With an official 7 p.m. start (and a senior night ceremony starting at 6:45), Chief Sealth International High School will host their first home gymnastics meet in decades on Jan. 25.

Holy Names Academy and West Seattle High School will visit for the meet. This past summer was the first time West Seattle and Chief Sealth split their teams since the early 90's (they were a co-op team throughout that period).

As Sealth Athletic Director Sam Reed explains:

· Through the 1970’s gymnastics was big, and records show pictures of Chief Sealth hosting meets up through 1977 or 1978.

· When participation numbers began to dwindle, we stopped hosting meets, although practices were held in our upstairs gyms through the early 80’s.

· In the early 90’s we entered into a co-op partnership with West Seattle High school, where they hosted gymnastics for the two schools, and Sealth hosted swimming. This partnership stayed in place until this summer when, because of Chief Sealth’s growth of the two programs, participation necessitated splitting the two programs up. During the co-op time, “home” meets were all held at West Seattle. Even during West Seattle’s remodel in the early 00’s, meets were not held at Sealth (although practices were).

· Our current girls gymnastics program has 33 participating student athletes and is coached by Echo Balliett-Legge who in recent years led the co-op team, but moved this year to work with the Sealth girls exclusively.

Reed is currently researching the archives to figure out exactly when the last meet was held at Sealth, but it looks like a good 30 years according to his initial calculations!