Maine West's varsity basketball coach, Mr. Gaston Freeman, hopes to open the 1965‑66 basketball season by defeating the Barrington Broncos. This first game of the year will be played tonight at Barrington and will begin at 8:00.

This year's basketball team will need a great deal of rebuilding. Since the majority of last year's team graduated in June, Paul Moehling will be the only returning letterman to the varsity squad. Coach Freeman did say, however, that there will be many promising players such as Al Fritz, Ken Mueller, Tom Sperling, Pete Kulik, Cliff Owens, and Jim Burson. With this force, the Warriors will continue to show the tradition which it has established in the past.

"The whole Conference will be tough," Coach Freeman mentioned, "however, Forest View, Prospect, and Palatine will probably be the toughest opponents that Maine West will have to face." The Warriors will meet Forest View on January 14, Palatine on January 15, and Prospect on January 28.

The students' participation in cheering the team on for a victory is a very important part of the spirit of the Warriors. In previous years Mainites have been cheering the team on to many winning

games. It is the hope that this year the cheering section will be even more enthusiastic and louder than in the past years.

Mr. Freeman views the school spirit and the pep assemblies as a great help in building the team's spirit. The sport of basketball, to Mr. Freeman, is definitely a character building game.

Along with the team's good spirit, scholastic abilities are very important. The players need to pass three out of four of their school studies. "In my many years in athletics," Mr. Freeman said, "I have found that when there is a good sound athletic program, there will also be excellent scholastic abilities; the two seem to intermingle."

When asked to comment about last year's heartbreaking defeat to St. Patrick's High School, Coach Freeman replied, "Any defeat is hard to take." This defeat, however, kept the Maine 'West basketball team from going down state.

The Mainites are backing up the basketball team in all the games this season. We are cheering the team and are hoping we will win all the games so Maine can go down state. Remember, team, the students are behind you 100 per cent.