It was September, 1950. I was so excited to be going from the sixth grade to junior high – a big step. The biggest reason was that I could play organized sports, especially basketball, my favorite sport. What a disappointment to find that there was no girls basketball team! The boys had basketball, but not the girls. My friends and I started asking the teachers about this and, lo and behold, they said there was no coach!
I started asking some of the high school girls’ teams if they knew of any girls who had graduated and had played on the high school basketball team and were still living in Acton. That worked! I contacted Joan (Cook) Flannery and she was a little reluctant but, after getting approval from the Superintendent of Schools, she agreed. We were so excited. We started having practices after school and we were actually pretty darned good!
From then on, there has been a girls basketball team at the Acton Junior High School!
Peggy (Sexton) Hebert is a native of Acton and lives in the same home she always has – that is still a working farm. She graduated from Acton High in 1955.
Editor’s Note:
The Exchange asked for comment from Acton’s RJ Grey Junior High, and wondered whether the girls basketball team had continued without pause since Peggy’s successful launch. We received this reply from Jon Duclos, who is the Junior High Athletic Director and has coached girls basketball for many years: “I’m AB grad ’94. My sister played on the Varsity Girls Basketball team in the late 80’s and for RJ Grey in the early ‘80s, and I played on the boys team in the early 90’s. My father coached the boys team at the Junior High through the ‘80s, and I do remember girls teams here in the 70’s at least. However, I’m not sure before that.
“I’ve been coaching girls basketball here in town since 2004. I coached five years at the AB Junior Varsity level, and then the past 15 here at the Junior High. We are very fortunate to have both a 7th grade team and an 8th grade team to help develop players. There also has been more excitement and opportunities to teach younger girls about the excitement of basketball, which has helped as well. While there are a lot of sports for girls to play, there have been tremendously skilled and dedicated players that have come through the school programs over the years…There is still a lot of pride, joy, and passion for girls’ basketball that exists today from the community, that [Peggy can] be proud of.”