The Mustangettes of 1968

It has been fifty years since the Malta M-ettes won the 1968 Montana Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Girls' and Womens' titles.

Having won the AAU Girls' title in 1967, their inaugural season, the M-ettes of 68' won their first back to back basketball state titles as high school athletes, despite drastic rule changes in 1968.

The PCN caught up with a few members of the 1968 team, to see what basketball was like in the team's earliest days. Those members include Gail (Stiles) Cummings, Barbara (McKeon) Sunford, Janet (Mavencamp) Dunbar, Jackie Taylor, and the team's head coach Florence Schumacher.

"In 1968, we actually played at two tournaments," Sunford said. "We played in the AAU Girls' Tournament and won that in Hinsdale and we played in the AAU Womens' Tournament in Malta and we won that tournament too."

Because the M-ettes were playing for a repeat title in 1968, one would think that there would be a lot of pressure but not for this team.

"We didn't really even think about it," said Taylor, who played point guard for Malta. "We just went out and played basketball. I suppose we thought it would be pretty cool to win two years in a row but truthfully I don't remember my exact feelings at the time. However it was really fun to win the championship."

The Montana High School Association, like many other state associations, did not have organized girls basketball until 1972. With the help of Malta High School, three daughters of rancher Bud Stiles, from Broadus, played a part in getting the amateur team off the ground.

"My sister Kathy and her friend started getting the team going, but she graduated in 66' and didn't get to play in AAU," Gail (Stiles) Cummings told the PCN.

Cummings, however, was able to play AAU basketball in her junior and senior years at Malta High School, while her younger sister Janet, played for three years of high school.

The Stiles children played basketball for years at a country school in Bowdoin, on a court that was made of cement.

"We went to the country school until I was an eighth grader," Cummings said. "Then when we moved closer to town, we still had a court out in the garage. We didn't have garages, we had basketball courts. There was no room for a car in the garage."

The M-ettes were coached by Florence Schumacher, a teacher at Malta High School.

"I was not qualified to be a coach," former M-ettes Coach Schumacher said. "I was qualified to be a teacher, but in those days if they needed a coach for something and you can walk and talk, you got the job. And I could do both."

The M-ettes were a close group, and even fifty years later, the team remembers the impact she had on their lives.

"I give Mrs. Schumacher a lot of credit for getting it going," Sunford said. "She was good to all of us."

Dunbar shared what she remembers about Coach Schumacher in those days.

"I was close with her," Dunbar said. "I had her for Home Economics, I was a P.E. assistant with her and I spent a lot of time with her. She was an awesome lady and I kept in touch with her."

Dunbar kept in touch with Coach Schumacher until she moved to Glasgow a few years ago. Schumacher current lives in Malta at the Hi-Line Retirement Center.

Though it was many years ago, Schumacher remembers Cummings being the team's key player.

"They were all good players but probably Gail Stiles was the best," Schumacher said. "I am just looking back and I could be overlooking others that were almost as good. Gail has been in the spotlight so much that I can remember her."

Even now the Stiles family has lived up to their reputation, with past and current generations of Stiles playing basketball.

"(That Stiles name) is still there after all of these years," Schumacher said. "They have a certain pride in their family name. It's in their children and their grandchildren. Everybody expects them to be the best."

Rules for the 1967 season were different than they were the next season, only allowing three dribbles per advancement, while also allowing six players per team on the court, in a format similar to soccer.

"It wasn't the game I remember playing in the backyard," Sunford said. "It was a lot slower."

In that basketball format, the two guards stayed on the defensive side, defending the team's basketball, while forwards were allowed to go to the opposing basket to score and two rovers were allowed to travel the length of the basketball court. Cummings was a rover.

"It was tougher than playing five on five because just two from each team played the whole floor," Cummings said.

Sunford and Jackie Taylor were the team's other rovers. When AAU changed to a five-on-five format, the game was more enjoyable to Sunford.

"That was kind of a big and exciting change to be able to have a little more action to the games," Sunford said.

According to Dunbar, role players saw more time on the court in those years.

"It seems to me that there was a limited amount of time that you could play," Dunbar said. "It wasn't like, you could stay in the whole game, even if the coach wanted you to. You had to rotate in and out after so much time."

Like other AAU sports then and now, parents were responsible to bring students to games and events. There was no bus service to AAU teams. Malta High School still supported the team, sponsoring the team and allowing the team to use their court.

"The school did let us use the gym at six o'clock in the morning," Cummings said. "We did play some games at the school."

The Mustangettes originally had to make their own uniforms, which cost money, money was raised through fundraisers and hard work.

"We raked leaves around town to make some money to buy white t-shirts, then we all got together one night and dyed them blue," Sunford said. "When they dried, we took white medical tape and taped numbers on them."

It was because they had to put their name on the jerseys that the M-ettes, a shortened version of Mustangettes, even exists.

"It was too long to write on these little uniforms that we had," Dunbar said.

Things got better for Malta in their second season.

"The Malta Athletic Club helped buy uniforms, so we had a more official type uniform," Sunford said. "I remember the community always supported us well even though we weren't a part of the high school association. The community recognized us and supported us."

Sunford recalls her feelings when Malta won the AAU Womens' Title in 1968.

"I just remember being excited," Sunford said. "1968 was the first year that we had played a tournament in Malta. That was kind of fun to be able to play at home."

There were only a handful of teams across the state, luckily there were other teams along the Hi-Line.

"Hinsdale had a women's team that we played because they couldn't get together a girls' team," Cummings said. "Havre had a high school/college team combined that we played."

According to Stiles, the team played in tournaments in Hinsdale in 1967 and 1968.

"We had a tournament in Malta and there were teams from Joliet, Roy, Havre, and Hinsdale," Cummings said.

They played about eight different teams in a regular season. Being that teams were sparse around the area, Malta's M-ettes even crossed state lines to take on a women's team.

"When I was a junior in 67' we went to Bismarck and played the North Dakota State Champs," Cummings said. "They were women and they were rough. We lost to them by a little bit but we got beat up."

Cummings remembers playing with a bloodied mouth.

"That's why they quit having girls basketball in Montana, they got too rough," Cummings said. "They held on to our shirts and stepped on our shoes and they were mean. It was fun though."

Later that year, Malta's M-ettes combined with Montana State University Northern's team in Havre to take on Brigham Young University from Utah.

"We got slaughtered," Cummings said. "I remember that game because I am the only one that made a field goal. They let me shoot a few times but Jackie made six free throws but other than that there wasn't much scoring."

Luckily, every game wasn't as brutal for the 1968 M-ettes.

"That was probably the dirtiest game I had ever played in," Sunford said.

Cummings graduated from Malta High School and has worked for the United State Post office for 39 years. She and husband John Cummings have four children and 13 grandchildren.

Taylor graduated from Malta High in 1970, went to Western Montana College on a basketball scholarship, earned a Bachelors in Education then later went back to school at the University of New Mexico and earned a Bachelors of Science in Pharmacy.

Sunford graduated from Malta High in 1970, went to college, worked several years for the Legislature in Helena and eventually came back to Malta to work for First Security Bank. Sunford and her husband have three children and three grandchildren.

Dunbar also graduated from Malta High in 1970. After graduation, she moved to Great Falls and then started working for a Chevy Dealership. She went on to become an accountant, an occupation that she holds to this day. She moved back to Malta in 1997 and lives North of Whitewater. She has three children, 13 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.