This season is dedicated to ...

Corvallis High girls basketball coach Joe Williamson was walking toward the CHS gym with assistant coach Lindsay Schnell last Thursday when he peered through the gym’s double doors.

Across the court a sign caught his eye.

He could easily make out the name of his late father, Harold Williamson.

Schnell was in mid-sentence, but Williamson just kept walking.

He walked past the gym, down the hall, to the locker rooms and into boys basketball coach Greg Garrison’s office.

He then went into the bathroom, closed the door and took a moment to gather himself.

On the wall was a sign made by two of his players — Kayla and Karly Laney — and read: “This season is dedicated to ... Harold Williamson.”

“I was amazed and touched, a little emotional, actually quite emotional,” Williamson said after the game, which the Spartans won 55-46 over his former team to clinch a share of the Mid-Willamette Conference title.

“I went and hid for a while so nobody saw it.”

Well, the players could tell how much the sign meant to Williamson.

The idea came to Karly Laney one night when she was supposed to be working on her homework.

“I wasn’t paying attention very well and I came up with the idea of getting shirts that said, ‘This season is dedicated to Harold Williamson,’ ” Karly said.

That was just over a week ago and she knew the team wouldn’t have time to get it done for the final game of the regular season.

So she thought about making a poster. She and her sister used their leadership class that Thursday to make the poster and then hung it on the gym wall.

“It took forever, but it was worth it,” Karly said. “When I saw him come out on the court it was worth it. He got teary-eyed and I knew it was sentimental to him.”

It was Harold Williamson who had encouraged his son to apply for the open position last year.

The day Joe was informed the job was his was the same day his father passed away from cancer.

“We figured we were going to win it for him because he’s the reason he’s here in the first place,” junior McKenzie Redberg said. “We needed to show him that we care about him.”

It was a touching moment, one Williamson won’t soon forget.

“Again it shows their character, that they are thinking outside of themselves, and that is really unusual for high school kids,” Williamson said.

That character and family feel is a big reason why the Spartans were able to go from a nine-win team last season, to a squad that has won 18 this season and will play in the postseason.