They Made Good Great

When the high school basketball season began in 1969, you could buy a gallon of gas for 35 cents and a U.S. postage stamp for 6 cents. Neil Armstrong had just set foot on the moon, Richard Nixon was president and Hurricane Camille had clobbered the Mississippi Coast. The thirteen girls who would make up the Berrien High School basketball team were well aware of the historic happenings of their generation, but they had designs on making their own history. Talented, experienced and athletic, the Berrien Rebelettes had come close to winning the Georgia High School AA state championship in the two preceding years. Indeed, Berrien was regarded as the most consistently winning high school girls basketball program in South Georgia since the arrival of Coach Stanley Simpson in 1961. But when tournament time came around each year, Berrien always fell short, having never advanced beyond the quarterfinals of the state tournament. The Rebelettes had been good but not good enough—until the 1969-1970 season. Half a century after their crowning achievement, this is the story of a group of girls who turned good into great, gave Berrien County its first state championship of any kind, and solidified a legacy of excellence that extended over the next two decades. Written from the perspective of the women they became, They Made Good Great tells the story of that memorable season—when a group of girls determined to be their very best and produced a season for the ages, one that still lives in the memories of the players and their fans.