The Indiana Insider Blog

Indiana High School Basketball Hall of Fame

by on Jun 7, 2009

Posted in Central, Family Activities

Ask people to name three things they associate Indiana with, and two of the three will be “corn” and “high school basketball.”

High school basketball is religion in the Hoosier state. In Texas, it’s high school football. In Georgia, it’s college football. But in Indiana, it’s the roundball that has captured our collective hearts. So much so that we have our very own high school basketball Hall of Fame.

It’s how we identify ourselves. When we meet someone else who grew up in Indiana, we discuss our high school basketball teams. And if they went to rival high schools, we’ll tease each other about how “we beat you back in ’85,” or “our team won Sectionals in 1982.”

So I took my family for a visit this weekend to New Castle, in Henry County, just 50 miles east of Indianapolis on I-70. I was there as a proud alum of the only high school — Muncie Central — in the entire country to win eight state basketball championships, so I know a little about high school ball, but not much beyond my own high school.

Still, I was surprised at the number of schools, teams, and players I recognized, or even had a small personal connection with. There were familiar names everyone’s heard of — Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird, Damon Bailey, Scott Skiles — and championship displays from big cities and small towns — Franklin, Lafayette, Indianapolis Crispus Attucks, Indianapolis Broad Ripple.

There are small plaques of players, coaches, and officials who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and we meandered through the area, looking for names we recognized of people who had been inducted — Larry Bird, Bobby Knight, Oscar Robertson, George McGinnis, and former Pacers coach Slick Leonard.

As I wandered throughout the huge shrine to Indiana basketball, a few things stuck out in my mind and tugged on my heart.

  • Milan High School’s 1954 championship team. This is the team the movie Hoosiers was about. In fact, Muncie Central was the team they beat in the state championship that year. Every Bearcat brags about this with embarrassed pride.
  • The front page from the 1954 Indianapolis Times announcing the Milan victory. All the Milan players had signed it, including Bobby Plump’s (he was Jimmy Chitwood in Hoosiers. Plump now owns Plump’s Last Shot in Indianapolis.
  • Girl’s basketball gets a lot of attention too at the HOF. They have memorabilia, photos, and news clippings from the girls’ championship teams too. It was pretty cool to see a couple of the teams and names I recognized too, including Shana Zolman, who played for Wawasee High School in Syracuse, where I lived for 12 years. Zolman, who still holds the state’s scoring record with 3,085 points now plays for the San Antonio Silver Stars.
  • Indianapolis Crispus Attucks’ 1955 championship team, which included NBA great Oscar Robertson.
  • The one that hit me the most: Muncie Central’s 1963 championship team, the class my stepfather, now deceased, graduated in. Tom, my sister, and I were the only ones in the family to go to Muncie Central, so we still cheered for the Bearcats during tournament time.

    • Twenty-four years after graduating high school, I had forgotten how much of a pull high school basketball had on me as a Hoosier.

    As I walked, I remembered the deafening cheers in the Muncie Fieldhouse as our team took the court. I remember playing in the pep band, laughing with my friends. I found myself wishing I had payed more attention to it, promising myself to pay attention at least a little more this winter.

    The ghosts of players past tapped me on the shoulder one last time, asking me to pay closer attention this time. I mumbled a promise, and whispered I’d be back.

    My youngest daughter grabbed my hand as we walked out the door into the warm June afternoon: “We just went through time, didn’t we, Daddy?”

    I couldn’t answer. There was something in my eye.

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    Written by : Erik is a professional blogger and social media consultant. He is also a humor columnist in several weekly papers around Indiana, and on his own blog at ErikDeckers.com. A supporter of the local arts scene, Erik is a rabid fan of the Indy Fringe Theatre Festival in the summer. Erik is married and a father of three, and a Ball State alum. Erik receives compensation from the Indiana Office of Tourism Development — and a warm fuzzy feeling — for blogging. For more information, see our FTC Disclosure page.