Women’s Basketball Overview

As a sport, basketball was created in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, an instructor at what is now Springfield College, in Springfield, MA.  Dr. Naismith was looking for a way to keep his students active on rainy, cold and snowing days.  The game he invented, evolved in what we know today as basketball 

At South, Women’s basketball began in the early 1900’s.  However, after the 1908-1909 school year, the Minneapolis school board believed the physical activity of interscholastic sports was inappropriate for girls and contests between schools ceased.  Young women could still participate in athletic activities in the school.  Each school, including South, created a Girls Athletic Association (GAA).  The GAA allowed the ladies to participate in various sports in what is today called intermural.  They could only compete within the school. The GAA ceased to exist with the passage of Title IX.

Beginning in the 1973-1974 school year, Girls’ Basketball became one of the first sports the Minnesota State High School League introduced for high school women. This was the year South took to the court and began interscholastic play.

The Tigers won six conference championships in Women’s Basketball, the first in 2005-2006 season.  The Tigers repeated in 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09.  They took one year off and won again in the 2010-2011 season. Their last conference championship was during the 2015-2016 school year, when they tied with Southwest.

South appeared in four State Tournaments, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009.  The Tigers finished second in both 2008 and 2009.  South won their only State Title, capturing the Class AAAA crown in 2009.

The most decorated women’s basketball player in the history of South is Tayler Hill. Hill started for the Tigers for five seasons, beginning in the eighth grade.  When she graduated, she led the State in career scoring with 3,888 points.  (Since them two other players have passed her.  She is still on the leaderboard in 14 categories!  She played college basketball at Ohio State University and is the only South Tiger to play in the WNBA, being drafted by the Washington Mystics in 2013.

***The information on this and the yearly historical pages, including photographs, has been amassed through a variety of sources, including South High School yearbooks (much of the written information is directly from what was written in the yearbooks), Minneapolis Newspapers, and District archives.

***If there are additions or corrections, please contact the South High Athletic Department.