In a cruel turn of events the queen has been dealt the joker in the deck.

There is no more consummate basketball wife, basketball mom, than Della Weber. For more than four decades she kept the book - which is basketball code for run the show - in her family, one which was tied together by a love for sports, basketball in particular. And this is a big week in the Weber family, a historic week, and Della has her fingerprints all over it.

Della’s daughter, Andie (Weber) Cheleen, is the head coach of the highly successful South Platte girls basketball team, you know, the one which this week will play in its first-ever state tournament? She’s been head coach for seven years, rebuilding the program from the ground up. In the beginning the whole process was a tad overwhelming and she knew she needed a trusted helping hand.

Not much doubt who that would be.

Andie’s father, Della’s husband, is Tom Weber, one of those guys in coaching who it seems like has been around forever. Mainly because he has, at least if you can count more than 40 years in the business as forever. Tom might have been freshly retired but Andie figured Pops still had some tread left on his coaching tires, would he be willing to help teach the girls how to play proper defense?

South Platte won three games that season.

* Grandpa Tom is one of those guys who has always had a big social circle and that was the same story when he was Free Agent Tom back at Chadron State College. He had a big circle of friends but no steady girl, though one of his friends was Nancy Rubeck and that would be one relationship that would change his world forever.

See, Nancy had a sister named Della and she thought it would be sweet if Della and Tom went on a blind date. OK, said Tom, why not? Well, it was a blind date but Tom could see just fine and, by golly, turns out this was the girl for him.

Nearly 49 years of marriage later it’s still the case.

They both graduated from Chadron State, both majoring in education and in their love for each other, soon thereafter getting married and taking teaching jobs at Lodgepole, a tiny town in the far southern part of the Panhandle. Tom would teach and coach three sports at Lodgepole, and at Creek Valley once Lodgepole had merged with Chappell, and Della would be the high school business teacher, Tom’s biggest fan. She was at all the games - basketball was the family favorite - and she was mother to the couple’s three children, Jenny, Andie and Jeff, all of them basketball players.

Of course.

* It was late July and hot. Della had been feeling fine but then came a stretch where she was dealing with some headaches. After a while it was time to see the doctor, see what she had to say.

What she had to say was unexpected, terrifying and so completely unfair. Della Weber, who’d never had a mean thing to say about anybody in her life and had been that reliable, smiling, friendly face in the hallways at the school, had a brain tumor. Stage Four.

There was the first surgery, and it went pretty well, leaving Della, Tom, their family and doctor feeling pretty optimistic. But then it was discovered she’d developed an infection, one so serious it required removal of part of her skull cap to clean and replace. Didn’t work. A third surgery was required and by that time Della was tired and out of sorts. Not really the Della everybody knew and loved, but still a fighter.

“The doctors told us she had 10 to 14 months to live, and we are seven months in,” says Tom.

* People knew. In a town of 325 or so people always know. Especially if you are a well known, well loved, and respected couple like Tom and Della Weber. As word of her situation spread here they came, the phone calls, the notes, the visits, the pats on the back, Lodgepole was there for the Webers. And by the time school started it was clear so were many other people in many other places.

Keep in mind, sure, Tom was the coach on the sidelines but Della was also at center stage, the bookkeeper and omnipresent figure on the sidelines, the power behind the throne if you will. People in the other small towns where South Platte (the combination of former Brule and Big Springs schools) played its games, they knew Della. And as word spread they began to get a clearer picture about her condition.

Della was in trouble. We need to do something.

And do something they did. Night after night, at game after game, in town after town, there were balloons, cookies, signs in the crowd, all supporting Della and her fight against about impossible odds. They knew that was about all they could do, but were glad to be able to have done it.

* Since way back when when Grandpa Tom, then Father Tom, said it was time for a vacation the Weber kids knew what that meant.

Coaching clinic.

“We weren’t exactly world travelers so during the summer when there was a coaching clinic, we all went and called it vacation,” says Tom. “I had a very understanding wife and family.”

As the kids grew up they channeled their father’s love for sports and all did their part to carry the flag for Lodgepole sports. Andie’s teams qualified for state three times, Jenny and Jeff’s once each. More family vacation, I guess. They moved on with their lives and then Andie got tangled up in coaching, another case of the nut falling far from the coaching tree.

After those early tribulations the South Platte girls basketball program started to gain some traction. By last March Andie’s crew took an 18-2 record and state top ten ranking into the district final where they lost a narrow five-point decision to defending state champion Archbishop Bergan.

There were gonna be some good times ahead. And some sad times, too.

* Andie’s players knew. They knew what was up with Grandma Della and they sensed with Coach needed a hug or maybe just a quick minute to listen.

“They have been my lifeline, my one connection with some degree of normalcy,” says Andie. Keep in mind her dad is an assistant coach, her son is a senior and her daughter a freshman member of the basketball team, and even her husband helps with the coaching when he can. Normal would mean endless nights at the gym.

And winning nights they’ve been. Against the backdrop of her mother’s deteriorating condition Andie’s basketball team has made history, is making history. South Platte has qualified for the state tournament for the first time in the program’s history, winning a school record 20 games in the process. The Blue Knights will play Hartington Cedar Catholic at Lincoln Southwest in tomorrow’s 6:30 game.

You can expect a rousing South Platte crowd, as much rousing as you can be in this COVID world of ours, and you can expect a mess of Webers to be at the gym, because there always is.

And Della will be there, too, in spirit if not in person.

@HuskerlandBob Sez: If you want to do something nice for some nice people look up Della Weber, Tom Weber and Andie Cheleen on Facebook and drop them a line of support.