Celebrating a Long Thread of Basketball History
The very first, and arguably the greatest, Cougars back in 1970-71. Front from left: Steve Hartwell, Gary Cabana, Coach Ray Richard, Paul Boule, Tod Silegy. Back from left: Tom Lithgow, Dan Pratt, Jeff Wheeler, Dick Blood, Bill Bishop McRae, Pete Fontaine, John Banks. Missing from photo: Kevin Chapman. D uring the 1969 school year, students at Peterborough and Antrim high schools completed a survey to determine a mascot and school colors for the new Conval High School that would open in the fall of 1970. In the end, the majority chose blue and gold, and Golden Cougars. Yes, Golden Cougars. No one seems to know how it got whittled down to simply Cougars, but not to be forgotten is that one of the contenders for school mascot was Warlanders—a combination of Antrim High’s Warriors and Peterborough High’s Hilanders, symbolic of two storied high schools coming together to form something new. After all, history was about to be made. Some teachers were so excited about the new educational opp