The Pirate Basketball team will travel to Clarksville tonight, Friday, December 9th for a MSC rivalry showdown against the Generals.  Charlestown Pirate Pride Sports Broadcasting will cover the game live beginning at approximately 7:15 pm at www.CPPSB.com or on the free CPPSB mobile device app.  Clarksville will also hold its annual Teddy Toss between the 3rd and 4th quarters of tonight’s game.  Bring a new teddy bear (with the tag still attached) to the game tonight, suitable for a holiday gift for a child, and get the opportunity to throw it out onto the court for a free hot dog and drink, sponsored by the Clarksville HS Athletic Department and the Clarksville Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

Tuesday’s Pirate and Lady Pirate Varsity Basketball double-header hosting Henryville, will mark the Official kick off of the Centennial Celebration of Charlestown Basketball.  One Hundred Years ago the Charlestown High School Pirate Basketball program began competition with a November 1916 inaugural game versus the Henryville Hornets.  So fittingly, Tuesday’s home varsity double-header with Henryville will kick the Centennial Celebration into high gear.

Tuesday night’s games are historic for Pirate Nation fans, don’t miss the opportunity to be able to say you were there for the 100th anniversary game of Pirate Basketball.  Just prior to the game, the Athletic Department will be  honoring one our most distinguished, loyal and dedicated Pirates of all time Chuck Ledbetter, Sr.  Ledbetter is the Pirate Basketball historian who authored Pirates of the Hardwood, chronicling one hundred years of Charlestown Pirate Basketball.  Recently, Ledbetter completed a follow-up to the book, “The Pirates 100th – Centennial Basketball – 1917-2017” to celebrate the occasion.  The book features short essays of the best individual athletes to hit the hardwood floor for the Pirates and includes basketball stats that were not covered in “Pirates of the Hardwood.”  The follow-up book will be on sale Tuesday for $25.00 each while supplies (200 available); with all proceeds from the centennial book going to Charlestown High School’s Athletics.

The Charlestown HS Athletic Department would also like to thank Always First Driving Academy and Coach Allan Cundiff for helping sponsor this Centennial Celebration of Pirate Basketball at Charlestown High School.

Lady Pirate Basketball varsity game against Henryville Tuesday night will tip at 6:00 pm with the Pirate Basketball varsity game against Henryville tipping shortly after at approximately 7:30 pm.  You can listen to the game live on the CHS Pirate Network, WPMQ 99.3 FM Radio in Charlestown.

The Charlestown Pirate Basketball team (1-1 & 1-0 MSC) defeated Silver Creek Tuesday evening in the CHS Sports Arena 51-46; right after Pirate for Life Steve Hamilton was recognized as part of the Centennial Celebration year of Pirate Basketball.  The Hamilton family in the house proved to be good luck for the Pirates; or maybe inspiration for Senior Jordon Knoebel, who led the winning cause.  The Pirates led the Dragons 10-9 after the first stanza and 25-22 at the half; before Charlestown maintained the momentum advantage to a 51-46 finish.  The Pirates were led by Senior Jordon Knoebel, who finished the game with 17 points and four assists.  Seniors Trey Woodward added nine points and Trey Shafer added seven to pace the Pirates to their first boys basketball victory over the Dragons since 2012.  “Tonight I thought we played a great TEAM game, while also playing really good defense”, summarized Pirate Head Coach Jason Connell on the win.  Charlestown will see the Dragons again soon, as they match up in the Silver Creek Holiday Tourney on Tuesday, December 27th at 7:30 pm.  The Pirates travel to Scottsburg on Friday to continue MSC play.

Steve Hamilton, the two-sport Pirate star athlete, will be recognized in the second series of events by the Charlestown High School Athletic Department and the Centennial Committee as the boy’s basketball program continues to celebrate their 100^th Anniversary.

Members of Hamilton’s family will be at mid-court where a life-size framed photograph of the legendary Pirate has already been placed in his honor at the Charlestown Sports Arena, Tuesday, November 29, 2016, between the Pirates-Silver Creek Dragons games.

Hamilton, who was coached by Harold Reis and Billy L. Abel, lettered in basketball and baseball at Charlestown. He led the Pirates to an 18-5 exceptional mark his senior year, before bowing to the Red Devils in the Jeffersonville sectional finals. He had a game-high of 18 points in the loss.

In 1952, Hamilton set the single-game scoring record at Charlestown. He pumped in 38 points against Henryville at the Hornets gym.

Hamilton, who had double-digits 22 times in his career, is credited with scoring 372 points in 21 games his senior year. That season, Hamilton had games of 38, 28, 26, 25 and 24. Though records are incomplete for Hamilton’s two seasons of varsity Pirates, he is attributed with an overall career mark of 446 points. He ended with an 18-ppga before entering his collegiate career at Morehead State University (MSU) in Kentucky.  At MSU, Hamilton set five basketball records, all in the rebounding department, including single-season average of 20.1 per game, average career 16.4, single game 38, single season 543 rebounds and career 1,675 boards. His career-best single-game performance of 51 points came versus Ohio University during the season of 1956-57. He was named an All-American that season.

