December 11, 2024 - Last Friday the Lady Roughrider Basketball team honored our past alumni before the varsity game, naming them "The Legends of the Legacy of Lady Riders Basketball."
We welcomed the:
- 2024 District Champions
- 90’s District Champions 90, 91,
- 80’s District Champions 83, 85,86, 87, 89
- 70’s District Champions 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 (Special Shout out to the 1974 team who has made it to State Semi Finals.)
Two of our Legends continue to use Basketball to be trailblazers for women sports world wide!
Retha Swindell a Center High School graduate and Roughrider is the first black woman to play with the Texas Longhorns basketball team, One of University of Texas first all Americans. Retha is in the University of Texas women's basketball hall of fame as well Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, TN.
Debra K. Thomas, a 1974 Center High School graduate and Roughrider was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018 in Knoxville, Tn. It has now been confirmed that she has been named a trailblazer and she will be featured in the Smithsonian in Washington DC next year.
Debra K and Retha Swindell are board members of the Legends of the Ball or LOB as they are called, a Nonprofit organization dedicated to showcasing how the women's basketball league (WBL) impacted the growth of women's basketball in the Title IX era.
Their collective mission is to inspire future generations to break through barriers, realize their full potential, and become leaders for positive change in their communities and beyond.
Both Debra K and Reatha are also instrumental in the annual fundraisers that support the scholarship endowment program 'Passing it on... Play it forward' which offers scholarships to high school female student athletes to assist in their pursuit of higher education.
Last but not least, if we brought Sharon Williams up front. Sharon is the daughter of Mrs. Dorothy Williams. For those who don't know, Dorothy Williams is the Coach who started it all. She won the District Champions 6 times as the coach from 73-83 and led the Riderettes the State Dance in 74.
