With prep sports suspended due to the coronavirus, Hawaii Prep World will look back on a random day in history. Today, we check out what the landscape looked like 100 years ago.
Hawaii was battling an influenza epidemic in 1920, but the Honolulu Advertiser happily reported that although 25 new cases of the flu were reported on that day, nobody died. There had been 3,492 cases reported since the beginning of the year and 192 of them died in the last month.
The St. Andrews girls basketball team was hit by tragedy, although it is not clear it was related to the flu, when 16-year old teammate Annie Dorothy Copp expired after a ‘long illness’ on March 17.
The Priory was scheduled to play a game against the University of Hawaii that day, but the contest was called off and rescheduled. When the teams were finally supposed to play, the game was rained out before the Priory finally beat the College of Hawaii 51-17 after the two postponements. That set up a match with the Normal School for the title.
Two weeks after Copp’s death, St. Andrews finally took the floor for the playoff game and the smaller Priory girls won 32-23 on McKinley’s court. St. Andrews finished the season 6-1 with their lone loss coming to the Normal School.
It was the fifth title in six years for St. Andrews, with their only failure coming in 1917 against McKinley. That suggests that Copp hoisted a few trophies before her tragic end.
Thelma Moore and Eda Theone were named league all-stars before the championship game, with Copp not receiving a mention. Moore impressed voters for switching positions when Copp died and Florence Davison was forced to stop playing because of the flu. Guard Blossom Mossman received honorable mention.
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