This Is Home: Reflecting on 50 years of the Parkersburg Catholic Crusaderettes

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) - The Parkersburg Catholic Crusaderettes Girls Basketball Team turns 50 this year.

To celebrate the anniversary, the inaugural 1972-73 team were honored in a ceremony on Saturday February 4.

Since the team started in 1972, the Crusaderette’s have become one of the most successful girls basketball teams in the W.V.S.S.A.C., winning numerous state titles and conference championships.

Monica Davis, one of the original members of the team in its inaugural 1972-73 season, said that watching the team grow to become what it is today has been moving.

“It’s phenomenal,” Davis said. “For me personally to see it happen at Parkersburg Catholic, it is like, we started as a very small family, the support grew, the family grew. To sit in the bleachers and watch what developed from what we started, and the talent, and the skills.”

Davis said that back when they started, she never would have expected the Crusaderettes to become a community institution, especially considering some of the ambivalence that initially greeted the team.

“We were doing something that was new,” Davis said. “It wasn’t always well-embraced. It wasn’t super negative, but people were kind of like, ‘What are you trying to prove?’ We got the gym--we waited our turn after all the boys had practiced. You know, we got a turn, so it wasn’t like ‘you can’t have it.’ But we had to work through our turn, which was fine, because ultimately we wanted to play basketball and that’s what we got to do.

Davis shared that, early on, the Crusaderettes were almost kept from playing in the first State Catholic Tournament. Their coach, Doug Hoselton, stood up for them and made sure they were able to play.

“We felt that, at that point, that truly solidified the foundation for the program,” Davis said. “Somebody at that time stood up for girls’ basketball. And everyone else was just kind of giving it a leery eye, kind of ‘maybe, maybe not.’ And so for him to have stood up for us -- and after we won, I can remember him giving me a hug and thanking me for everything. He said ‘I mean it.’

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