This post was provided by News Now Warsaw
By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
INDIANAPOLIS — The Warsaw girls basketball team lost a heart-breaker Saturday in the state finals against Lawrence North, but it was still a huge day for Warsaw sports legends.
IHSAA put together a series of tributes Saturday honoring 50 years of girls basketball including top teams and standouts that also happened to be chronicled by the voice of Rita Price during that span.
The WRSW radio sports broadcasting legend was honored repeatedly at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis during the day and top teams and players from the past five decades were also spotlighted.
As always, Price and her broadcasting partners (for many years it was Tim Keffaber and now it is Baylen Hite) broadcast championship games as the best in girls’ basketball collided in Indy.
At one point Saturday, players from Waraw’s 1976 state champions and others were honored at center court and then immediately headed over to press row to say hello and congratulate Price on her 50 years of broadcasting.
Jane Schott, assistant commissioner of the IHSAA, put it into perspective.
“In that first state championship they played at Hinke Fieldhoue, people said, ‘Oh, you won’t have over 500 fans,’ and we had over 5,000 fans and she was doing the game from the very beginning and never left it. She has definitely elevated the level of our game,” Schott said.
Warsaw won two of the first three state championships beginning in 1976.
Along the way, Price has covered championship games featuring Triton, Tippecanoe Valley, Wawase and Northwood while broadcasting at Hinkle Fieldhouse, Market Square Arena, Lucas Oil Stadium and what is now known as Gainbidge Fieldhouse.
News Now Warsaw caught up with Warsaw legends Judi Warren (the 1976 Miss Basketball recipient) and Chanda Kline, (the 1978 Miss Basketball recipient) both of whom attended Saturday’s ceremony.
“She was as much of a pioneer as people say we are,” Kline said. “She was there the whole way. I consider her part of the team,” Kline said.
She and Price mentioned the camaraderie that came as they rode the bus to games together in the early years.
“I can tell you about those bus rides you’d never believe,” Price said. “The fact that these women are women now, I won’t.”
“It was a special collaboration that we had,” she said. “We were like a family doing new things. I always said we didn’t think we were making history, we just thought we were having fun, and we did.”
Warren reflected on that first state championship when she was a senior.
“I feel very fortunate that it started in ’76 and not ’77 … and how it changed my life and the career path and everything,” Warren said.
Price was asked to name a few of her favorite players over the years.
“Well, it will always be Judi Warren. She was the first ever, from Claypool, Indiana, who learned to play … with her brothers. It will always be that one person that stands out. Chanda Kline was that second,” she said.
Saturday was the second consecutive weekend in which Price was honored for her broadcasting longevity, the first being an extensive tribute by Tippecanoe Valley High school. The school commemorated her for the 4,000-plus games she’s broadcast while also serving as the voice of Valley football and basketball.
“I’ve been blessed by so many people in so many ways by this game they call basketball,” Price said. “I’ve been at the right place at the right time, which I used to think was luck. Now I think somewhere along the line, there must have been a plan for my life and it’s been nothing but good things all around.”
Price said she was honored and touched by how former players who reached out to her Saturday.
“When they come back, it just brings it all back,” she said. “All the fun comes back. It’s been a great day.”
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