2015 Phyllis L. Tubbs Service Award

Cheryl Girman, Fegley Middle School, Portage

In 1975-76 the ICGSA Executive Board established this award to be given to honor an ICGSA member who has served girls’ athletics for several years. The recipient should have been or is an active member of ICGSA, and has established longevity through several years of service to girls’ athletics and the association. In 2002-03 the Executive Board named this award the Phyllis L. Tubbs Service Award.

Our Service Award winner grew up in Northwest Indiana, “The Region”, playing backyard basketball, baseball, and whatever other games with the boys and girls in the neighborhood. She got to play softball leagues in the summer starting at a young age and GAA from middle school through the beginning of high school never realizing that girls couldn’t play sports at the same level as boys. At Portage High School she lettered in volleyball, basketball, and track and continued to play travel softball in the summer. She remembers playing in the IHSAA girls’ basketball state tournament losing to LaTonya Pollard, an eventual All-American, on that year’s state champion East Chicago Roosevelt in the semi-state. She continued her athletic career playing varsity volleyball, basketball, and softball at Butler University.

In 1982 she returned to Portage to teach Physical Education at Fegely Middle School. Even though she enjoyed coaching middle school volleyball, basketball, and track in 1983 she moved up to freshman volleyball and then onto coaching varsity volleyball in 1985 and coached until 1996 when she retired from coaching after the birth of her second child. She found out that coaching was still in her blood and began coaching younger girls’ basketball & softball in the Valparaiso Park Leagues, Boys and Girls Club, and theYMCA.  In addition she coached in the Valparaiso Volleyball Club through 2009. She became an IHSAA volleyball official right after high school and has continued officiating – even has her next’s year schedule full. She also was an IHSAA softball official for 30 years.

She attended her first ICGSA conference as a sophomore in college and joined both the ICGSA and AAHPHERD after college and continues to be a member of both. Our recipient was elected to two terms on our ICGSA Executive Board where she served as the Secretary, 2^nd Vice-President, and 1^st Vice-President prior to assuming the Presidency in 2000-01.   She indicates that some of her fondest memories of the ICGSA were being a part of the Executive Board and the friendships she made.

In addition to her service to the ICGSA she served on the IHSAA Girls’ Advisory Committee from 1994-96, and has actively contributed to the Valparaiso Parks Department by serving as the Director of Adult volleyball leagues, was a Volleyball League Official for seven years, served on the Volleyball League Committee for four years, and the Girls’ Softball Committee for two years. She was a member of the American Volleyball Coaches Association from 1983-1999.

The Executive Board has chosen to honor Cheryl Girman for her Service not only to ICGSA but her continued service to the young female athletes in the “Region” in Northwest Indiana. In addition to the plaque that Tom Rupert, our president is presenting to Cheryl, she will receive the gold Service Award ring from Gary Clark of Clarks School Service our Herff Jones Corporate Sponsor. On behalf of the ICGSA Executive Board, I present to you the recipient of our 2015 Phyllis L. Tubbs Service Award – Cheryl Girman from Fegley Middle School.