2026 INDUCTEE – LEIGH ANNA TRIMBLE
By David Elwell
The Decatur Daily
Austin Black Bear legend
Today at the corner of Danville Road and Modaus Road in Decatur sits Decatur Fire/Rescue Station 5.
Back in the day there was a white house with columns that stood on that same property. Behind that house was another house that faced Longfellow Drive inside the Braswell subdivision.
Between the houses was a concrete pad with a basketball goal. Nearly 40 years later, the concrete and the goal are still there. The years have not been kind to the backboard. It’s been a few years since the sound of a basketball bounced off the concrete.
This is where Leigh Anna Trimble worked on her game and eventually became an All-Star player for the Austin Black Bears in 1994.
“My grandmother lived in the white house and we lived in the house behind her,” Trimble said. “During the summer when we were out of school, we stayed most days with my grandmother.
“I would spend my time on the concrete pad with a basketball working on my shooting. Every day it was 100 free throws and 100 3-point shots. I wasn’t the quickest player or the most talented so I had to be the best shooter I could be.”
Trimble, 50, will be inducted into the Morgan County Sports Hall of Fame on June 20 at Cook Museum of Natural Science in Decatur.
The history of girls high school basketball in the City of Decatur has been dominated by a Decatur High dynasty from 1990 to 2001. The Red Raiders won five state championships and had two other state championship game appearances.
Cross-town rival Austin took a step out of the Red Raiders shadow in the 1993-94 season with a run to the Class 6A state championship game. The Black Bears coached by Billy Miles were led by All-State players Leigh Anna McDaniel (now Trimble) and Andrea “Bam” Watkins (now Watkins-Orr).
Austin posted a 20-5 record and beat Decatur four out of five times that season, including wins for the area (57-47) and regional (40-39) championships.
The Black Bears’ path to success was not a short one. It was a culmination of four years of hard work. Trimble and Watkins-Orr were both starters as freshmen for Miles in his first year as head coach.
“The program had been down when we took over,” Miles said. “We knew Leigh Anna and Bam were special before they got to Austin. They had a lot of success together at Brookhaven (Middle School).
“We thought starting them as freshmen was the right thing to do. We knew we were going to take our lumps, but it paid off in a big way.”
Trimble grew up in a home where sports was a major part of everything. Joe McDaniel was a long-time football and baseball coach at Austin, Hartselle and other schools in the area. Her three brothers, Buddy, Sonny and Wil, all played sports.
“I grew up around sports. It was all I ever knew,” Trimble said. “I played softball for a long time before I played basketball. My first basketball team was a rec league team in the sixth grade.”
Because Trimble’s mother, Mary Sue McDaniel, taught school in Hartselle she went to school there through the seventh grade.
“I decided that I wanted to go to school in Decatur because most of my friends were here,” Trimble said. “I made the move in the eighth grade. That’s when I first met Bam.”
The friendship clicked right away on and off the basketball floor. Even though they were about the same height the combination turned into a great inside/outside team. Watkins-Orr was a force inside at 5-foot-7. Trimble was the point-guard who could direct the offense. When defenses tried to sag inside to stop Watkins-Orr, Trimble could answer with a basket from behind the 3-point line.
“We had to grow together at Brookhaven to blend our games,” Watkins-Orr said. “Before we left to go play at Austin we talked about our dreams for success.
“For me it was great to have a teammate so much aligned on what we wanted to achieve. Of course the key was hard work and we never had to worry about how hard the other one worked.”
Starting on the varsity as a freshman in 1990 was not easy. Girls basketball in Morgan County and North Alabama was strong. Trimble and Watkins-Orr played against mostly juniors and seniors. They battled against players like Decatur’s Yolanda Watkins and Shondra Fuller and Brewer’s Christy Thomaskutty, who all received All-State honors and played in college for Division I programs.
“That first year the 20-point losses got to be a sign of improvement over the 40-point losses,” Trimble said.
After just eight wins in that first season, the Black Bears had 11 wins in their sophomore season. The record was 15-13 as juniors with Watkins-Orr missing the first half of the season because of an off-season knee injury.
“That first year there weren’t many people in the stands,” Trimble said, “but we were young and growing up together. Because we were young, the team didn’t change much and we grew a following.
“By our senior year the crowds grew so much that the stands were packed for every game. People had to come to the boys junior varsity game before our game just to make sure they had a seat.”
In Trimble’s senior season, the Austin-Decatur games had to be played at the home team’s gym because the neutral site at Calhoun Community College was unavailable due to construction. For years the rivalry games were played at Calhoun because its gym could seat many more than the high school gyms at the time.
“The night of our game at Austin, I can remember getting to school and seeing a long line of fans lined up on the sidewalk waiting to get in,” Trimble said. “When we went out for warmups there were no seats left. That was a pretty cool thing to see.”
That game was on Dec. 10, 1993. Austin beat Decatur 64-62. Watkins-Orr hit the game-winning shot in the closing seconds. Trimble scored 29 points. It was Austin’s first win over Decatur since Jan. 29, 1987.
After the game, Trimble told the Decatur Daily: “It was the best feeling in my whole life to beat Decatur. All the other years we didn’t have a chance. It was awesome.”
Little did Trimble know that she and her teammates would have three more “awesome” wins over Decatur that season. Austin beat No. 1-ranked Decatur on the Red Raiders home court, 53-43, in a January regular season game.
The final Class 6A state rankings for the regular season had Austin at No. 2 and Decatur No. 3. That higher-ranking held up for the Black Bears in the area and regional championship games. The regional championship earned Austin its first trip to the state tournament in 10 years.
The Black Bears drew defending state champion Carver-Montgomery in the semifinals and took an impressive 69-49 victory. Trimble scored 20 points and dished out seven assists.
The state championship game featured the red-hot Black Bears vs. undefeated LeFlore from Mobile. LeFlore led 31-30 at halftime. Austin opened the second half with six points to take a 36-31. After that it was all LeFlore for a 72-49 win.
“That loss was rough on me. I carried it with me for a long time,” Trimble said, “but we were so happy to put Austin girls basketball back on the map.”
Trimble and Watkins-Orr both earned All-State honors. Austin’s dream season earned Miles the Class 6A Coach of the Year honors.
“The best adjective I can think of to describe Lee Anna the player is unselfishness,” Miles said. “She was all about making her team the best it could be. To do that she wanted to be the best player she could be.”
Miles’ star players both signed to continue their basketball careers in junior college. Trimble went to Northwest Shoals. Watkins-Orr went to Wallace-Hanceville. In their freshmen seasons they would face each other in the junior college state championship game. Trimble’s team won and advanced to the national tournament.
“My game changed when I got to Northwest. I had to become more of a shooter than I was in high school,” Trimble said. “It was a cool experience to win state and go to the national tournament.”
After junior college, Trimble and Watkins-Orr were teammates for one year at North Alabama.
“The bottom line for both of us was our toughness,” Watkins-Orr said. “It was great when we played together. It was always there when we played against each other.”
When the college career ended, Trimble moved into coaching. She was the last girls coach at Coffee High before it merged with Bradshaw to form Florence City in 2004.
In 2022, Trimble and her husband Scott bought George’s Steak Pit, a landmark restaurant in Sheffield that will soon celebrate 70 years in business. Trimble says her experience in sports has helped in the restaurant business.
“Athletics puts you in a lot of pressure situations,” Trimble said. “It’s how you react to those situations that matters. That’s the way life is.
“It’s the same situation with our restaurant. It’s hard work, but if you surround yourself with good people and treat them the way you want to be treated, you can be successful.”
