Our family began its home-school basketball experience in 2004, when our oldest son started playing for Brazos Valley Christian Home Educators’ Association. We practiced and played our home games at the Lincoln Recreation Center, which was available much of the day. The center’s director, Lance Jackson, and his wonderful staff gave the home schooling community a warm welcome.
Our family benefited from Lance’s experience and perspective, along with the community history lessons we received from James Steen, who generally manned the front desk during the evenings and supervised the community service workers. During these visits, we learned that before integration, the Lincoln Recreation Center had been Lincoln High School, its athletic teams were called the Panthers and their colors were purple and gold. Mr. Steen helped the basketball team win a state championship in 1960.
Our home-school teams practiced at the Lincoln Center until 2007, when the varsity boys moved elsewhere to accommodate their coach’s schedule. Around that time, the number of co-ops and group classes we offered during school hours started to grow, and we began looking at a variety of places to fit our increasingly complicated scheduling demands.
Once again, the Lincoln staff welcomed us with kindness and encouragement when we formed a new program called Aggieland Homeschool Basketball in May. Lance and Mr. Steen said the Lincoln community would be honored if our team chose Lincoln High’s colors and mascot.
Our players ended up selecting purple and gray as our colors, but the mascot prevailed and we are now proud to be the AHS Panthers!
— Linda Hale, College Station resident
