Years apart, together again
Reflecting on double-dipped championships
Staff writer
It’s been nearly 35 years, but for Marion High School’s volleyball and girls’ cross country teams of 1991, it didn’t feel that way.
Players and coaches were together again Saturday, riding on a float during the Old Settlers Day parade down Main St. After years apart, they were together again.
It didn’t take long for the years to disappear.
“It all felt like we all just came in, sat down, and it was like no time had passed,” Patty Putter, then an assistant coach, said.
The reunion began Friday night at Rusty Spur Saloon in Florence. Saturday brought the parade, followed by lunch at Traci (Darrow) Lanning’s house.
Then came a surprise.
A VHS tape was waiting.
It was footage of the 1991 state championship volleyball match, something none of the players had seen. They had watched other recordings over the years but never that one.
“It was incredible,” Iris Shanklin said with a laugh. “People making jokes, giving each other a hard time or kudos — like we were watching it live.”
Watching the tape brought back more than memories of a volleyball championship, though.
For Shanklin, it brought back one of the most frantic days of her life.
No matter how much training went into it, nothing could have prepared her and Angie Bina for what Nov. 9, 1991, would become.
That morning, Shanklin and Bina were in Manhattan, helping Marion High School win a state championship in girls’ cross country. The Warriors, coached by Rex Wilson, won the Class 2-1A state title by nearly 20 points over Riley County and Stanton County.
Then, almost immediately, it was time to leave.
The medals had barely been handed out when Shanklin and Bina were back on the road, racing to Salina for the state volleyball championship later that same day.
“I just recall running and then heading out as quickly as we could,” Shanklin said.
Months earlier, the two had trained for that possibility. If cross country and volleyball both made it to the final day, they would have to find a way to compete in both.
There never was any question whether they would try.
That preparation, Shanklin said, ultimately “took us to winning” two state championships within 24 hours.
“Just the support from all our teammates and coaches allowed us to do that,” she said through tears. “It’s just the love and friendships and support from all our teammates during that time.”
For years, one detail of that day had become something of a legend.
A rumor circulated that Shanklin and Bina had flown by private jet from Manhattan to Salina to make the volleyball championship.
It turns out that was only a rumor. They instead rode a bus.
“It was a question of controversy in our group,” Shanklin said. “In our memories, all the other girls thought we flew there, but Angie and I recollected that we were driven by the principal.”
For Marion’s volleyball team, waiting in Salina, there was nothing funny about it.
Katrina Hancock, then a middle blocker, remembers a relief that washed over her and the rest of the team when Shanklin and Bina finally arrived.
They had missed the first volleyball match, Hancock said, forcing coach Jim Versch to start other players in their places.
Time passed.
Then more waiting.
Finally, doors opened, and there Shanklin and Bina were.
“They made it. They’re safe. They’re here to help us win,” Hancock recalled thinking. “It was just good. It was a relief to see them play.”
Shanklin and Bina barely had time to process their arrival.
Running shoes came off. Volleyball shoes went on.
Years later, while watching the VHS recording, Shanklin saw herself tying her shoes inside Salina’s Bicentennial Center after coming through the doors.
“It was pretty much a ‘hurry up and change’ ordeal,” she said.
Somehow, Marion kept winning.
The Warriors’ volleyball run hardly began like one.
Marion entered the postseason with 10 losses and barely squeaked into sub-state on total points. The Warriors then advanced to the state tournament, where they lost their opening quarterfinal match to Moundridge in three sets.
From there, everything changed.
Marion defeated Jefferson County North and Uniontown, then beat Otis-Bison a week later to earn another shot at Jefferson County North in the championship match.
This time, the Warriors finished the job, winning in straight sets.
“We just had the right mix of girls,” Hancock, who now lives in Detroit, said. “It was fantastic.”
Her teammates remember the transformation, too.
“At the beginning of the year, I don’t think we did so great,” Lanning, a back-row defender, said. “We kind of struggled for a while. It just kind of all came together in the end at the right time.”
The turnaround began with a midseason pep talk from Versch.
Four simple words began defining who they could, and eventually would, become: “It’s up to you.”
“We knew we had the talent,” Shanklin said. “We were losing games we shouldn’t have lost. It was Versch and Patty’s leadership that really helped turn the season around for us.”
Putter remembers a team that eventually developed chemistry unlike any other she experienced during her coaching career.
It was a group of girls who “gelled together more than any other team that we’d had,” she said.
Chemistry mattered when Shanklin and Bina were racing across the state.
While the two were making their way from Manhattan to Salina, players who stepped into their places kept Marion alive.
“The two girls who started in place of Iris and Angie stepped up big,” Lanning said.
Shanklin and Bina then arrived, and the Warriors finished what they started.
Now, almost 35 years later, the accomplishment remains unique in Marion history.
“It’s never happened in Marion,” Putter said. “We’re the only ones. We’ve had some state champions in wrestling, but that’s an individual sport.
“It was a big deal. It was rare.”
For Shanklin and Bina, Nov. 9, 1991, was a whirlwind of competition — a day that moved so quickly there was barely time to think.
Somehow, some way, they won both.
Trophies remain part of the story. So do friendships, which perhaps matter more.
“Just hearing about what they’re doing and their families, you know, it wasn’t just about volleyball,” Lanning said.
For Shanklin, seeing everyone again brought the whole thing full circle.
“To meet back up with them, and not skip a beat even though we haven’t seen each other for many years,” she said, “or even spoken to some people since graduation, it’s just so meaningful.
“It was like 35 years hadn’t passed.”