Milan basketball legend Bobby Plump (right) and members of the 1954 championship team appeared at Tuesday's IHSAA meeting at Milan High School.
Mike Perleberg-Eagle 99.3
Mike Perleberg-Eagle 99.3
Bobby Cox speaks to the crowd at Tuesday's IHSAA meeting at Milan High School.
Mike Perleberg-Eagle 99.3
(Milan, Ind.) – The debate over a single-class basketball tournament in Indiana came to the home of Hoosier Hysteria on Tuesday.
Indiana High School Athletic Association Commissioner Bobby Cox and State Senator Mike Delph (R-Carmel) hosted a meeting at Milan High School as the IHSAA considers returning to a single-class high school tournament. It was the seventh meeting in a series of eleven across the state.
Delph dropped a bill during the 2012 legislative session which would have mandated the IHSAA return to a single-class format with the understanding the association would consider going back.
“States and communities spend millions of dollars to build an identity like that and we just gave it away. I’m trying to get it back,” Delph said.
The poster child for the single-class argument is the 1954 Milan High School team. The basketball players from a school of just over 200 students defeated 2,000-plus enrollment school Muncie Central for the state championship.
Bobby Plump, who hit the game winning shot in that title game, was joined at the meeting by four other teammates – Ray Craft, Gene White, Rollin Cutter, and Roger Schroder – in pleading for the IHSAA to return to the single-class tournament that existed prior to 1998.
Plump recalled CBS News reporter Peter Van Sant visiting his restaurant, Plump’s Last Shot, in doing a story about Indiana basketball.
“He said, ‘What the hell is wrong with the IHSAA? You got the best damn state tournament in the nation and they want to change it?’” Plump recalled.
The high school basketball legend had other gripes with the current tournament. He said it has destroyed rivalries and results in some schools having to travel 50 miles to play a sectional game.
Plump finished his argument by reading a letter sent to him by coaching great and Indiana native John Wooden.
“The Indiana state basketball tournament is easily the equivalent of the NCAA tournament and is more highly regarded than the tournaments in any other state,” Plump read.
Plump and his teammates had plenty of support. A straw poll of the people in attendance was 67-3 in favor of going back to the way it was prior to 1998.
Jim Suhre, of Brookville, has attended other recent IHSAA class basketball town hall meetings.
“Don’t let anybody tell you that small schools can’t win,” the former Brookville High School player said. “Put this on the ballot in a referendum Senator Delph, I urge you.”
Brian Fehrback flashed two state championship rings he earned as an administrator at Waldron and Jac-Cen-Del high schools – both recent state champions.
“I can say that neither one of those places where I had an opportunity to get these rings would have happened without class basketball. All of our kids want class basketball. The communities love it. Both communities will never apologize for winning these two rings,” he said.
Fehrbach along with Jac-Cen-Del athletic director Mark Meyer were the only audience members to approach the microphone in support of the current four-class system.
“(The students) got to experience that whole month of March what it is like to be in a state tournament and to go the distance. And those are memories that they will never forget,” Meyer said.
The vast majority to speak, however, were unabashed opponents of the current system.
Gene Demaree played for now non-existent New Marion High School in Ripley County.
“We had to win four games to win the sectional that year. It was all these schools which were right here real close. We were big rivals. The gym was full every night,” Demaree remembered.
Brian Voss, of Milan, said in winning two sectionals he and his Class of 1981 Milan teammates feared no other team, regardless of school size.
“We owned East Central which is by far the biggest school around here. We didn’t fear Batesville,” Voss said.
Despite the results of Tuesday’s straw poll, the decision on class basketball is ultimately up to the schools.
“The IHSAA is a membership organization. The IHSAA is not 9150 North Meridian Street. The IHSAA is the 408 member schools. The membership will have to determine how open they are to that,” said Cox.
Member schools are currently being surveyed on the interest in going back to one class. Cox said the association is polling principals, athletic administrators, boys and girls head coaches, and any male or female basketball player who was on a state tournament roster.
Delph said feedback from fans at the meetings has been positive for single-class supporters. He yearns for a return to a tournament that put Indiana on the map internationally.
“The single-class tournament made legends. It made superstars, Hoosier icons. The single-class tournament was a time that brought our entire state together because we were looking for the next Milan,” the senator said.
LINKS:
Milan To Host IHSAA Class Basketball Meeting
Lawmaker Drops Hoops Tourney Bill
Leising To File Bill Mandating Single Class Hoops
