80 Years Ago This Week…

The 1945-46 McKenzie High Blue Cyclones won three games and lost one on a 1945 Christmas road trip through southern Georgia to play some of that state’s top girls basketball teams. Along the way, they defeated the defending Georgia state champions, Damascus High School, 23-12. Damascus had not lost a game in four years, and only once in the previous six years.

In the mid-1940s, the Blue Cyclones were coached by Lon Varnell, whose lengthy coaching career at MHS, Bethel University and Sewanee: The University of the South earned him an induction into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1973. Varnell became one of the most successful entertainment promoters in the U.S., when he established Varnell Enterprises in Nashville. He promoted such acts as Elton John, Sonny and Cher, Donny Osmond and the Harlem Globetrotters. He was instrumental in bringing the Harlem Globetrotters to McKenzie High School for a game in 1957.

Nancy Vawter Holland (MHS Class of 1949) was a freshman on that 1945-46 squad, and still resides in McKenzie. She is the last surviving McKenzie High girls basketball player to have played under the mascot Blue Cyclones, which changed to Rebelettes in 1947.