Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1976, was as normal a day as any. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, fall was in full swing, and at Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia, it meant that basketball season was about to take off once again under the leadership of the late Charles Cooper. By his side on the bench was assistant coach Jean Griffin (now Jean Cooper, as the two would eventually marry). That evening, the Vikettes’ basketball team had a road matchup; they would travel to Nashville, Georgia, just about 35 miles north of town, to take on the Berrien Rebelettes (later known as the Lady Rebels).
Having won a state title in 1975, Berrien was sure to pose a threat. However, the support of the Lowndes community, as well as the basketball prowess of Charles Cooper alone, could change the tone of any matchup.
“(Charles) was such a great motivator,” Jean Cooper said. “The school overall was just in a great place: great coaching, terrific community support, and outstanding players. The parent and booster support of the basketball program was immeasurable.”
The Berrien victory turned out to be a dominant one. The Vikettes used a 51-28 thrashing to make quite the opening statement for their season. More would follow, and heading into the team’s winter break, they had opened the gates with an eight-game winning streak, claiming each victory by an average of nearly 29 points per contest.
“We had tremendous talent at every position,” said Marcia Player Dodd, who at the time was a junior center on the team. “We were extremely well-balanced, and our coaching staff was outstanding.”
After a 21-point drubbing of Tift County in their opening game, the Vikettes faced Brooks County in their final game of the Lowndes Christmas Tournament. As Brooks County had won the 1976 Class A State Championship the year before, fans were expecting a main-event-caliber battle on the hardwood. However, the Vikettes had other plans. The visitors would eventually go on to win the Class AA State Championship later that year, but on that night, their only claim to fame was becoming the newest addition to the list of adversaries laid by the wayside. A demonstrative 63-34 win by the host team pushed Lowndes to 10-0 on the year.
“Lowndes was a ‘new’ school, and at the time, we had not seen a great deal of athletic success,” Cooper said. “In fact, a major driving factor in these girls was actually our 1974-75 team. Those girls were the first to really make a title push. They made the school’s first ever trip to the Final Four, and that gave us the motivation to go past that.”
The wins continued to pile up, and come playoff time, Lowndes was still the owner of a perfect record. After making quick work of the rest of the postseason field (Their closest game en route to the finals was a 53-44 win over Tucker High School in the semis.), standing in the way of a Class AAA State Championship in 1977 were the Cherokee Warriors (Canton, Georgia), who had no intention of backing down. The Warriors came into the title bout in pursuit of back-to-back championships and were the owners of a 29-0 record on the season.
But the Vikettes held a perfect record of their own. And by the end of the evening, only one could finish the year unscathed; only one school could return to their campus at 30-0.
“We were incredibly motivated, and that was simply a testament to who Coach Cooper was,” said Karen (Parker) Bennett, who was a junior point guard during the 1976-77 season. “He pushed us, but it was never ‘pressure.’ Coach would always encourage us to live in the moment, to take every game as just that: one game.”
The 53-48 win over Cherokee at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum in Atlanta gave the Vikettes their first state title. But, more importantly, it gave them confidence to continue what had been started.
“Cherokee was a big team,” Cooper said. “They definitely had the size to try to overpower us. When we toppled them, it was kind of an ‘oh, wow’ moment. That game could very well have gone either way.”
In fact, going into the fourth quarter of the game, the Vikettes found themselves on the wrong side of a 40-35 score.
“I’m not sure who or what gave us that fire we needed for that final quarter, but I’m willing to bet it was Karen,” Dodd said. “That’s just who she was. She was a spark plug; she always provided that energy and motivation when the team needed it the most.”
Over the course of the first title run, the Vikettes held opponents to less than 38 points per game (37.87).
“Defensively, out team couldn’t be stopped,” Cooper said. “We made people play ‘our’ game. We had size, but we were also quick. If you thought you had us one way, we would just come at you with the other.”
Winning a title is a battle in itself. Defending that title, while fighting to win another, is an entirely different beast.
“We definitely had a target on our backs,” Bennett said. “It didn’t matter where we were or whose gym we walked into. When we got there, we could feel the pressure. All of these teams knew that we had a lot to lose, and that motivated them to take us down.”
“To be honest, the previous season, the undefeated streak, none of that was really discussed in the locker room,” Bennett said. “We just went out there and played our game. We just fought every day. I don’t think the significance of the streak really hit anyone until we had a few games that we really had to fight for. It was those narrow wins that made us understand just what we had to lose.”
The Vikettes continued to push through the 1977-78 campaign, and after a 15-point win over Crisp County in the Region 1-AAA Championship Game, the next step was crystal clear. A second state title was in their sights. And a mere four games later, the step was successfully taken. A 58-43 win over South Gwinnett gave Lowndes their second state championship and extended their winning streak to 60 games.
Region titles had become commonplace, but in bigger news, Lowndes became the first Class AAA team to win back-to-back state titles in nearly a decade. The last team to do so was Cherokee, who won three straight titles from 1967-69.
“When I think back on those years, I still often find myself in disbelief,” Dodd said. “It feels like a dream. We were a part of something really special.”
The record books counted win after win, but the final scores were much more than numbers on paper. They were a testament to the fighting spirit and mentality that accompanied Charles Cooper every time he set foot on the hardwood. For every win, there was an undoubted hustle and drive coming from the Lowndes locker rooms and practices. Coach Cooper was a competitor, but more than that, he was a motivator. He was a teacher. And he was a friend above all.
