Windham Ohio is a town so small one has to squint to see it in a Rand McNally atlas. Situated in the Western Reserve of northeastern Ohio, it is a cookie-cutter five mile square, just like every one of its neighboring townships in Portage County. Established in 1811 by 16 families from Becket Massachusetts, it spent its first 150 years as a rural community with a crossroads hamlet at its center. Windham built its first high school in 1883, and graduated its first class of four scholars in 1886. Because its population never rose above 300 for the first 130 years, the only organized sport at first was community baseball. Sometime after the turn of the twentieth century, the high school began sponsoring football teams on a field across the street from the wooden high school. These teams tended to exist or vanish from year to year, and none of them are remembered as being very good. The history of Windham athletics changes in 1927 with the construction of a new all-brick high school with the town's first gymnasium, on the site of the former football field. Beginning in that year, Windham had both boys and girls basketball teams. Football sponsorship continued to be haphazard during the 1930's, as the small high school often did not even have eleven boys enrolled at one time. That would soon change, and Windham became a completely different community after 1940, when the federal government appropriate half its land to build the Ravenna Arsenal, a bomb-making facility. But 1927 is where this history starts, taking the reader through chapters describing the girls basketball teams that rose to the top of their sport. Several chapters follow football teams that win state championships and are proclaimed the best in the world by experts. Boys basketball teams that win numerous conference trophies and sport the best records in the state of Ohio, the football team that become Portage County's first entry in the state football playoffs, Windham's role in the smallest athletic confederation in the history of the state - these are all part of Windham's heritage. And the longest chapters will dissect the career of Leo Kot, the most respected man to ever coach in Portage County, who scaled the heights of success in three different sports. Belden has spent many years researching the long-lost history of his alma mater's athletic history, and this book presents the story in a way that will touch the heart of any fan of small school sports, no matter from where they come.
About the Author: George Belden graduated from Windham High School in 1967, where he played football, wrestled, and ran track. He received his B.A. from Hiram College and his M.A. from Kent State University. He taught for 30 years at Maple Heights High School, where he coached football, and was the head coach for both volleyball and golf. He taught British Literature, Studies in Popular Culture, The Literature of Sports, and Television Journalism. He has never lived outside of Portage County. He still owns his Windham letter jacket and intends to be buried in it.