Lucky ducks in Sapulpa

Theresa Bowers, Sapulpa
Athletic Director

Basketball is special at the Sapulpa Boys & Girls Club. You could even call it ducky. But first a story. Where I grew up, we waited until the seventh grade to play basketball. I expected to be good at it. Who cared if I was short and small? I was fast. But I may not have been any good. I certainly couldn’t guard or shoot. The gym teacher told me she wanted me to play a special position called The Rover. “The Rover just goes where she is needed,” Miss Waddell said. So I ran all over the court, looking for someone who needed help. They were usually on my team. I had a great time. When I started going to basketball games in high school, I would ask friends if they had ever heard of the Rover position. They never had, probably because it didn’t exist, except in Miss Waddell’s mind. What a kind coach.


There are no Rovers in the Sapulpa Boys & Girls Club basketball program, but there are 850 kids and lately the stands have been packed. Club director Jake Law invented a fundraiser called “Toss a Duck, Win an IPad 2!” Theresa Bowers, athletic director, helps make it happen. At halftime, fans toss rubber ducks at a target on the court. The three fans who get their ducks closest to the bull’s eye get pop or candy and the winner gets his or her name in a drawing for a free IPad 2. Three IPad 2s will be given away and the people who win them will be some Lucky Ducks, but they’ll never be The Rover. Only I got to be The Rover. 

-Sallie