Hamilton is the only two-sport athlete to play in the NCAA Basketball Championships, a Major League Baseball World Series and a National Basketball Championship series. He is famous among Major League Baseball aficionado for his pitch called the “folly-floater.”

After his professional career, Hamilton returned to his alma mater to coach Morehead’s baseball team. He coached the Eagles for 10 seasons leading them to a 230-173 record. He guided the Eagles to four divisional championships, one regular season title and two trips to the NCAA tournament.  He is Morehead’s all-time winningest coach with 305 victories.

In 1988, Hamilton was named the Athletic Director of Morehead State and served as MSU’s athletic director until his death in 1997.  Before his untimely death, he was inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame.

Charlestown High School is celebrating their 100^th Anniversary of the boys’ basketball program during the current 2016-17 season.

In celebration of that milestone, the Charlestown High School Athletic Department will have a series of events to honor the Pirates basketball past, which began during the initial boys’ basketball season of 1916-17.  The series of events will recognize those who have contributed during the last 100 years to the hoops program.  All events are scheduled at home games during the boys’ regular basketball season.

The first 100th Anniversary events will be held during the Girls and Boys Varsity double-header with New Washington on Tuesday, November 22nd, in the CHS Sports Arena.  Charlestown Boys and Girls Basketball 1,000 point career scorers will be honored between the games at approximately 7:15 pm.  Charlestown High School Pirates’ esteemed coaches, Billy L. Abel and John E. Wood, will also be recognized and honored at halftime of the Boys game Tuesday evening as part of the 100th Anniversary celebration.

Coach Billy L. Abel, 95, from Franklin, Indiana; the esteemed mentor will be recognized as the Charlestown Pirates oldest living coach.  He served as coach during the 1952 and 1953 basketball campaigns, which he tutored among other talented players, the legendary Pirate, Steve Hamilton, who went onto greatness in the professional world of sports.

Coach Abel, a graduate of Vincennes High School and Franklin College, was an outstanding player for the 1939 Alices, who won the Vincennes Sectional and Regional and advanced to the Evansville Semi-State, losing to Evansville Bosse in the championship game.

Abel was part of the physical training program in the Air Corps during World War II, where he played basketball with the professionally well-known Kelly Field Flyers. He made his first public high school coaching appearance at Pekin. From 1949 to 1951, he was assistant basketball coach to Paoli Ramblers esteemed mentor D. E. Chambers before coming to Charlestown.

While at Charlestown, Coach Abel had an overall winning record of 30-13 and was the Pirates 14th varsity boys’ basketball coach. His talented 1952 Pirates won the annual Clark County Invitational Tournament, one of the premier tourneys in the region at the time. It was the eighth time the Pirates had won the coveted tournament in its history.

After leaving Charlestown, Coach Abel held several key administrative posts at different Indiana high schools in his professional career. Among them were Attica, Bedford, Ben Davis and Plainfield.

After receiving his doctorate in education at Indiana University, he joined the IU faculty, where he taught teachers aspiring to become principals and superintendents at the graduate level for 22 years before retirement.

Coach John E. Wood, 85, will be recognized as Charlestown’s winningest varsity boys’ basketball coach.  Coach Wood, a graduate of Indiana University, was a star player for Coach Gerl Fur’s Morristown High School Yellow Jackets and received a college basketball scholarship to play for the distinguished Indiana University Coach Branch McCracken.

Coach Wood began his high school coaching debut at Charlestown. He served two different stints, 1956-to-1961 and 1975-to-1977 and compiled an extraordinary 139-63 record with the Pirates.

Wood’s 1957 and 1959 Pirates won the Jeffersonville Holiday Invitational Tournament, which had the Big-Four basketball teams in the region that included Jeffersonville, Silver Creek and Providence.

Coach Wood’s 1975 and 1976 Pirates won back-to-back Madison Sectionals, the first coach to achieve that record at Charlestown.

The 1976 Pirates went 20-5, 5-3 Mid-Southern Conference and captured the annual Silver Creek Holiday tourney that season, the fourth for the basketball program. The ’76 Pirates reached another milestone as a team. They became only the second team in its celebrated hoops history to break into the twenty-win column.

In his three Mid-Southern Conference seasons, Wood’s teams went 15-10. He has won five IHSAA basketball sectional crowns; two of the five were at Charlestown.

In Coach Wood’s high school coaching career of 496 games, he amassed 283 wins and was shy 17 victories of reaching his goal of 300 before his retirement from the coaching ranks.

The series of celebrated events are an open invitation to all former players, coaches, cheerleaders to join current players, coaches, cheerleaders in celebrating the Pirates 100^th Anniversary of Hoops.

Visit www.piratepride.blue/100 for additional information on upcoming events.

The Charlestown High School Boys Basketball Program will be having its annual Big Blue Madness Night on Thursday, November 10th, beginning at 6:00 pm in the CHS Sports Arena.  The Charlestown middle school teams will kick off the night scrimmaging before the the high school teams show their stuff.  Admission to Big Blue Madness is a donation of Gatorade, to be used for the Pirate players this season.