Dave Christie was hired to coach Oak Harbor's boys’ basketball team beginning with the 1974-75 season, and it didn't take long for him to start getting advice from the community.

“The guy who owned the IGA store in Oak Harbor, I introduced myself and he said, 'I don't care of you lose them all, as long as you beat Genoa,' ” Christie recalled. “I didn't realize Genoa had guys who were 6-6, 6-5…It took me a while to beat them.”

The Comets, led by Coach Dave Hitchen, didn't lose much to anyone back then. Genoa didn't lose a Suburban Lakes League game for the first three years after joining the newly-formed league in 1972-73. Its 1973-74 team, led by 6-10 Ron Hammye, reached the Class AA state semifinals.

“Genoa was our (main) rival for a long time,” Christie said. “When I first came to Oak Harbor, after Hammye graduated, they still had great talent. Hitchens' teams were always big and he always had great talent. They were a zone team and with his size they just made it tough defensively on you.”

Genoa won the SLL title in 1978, the year after Hitchen resigned, under coach Bill Axe. Lakota and Oak Harbor then took turns dominating the SLL. Lakota won titles from 1979-81 before Oak Harbor's run of three straight championships. The Rockets also took second in 1978, '79 and '81.

“Lakota had a great run of talent,” Christie said. “They had this kid by the name of Hedge, who was 6-3 or 6-4, and a kid named Sugar, who won the state hurdles. They just had a bunch of athletes in there. They pressed you all the time.”

Christie's 1982-83 team, which included his sons, Dan and Don, reached the Class AA state semifinals. Three years later, Oak Harbor left the SLL to join the Sandusky Bay Conference. Dave Christie retired following the 1984-85 season, but he continued to follow the Rockets and the SLL. Don Christie went on to coach two SLL schools, Lake and Woodmore, and coached for two years at Oak Harbor.

Dave Christie, who was still teaching at Oak Harbor, said the school's decision to leave the SLL following the 1985-86 season “didn't go over well” with some league schools.

“For one, Gary Quisno was having great football teams and we were tough in basketball,” Christie said. “From that standpoint, (the league) didn't mind it. But, we drew well. In the SBC, we never drew crowds like we did in the SLL. A lot of it was the closeness. You have Genoa and Woodmore, which were both close, and Eastwood – all of those were big rivals. When Lakota got good, they became a big rival.

“We had more rivals in the SLL than we ever did in the SBC. You could just see it in the attendance when we went to the SBC. We're way over here on this side of the bridge and people didn't come. We'd go over to Lakota and if you didn't have a ticket, you couldn't get in. That stopped existing. Oak Harbor has always traveled well, but they didn't travel well going over towards Sandusky.”

Christie said he understands why the SLL is dissolving at the end of this school year.

Six of the SLL's seven current members will help form the Northern Buckeye Conference beginning in 2011-12. The NBC will consist of Eastwood, Elmwood, Genoa, Lake, Otsego, Woodmore, Fostoria and Rossford. Gibsonburg, the smallest school in the SLL, is joining the Toledo Area Athletic Conference.

“Gibsonburg has a hard time competing,” Christie said. “Lakota had hard times; enrollment went down. I think it's a good move for Gibsonburg to get out of the SLL. They're going to be great in that (TAAC). The new league will be a nice league, and the schools are more even with enrollment.”

Don Christie followed in his father's coaching footsteps, becoming the head boys coach at Lake for one season and then having a successful eight-year run at Woodmore through the 2004-05 season. Christie's Wildcats won one SLL title and took second seven times.

He also coached at Oak Harbor in 2007-08 and 2008-09 and is now an assistant principal at Oak Harbor Middle School.

“When I coached at Woodmore, we bordered Gibsonburg, Eastwood, Genoa, and every time you played those schools, it was a rivalry game,” Don Christie said. “Those gyms were full. As a coach, that was fun. You don't have to give a pre-game pep talk because they're pumped to play, and that's fun to coach in those games.”

Christie still has fond memories of competing as a player in the SLL. He said Oak Harbor's main rivals back then were Genoa, Woodmore and Lakota.

“At that time Jeff Haar was playing at Woodmore,” Christie said. “My freshman and sophomore year it would have been Lakota, which was really good. They made it to the regional finals my freshman year and lost to Napoleon, which had Tim Reiser.

“Lakota was phenomenal. I remember going to Lakota my freshman year and the gym being sold out before the jayvee game even started.”

Oak Harbor always played in front of packed gyms during its successful run before, during and after reaching the state semifinals. Every SLL team, Christie said, got used to playing to sellout crowds.

“Oak Harbor has really missed out since they left the SLL, because of the number of rivalries,” Christie said. “When we played Genoa, Woodmore, Eastwood, whether those were winning teams or losing teams, the crowds were there. You were going into full gyms. Ever since Oak Harbor left that for the SBC, it's not even close to the excitement and the enthusiasm that we had in the SLL.

“When I was coaching at Oak Harbor, when we played Genoa and Woodmore, those were the biggest crowds we had all year. All those (SLL) schools were so close geographically, the people worked together at Brush-Bellman and all these different places, and that builds those rivalries.”

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