“(Coach Cooper) just had a way about himself,” Bennett said. “He always expected the best, and he was hard, but he knew how to get us to play together. He was all about respect. He knew the game, and he knew each and every one of us. At the end of the day, he was all about respect.”
Over the course of the Vikettes’ run, there was also a major change made in the way the game was played. Women’s competition was drastically different from what is seen in gyms and on television today. In particular, the progression of the game depended on players known as “rovers.” Primarily guards, the rovers were the only players allowed to run the entire length of the floor.
“With the way the game was played, we had three players that would simply play defense,” Bennett said. “Being a point guard, I played the full court, but a majority of the bigger players didn’t cross half court. We didn’t adopt the ‘team’ full-court game until my ninth-grade year.”
“Until I got to Lowndes, I had never played beyond half court,” Dodd said. “Because I was always one of the tallest on the team, I was responsible for defense and rebounding. That was my job: snatch the board, pass it out. Dribbling, shooting, running the floor, pressing…Coach Cooper essentially had to teach me all of that.”
Under Charles Cooper’s tutelage, Dodd made the transition from defender to all-around talent in the blink of an eye. Her success did not go unnoticed; her senior season earned her All-State recognition, along with teammate Rhonda Rowell.
“Marcia could run the floor like a deer,” Cooper said. “She was a terrific defender because she was so long, and she had one of the most beautiful floaters I have ever seen. Her touch was so soft. And Rhonda was arguably one of, if not the best, shooters we had. She was one of the first on the team to develop a jump shot, and it was a thing of beauty.”
“(Charles’s) job was to ‘blend’ the kids,” Cooper said. “Probably the biggest issue we had, if you even want to call it that, was combining players from the Lowndes and Hahira Middle School programs. They went from being rivals to having to play together in high school, but at the end of the day, all you needed was talent and drive. He could bring out the best in anyone.”
The players had the best of both worlds. They were blessed with a gifted and dedicated head coach in Charles Cooper, and in Jean, they had a mother figure who could handle any and every issue off the court.
“I was the ‘mama’ figure,” Cooper said with a laugh. “I complemented Charles because I was able to tackle any issues away from the game. We’re coaching young women, and it’s understandable that they will have their disagreements or things of that nature. But it never affected us.”
Dodd echoes the same sentiment.
“The male/female dynamic on the coaching staff was priceless,” she said. “We needed both, and they helped tremendously. We were nurtured in two ways.”
Dec. 9, 1980. A home matchup against the Valdosta High School Kittens (now known as the Lady Cats). Lowndes came in as the defending four-time state champions. Their last two titles (1979 and 1980) were the first two within the recently-established Class AAAA of the Georgia High School Association.
Memories are foggy. Maybe Valdosta was simply on fire. Maybe Lowndes just suffered from an ill-timed off night. Maybe the basketball gods simply felt it was time. But at the end of the evening, the final tally on the scoreboard stood at 63-56.
Winner: Valdosta High.
122 games. 211 weeks. For 1,477 days, the Lowndes Vikettes basketball program had not felt the pang of defeat. Their streak stands as the second-longest in state history; the girls of Taylor County set the standard with 132 consecutive wins from March 1967 to January 1972.
“I honestly don’t remember too much about the game,” Cooper said. “I definitely remember losing, and that’s never fun. And I do remember that it was against Valdosta. But you have to take into consideration that by that point, we had lost just about everyone from those championship teams to graduation. That’s not taking at all away from that year’s team, but there was just so much missing from what we had had in the previous seasons.”
The greatest stories ever told are not given those accolades particularly for their length, but more so for their quality. While the Vikettes’ outstanding run of 122 consecutive victories came to an end that night against Valdosta, what can never be replaced is the road traveled. For four straight years, the relentless attitude of the Lowndes High women’s basketball team powered a community. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. No matter the roster, the hard work and dedication of the Vikettes remained incomparable.
Cairo (1982) and Berrien (1983) have reached the mountaintop in years since, but no team has done so on the scale of the Vikettes. Lowndes High’s women made their names known, and their accomplishments deserve to be kept in the forefront.
“To this day, I still run into people around town that saw us play,” Dodd said. “The community support for those teams was tremendous, and it still makes me so proud when anyone brings it up.”
High above the hardwood trimmed in crimson and silver in the Lowndes High School gymnasium hang numerous banners. Among these banners are those honoring current seniors, athletic team members, and championships won by various Viking and Vikette teams. But there are four in particular that hang in a somewhat questionable obscurity.
Four state championship hangings, two from Class AAA and two from Class AAAA, blend in with the rest. One state title is impressive in its own right, and two can put the state on notice for a potential powerhouse. But to win four, and to win them in consecutive years, is a feat that is rarely seen. More importantly, it is a feat that no team in Georgia’s highest classification has accomplished since.
“I always thought that our success would help propel basketball programs, not just at our school, but as a whole in the area,” Dodd said. “Unfortunately, I feel that it still hasn’t taken off the way I envisioned.”
A spectacular plot, unstoppable protagonists, numerous adversaries, and unforgettable memories made. High peaks, low valleys, and lifelong lessons learned. The 1976-80 Lowndes Vikettes’ story is one of legends. No matter how often, or how little, the story is told.
Championship Game Scores
1977
Lowndes 53, Cherokee 45
1978
Lowndes 58, South Gwinnett 43
1979
Lowndes 57, Baldwin 41
1980
Lowndes 52, Northeast (Macon) 45
South Georgia / May 2016
1976-80 Vikettes Basketball
Lowndes High School
Valdosta, Ga.
The Greatest Story Never Told
By James Washington
