
History
Each December since 1995, the Sabers boys basketball varsity team has played an exhibition game against a collection of teachers, staff, parents, graduates, and other members of the greater SOIS community. This older group of players are infamously known as the Fossils. For about the first 10 years or so of this friendly rivalry, the Fossils, believe it or not, easily won all games. This Golden Age of Fossils basketball featured many young and skillful SOIS teachers such as Steve Bonnette (former band teacher), Brian Combes (former humanities teacher and DP coordinator), Josh Berg (former English teacher), Mark Pekin (former AD), Marvin Zulauf (former science teacher), Gary Rust (former business manager) and Jim Schell (former business manager), among many others. These early Fossils squads also included a young John Searle and a springy Stephen Lewis. Even Coach Heimer and Coach Ray used to be younger.
By about the year 2005, though, many Fossils greats had moved on and the rest got old. The Sabers varsity . notched its very first win over the Fossils around this time and has never looked back, dominating the old guys year to year. Wednesday's game was the tightest in recent memory. Heimer, Ray, Routh and Mecklem are not getting any younger and the Sabers are not getting any older, but that doesn't stop the Fossils from believing "maybe next year."
2013 Fossils: Mr. Routh, Mr. Mecklem, Mr. Ray, Mr. Heimer, Mr. Yamamoto (parent), Toshinori Matsuo (graduate), Naoto Takahashi (graduate), Makoto Honda (graduate), Takumi Honda (brother), and another Honda brother.