Whitehall athletes celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day

WHITEHALL — The joy and excitement was evident on little faces Wednesday morning as Whitehall female athletes marched through the district's two elementary schools and the middle school high-fiving students in observance of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, an annual celebration the first week of each February.

Emily MacArthur, assistant girls basketball coach and a counselor at Whitehall, got the idea for the school visits when a Shoreline Elementary student asked her last fall, "Where are all the girls?" while the Vikings' football team took part in a similar visit. It wasn't long before she was teaming with the Whitehall athletic department, as well as school staffers Carrie Goodrich and Bobbi Oldenburg, to organize a similar event for the Vikings' girls athletes.

MacArthur is, of course, a former athlete herself, a 1,000-point scorer for the Viking girls from 2012-15 who went on to play at Hope College. It was that Hope connection that stood out when MacArthur was asked if she could arrange for a guest speaker as part of the school's girls sports celebration, as the first name that popped to mind was a former coach of hers, Courtney Kust, still an assistant coach as well as associate athletic director for the Flying Dutch.

"When I was at Hope, every time that she spoke and gave a message, it was always so connective," MacArthur said. "It just made sense. Everything that she said, it was something that you wanted to listen to and it made an impact on you. I knew that if she came here to talk to our high school student-athletes, they would have the same response."

Kust came with questions ("What motivates you? What holds you back?") and with clips of current stars, such as A'ja Wilson of the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces and star tennis player Coco Gauff. But she also shared a photo of the fired-up Hope bench during a game, pointing out that part of being a great player - part of competing, period - is lifting others up.

"The more we can keep women in sports, the more that we can inspire them to chase after dreams together, to learn teamwork, to learn what hard work means," Kust said. "All those character traits that are developed through sports, it's going to help later in life. I've seen that firsthand at Hope. I've seen that firsthand through witnessing high school athletes."

Kust also cited a much-shared statistic that a whopping 94 percent of women in top-level business roles played sports growing up.

They were all messages that resonated with the girls in the crowd, among them senior Viking leaders Sidney Shepherd and Grace McDowell.

"She really elaborated on the importance of showing up every day, working hard every day and showing what you want to be known for," McDowell said of Kust. "It's really how you carry yourself on and off the court and how you want to have a positive impact on your teammates."

The experience of going through the hallways of their former schools and high-fiving excited students - at Shoreline Elementary, the Whitehall fight song played on a loop and the young students all seemed to know the "rah-rah-rah, Whitehall" cheer that ends the song - was meaningful to the Viking seniors, who remembered what it was like to be the younger set.

"It was really special, our school giving us the opportunity to even do that and walk through the hallways and see all those little girls and boys looking up to us, and how awesome it is that they're going to eventually be in our spot," Shepherd said.

It also meant a lot to MacArthur - who was once one of those kids too - and reminded her of why she returned to Whitehall as a counselor in the first place.

"I came back to Whitehall because of the Viking spirit," MacArthur said. "It's something that's so cool, and seeing that is just awesome."

MacArthur may have an assistant coach title, but events like Wednesday's show the level of ownership she has in the Viking girls' program - as does the state coaches' association coach of the week award she won last season, an award that usually goes to head coaches. MacArthur credited varsity coach Brian Milliron with empowering her, and Kust's tutelage has clearly been a big part of her growth in coaching as well.

"Whitehall basketball is something I grew up in," MacArthur said. "It gave me so many of the skills that I have today, to be a good co-worker, to still be a learner, and all those things. To be able to have such a role in Whitehall girls basketball, it means so much to me. It's one of my favorite things in the whole world."

Women's sports continues its growth, boosted by current stars such as Wilson, Gauff, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and so many others. Whitehall did its part Wednesday to help fuel that fire.

"it's really cool what Whitehall is doing here, to have a whole morning dedicated to this day," Kust said. "Any opportunity that we have as coaches and as former female athletes, to empower and inspire either the younger generation...I think it's really cool that the high school athletes went through the elementary and middle school and they were able to start building those relationships and seeing those athletes in a different light."