Tiger Sports

Interscholastic athletic competition had began at Hastings High by at least 1904 when accounts of a football team are seen in newspapers. Basketball was active by at least 1907 when the school board approved a game at York. By 1911 football, basketball, and track teams were organized for Tiger boys. The basketball team's first of a state-record 58 state tournament appearances was in 1912. In 1908 a 440-yard dash athlete named Vreeland won the first Tiger track gold medal.

Hastings won YMCA state cross country championships in 1922 and 1923. George Wahlquist (pictured) was a state tennis champion in 1931. The gymnastics team won the first of its six state titles in 1940, and future Olympic diver Jerry Anderson won a state title for the swimming team in 1948. By the 1950s Hastings was winning conference golf championships, and in the sixties they were winning multiple state titles. Wrestling started at HHS in 1962, and the Barrows brothers won the first state titles in 1966.

For years the only girls sports were contained in the mostly-intramural Girls Athletic Association (GAA) that started in 1920s and the Flamingos synchronized swim team which was organized when the new high school building (with pool) was finished in 1955. In 1971 the first interscholastic girls team was formed for track. Sally Sneller (pictured) will be the first Tiger girl state champ when she wins the Class A mile in 1979. Volleyball becomes the first girls team sport in 1972. The girls join the boys in the swimming pool and tennis courts in 1974. The first girls basketball team was formed in 1975. Girls ran for the boys cross country team in the late seventies and had their own team in 1982. The 1986 girls tennis team wins HHS's first girls state team championship.

The 1990 saw the next big expansion of the Tiger athletic program, as boys and girls soccer kicked off in the spring followed by girls golf in the fall. In 1998 the Tigers fielded their first softball squad.

Baseball has had a couple incarnations at HHS. Unofficial teams were organized in the early days of the 20th century around the time when Major League Hall of Fame Honoree Arthur 'Dazzy' Vance (pictured) was a Tiger. The program had a one-year rebirth during 1942, and the Tigers played in the NSAA state tournament that spring. Baseball was again added to the program in 2017 and played it's first game at Norris High School on March 16, 2017.

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