M-PHS gives sports memorabilia to Marysville Historical Society

MARYSVILLE — A "perfect marriage" between the Marysville Historical Society and the Marysville-Pilchuck High School Athletic Department occurred Sept. 24, when school staff handed off a collection of sports memorabilia to Historical Society members.

Lyle Schadee, Marysville School District historian and Historical Society Board member, joined Historical Society President Ken Cage in receiving 1934 and 1935 championship footballs, baseball trophies from 1941 and 1953, basketball trophies from 1939, 1941 and 1942, a trophy cup showing that Marysville was the county baseball champion in 1918, 1919 and 1920, a 1952 letterman's sweater and a 1973 cheerleader's uniform from MSD Athletic Director Greg Erickson, M-PHS Athletic Coordinator Mike Lowery, M-PHS counselor Carol Fisher and M-PHS cheerleader Jillian Berg.

Schadee explained that he became aware of the artifacts from two separate conversations with Erickson and Lowery, and suggested to them that the handover of the items be turned into a photo opportunity at the M-PHS gym, complete with Berg modeling the cheerleader outfit, which dates back to when Fisher was an M-PHS cheerleader.

"That's probably not a big thing to [Berg], but if she goes on to raise a family here in Marysville, it will be a big thing in a few years for her kids to say, 'Hey, my mom is part of history here in Marysville.'"

Erickson explained that M-PHS has given highest priority to its trophies won since the Marysville and Pilchuck high schools combined, due to limited space. During his 17 years at M-PHS, Erickson has kept only the district championship trophies won by the two schools before that point. This still left enough older trophies that they wound up "kind of getting lost," in closets, drawers and storage units, because of a lack of display space.

"I hate to see some of this stuff go," Erickson said. "It's cool to look at, but this school only has so much capacity for holding trophies. We've had a lot of success and won a lot of trophies."

"We need these sort of things to keep the ball rolling," Schadee said. "Today is tomorrow's history."

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Contact Marysville Globe Reporter Kirk Boxleitner at kboxleitner@marysvilleglobe.com or 360-659-1300 Ext. 5052.

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