RAPID CITY - Shortly after noon on Tuesday, Megan Mahoney strolls into the Rapid City YMCA gym for a little noon basketball.

Steve Malone is already there, waiting on the bleachers in shorts and a T-shirt, a basketball in his hand.

Brad Higbee arrives next and then the trickle of players quickly grows into a crowd of 10.

For the next couple of hours, the squeak of sneakers echoes throughout the gym as the players tear up and down the court. Players come and go, team sizes shift and change and on at least one occasion, all play stops as everyone tries to remember what the score is.

It's a regular day of noon ball at the YMCA.

Started in 1974, the informal basketball games first found a home at the old Rapid City auditorium, located where the Dahl Arts Center now stands. Tom Collins, orthodontist Jim "Pev" Evans and attorney Verne Goodsell were some of the earliest regulars.

Collins, now 58, said the game eventually migrated to the juvenile justice center gym on Seventh Street. When the YMCA opened the new gym in 1978, the game found its home at the Y. It's been there ever since and so has Collins. Nowadays, he plays every other day.