Midget League is what it was called when I played, but I guess that is not politically correct these days), where the teams were made up from the local grade schools you attended. Schools and teams like Nolan, West End, East End, Town, Chattaroy, South Williamson and others had their own teams, and it was a sense of pride to run out with that uniform on.

The same goes for the old junior high system, which was later turned into middle school. Those old county junior high tournaments were great events. The first rounds had daytime brackets where students could get out of school and attend the games at the historic Fieldhouse.

For most of us it was a thrill to get to play on that court at an early age of 11 or 12. After all, it was the same court the Wolfpack high school team played on!

Now all we have are those great memories. But those are some really great memories.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)