My daughter, a 1995 graduate of Rose Hill Christian School, was a cheerleader during her final two years of high school. Thus, my wife and I attended most of the Royals boys basketball games — both home and away — during the 1993-94 and the 1994-95 seasons.

Let me tell you, we did not do it because we wanted to see exciting and well-played high school basketball games. We did it to support our daughter and the other cheerleaders and to encourage the boys on the court to play to the best of their ability.

This was in the days before the arrival of O.J. Mayo at Rose Hill. Despite all the controversy around O.J. at Rose Hill, I think he was a positive for the region. He helped fill the stands wherever the Royals were playing and gave area fans a chance to see a truly gifted player in action.

But this column is not about O.J. It is about Rose Hill basketball in the years before O.J. when wins were few and far between.

The Rose Hill teams my daughter cheered for while a student at the school were made up of whatever boys happened to be attending the private Christian school. My daughter was one of only seven members of her graduating class at Rose Hill. That means the school did not have many boys from which to choose a basketball team.

If school officials tried to lure good basketball players to Rose Hill in those days, they did a lousy job of it. I suspect that many of Rose Hill’s players in those days would not have even made the team at other area high schools. But if you tried out at Rose Hill, you made the team, and if you were on the team, chances are you got to play.

It’s not that the Royals didn’t try. They always played hard. Even if the score was 50 to 10, the scrappy Royals would be out there battling for the ball. It’s just that all the other teams were taller and faster.

While the Royals did play smaller schools like Elliott County, Fairview and Raceland in those days, they didn’t even attempt to play against the likes of Ashland or Boyd County until forced to do so during the tournament. Instead, they spent most of the season playing other small Christian schools and teams like Millersburg Military Academy.

Oh, and did I mention Augusta? When my wife and I traveled to Augusta on the day after Thanksgiving, I reminded her of that last time we had been to the beautiful and historic town on the banks of the Ohio River. I remember it well because it proved to be a memorable night in Rose Hill basketball history.

The Rose Hill boys were in the midst of a long, long, long losing streak as the night of the Augusta game approached. I don’t exactly remember how many consecutive games the Royals had lost, but I know it was more than 20 but less than 30. It had been almost a year since my daughter had been able to celebrate a victory.

But despite their winless record, it was believed Rose Hill had a chance against tiny Augusta. In fact, in that week’s Litkenhous Ratings of high school boys basketball teams in Kentucky, Rose Hill and Augusta were ranked as the two worst teams in the state, with Rose Hill being deemed the worst.

But the ratings were wrong. On this night, Rose Hill got the proverbial monkey off its back by upsetting the home team. To be sure, the game was as ugly as you would expect a game featuring two bad teams would be, but that didn’t make any difference. The Rose Hill players were so happy to taste victory one would have thought they had won a state championship.

During those years, I never expected Rose Hill to field a winning team. I had sent my daughter to the school for a Christian education and because she needed the small classes the school offered. The school’s basketball team was of little or no importance to me.

I write all of this because with the boys team is now being barred from postseason tournaments for the next two years, I suspect the “bad old days” of Rose Hill basketball are about to return.

Well, I have news for you: Those days were not so bad. It gave some players the only chance they would ever have to play varsity basketball, and allowed my wife and I to spend two seasons rooting for the underdog — and everybody loves the underdog.

JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2649.