Women’s Final Four

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of articles concerning the 2001 Women’s Final Four tournament which will be in St. Louis. The first article was on the Young Saint Louis.com website in January. Other articles will be on the April website.

Eleven-year-old Brenna McDermott of Green Park Lutheran School has been studying the history of the University of Arizona’s girls basketball team. 

She’s one of 51 sixth graders at the south St. Louis County school. Their history and geography lessons these days have been focused on basketball. 

Two sixth grade classes have been doing computer research on schools likely to play in the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments this month.

The kids also are competing to enter a special city-wide poster contest. 

The lessons and contests are included in special curriculum called Middle School Madness. The Madness lesson packet was provided to over 100 St. Louis-area middle schools by organizers of the 2001 NCAA Women’s Final Four. 

In addition to history and geography, there are lessons in art, language skills and journalism, math, science, physical education and health. 

The lessons are part of the NCAA’s effort to increase local interest in the Women’s Final Four. The finals will be played March 30 and April 1 at the downtown Savvis Center. 

The schools like the lessons. That’s because kids take more interest when they are tied to major local events. 

Brenna picked the University of Arizona as her school to research for the special history and geography report. She has a special interest in this lesson because she plays basketball at Green Park. 

She said, “I’d like to be 6-feet tall and play in the WBNA.” That’s the women’s professional basketball league. 

But, Brenna said she’d rather go to UCLA--not Arizona--for college. That’s because, if it doesn’t work out in sports, she wants to be a graduate of UCLA’s famed drama school. “I want to be an actress or be in pro sports,” she said. 

The sports-related lessons are a natural for the Green Park sixth graders. Their teacher is Melissa Simmons, who is the school’s athletic director. Their computer class teacher is Bev Paquet, a former basketball coach at the school. The school also offers teams in five different sports. 

The sixth graders assignment was to pick a school from the Top-25 national rankings and study the school and its basketball team. The girls in the classes picked a women’s team and the boy’s picked a men’s team from the national rankings. (Since there are 26 girls and 25 boys in the two classes, one of the girls got a team outside the Top 25.)

They research the school, the city where the school is located and the basketball team. They also are looking up the history of both the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments. 

 Besides the computer research, students had to do research in reference books. Also, they were urged to follow results of their team’s play as March tournament time gets closer.

An additional assignment was to create a poster for their team. Paquet said the top two posters from each class will be entered in a city-wide NCAA poster competition. Winners get prizes and will be honored at a NCAA Hoop City program Saturday, March 31. 

Eleven-year-old Kori Rauh ended up doing research on Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. She said, “I was just there for a wedding a few weeks ago.” 

But, she said she’ll probably go to the University of Missouri when she goes to college. “I want to be either a teacher or a news anchor when I grow up,” she said. 

Eleven-year-old Michael Zeiter is one of the boys in the class. He’s studied the men’s team at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. “I’ve known they’ve been good for some time. I really wanted to know how well they’re doing this year,” he said. 

Zeiter is another Green Park student who’d like a pro sports career. But, he’s interested in football and plays on a team at Jefferson Barracks Park. 

Twelve-year-old Rachel Schallom likes the lessons because they involve computers. “Anything that has to do with computer research, I think is fun,” she said.

She participates in sports at Green Park. “I played basketball last year but gymnastics takes most of my time this year,” she said.

Eleven-year-old Julie Griffith is a point guard on the Green Park team. She’s following the Clemson Tigers girls team. But, she’s also looking into history of the Para-Olympics. That is a special event for paralyzed athletes who compete in various sports. 

Twelve-year-old Beth Horvath is looking at the University of Georgia while 11-year-old Jodi Winheim is following the highly-rated Iowa State University girls team. But, both of them plan to go to college in St. Louis. 

Beth wants to attend Saint Louis University and become an accountant. Jodi is hoping to go to Washington University and study pediatrics. 

At Green Park School, they do their research in a computer lab. Each student is assigned the same computer during each class and has a personal space reserved so they can save their work from class to class.