Elizabeth Gist
February 07, 2007 09:12 am
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Once upon a time in the tiny little town of Pierceville, population 25, a boy and his friends found a way to occupy themselves in a place where that was no easy feat. In his life, there was no TV to turn on, no telephone, no electricity and no running water when he graduated from high school. It was a place where life was simple and time stood still, yet kept going.
The boy and his friends began playing basketball at his friend’s father’s store, where a basketball goal hung on the barn. The boy had fond memories of that place because that’s where he discovered his talent, where he discovered he could play against the big kids and win. In those days, a young child could leave the house at 8 a.m. and not return until 6 p.m. and no one would think anything about it. Mothers didn’t fear kidnappers and psychopaths and kids were just kids.
It wasn’t until many moons later that the boy returned to the spot where his athletic encouragement began to retrieve the goal where he had sunk so many shots that didn’t matter, long after he had made a shot that did.
“I realized, by God, that basketball goal was in fact a peach basket,” Bobby Plump said. “If you would have asked me before I went up there and took it down, I would have sworn up one side and down the other that it was a regular goal, but it was just a peach basket.”
Pierceville was not big enough for a stoplight or a stop sign, let alone a school, so when the time came to head out to high school, Bobby went to the bigger town of Milan, home of the Indians, with an enrollment of 161 students: one of the state’s smallest schools.
In March 1954, Bobby was a senior in a graduating class of 50. He was a sharpshooter, honing in on the skills he had learned so many years earlier at the base of a peach basket. The Indians began their rise to the top of the 751 teams entered in that year’s tournament with a record of 19-2. Milan was in the last game of the state high school basketball championship tournament; their opponent was the much larger metropolitan school and state powerhouse defending champion Muncie Central High School, the evil stepmother of an opponent versus the tiny and meek Cinderella-like Milan.
There were four minutes left on the clock in the fourth period with the score tied 30-30. Guard Bobby Plump dribbled the ball for the Cinderella team, stalling and killing time, playing for one last shot. At almost the last second, he crouched and pumped. The ball arced through the air amid the backdrop of screaming and crying fans.
For Milan, in a state where no attendance classifications separated the largest schools from the smallest in the state tournament, it was the biggest thing that had ever happened to the tiny town. In an era of no-class sports, a small school with a graduating class of 50 beating a powerhouse like Muncie Central was huge. It showed the nation that a group of determined people can make history in and out of sports, and that there is a chance for the little guy.
changed Bobby’s life, his teammates’ lives and his community’s image forever. It gave the little schools hope that they could win, and gave dreams to people that the underdogs could beat the big guys. It made the state great in its basketball heritage, and the movie “Hoosiers,” based on the triumph of the Indians, helped keep the story alive. That shot was the glass slipper that fit on the feet of every underdog in the nation.
Things have changed since then. Milan’s population has only increased by 200 since 1964, but the school’s boundaries have enlarged, so its attendance is much larger. High above the town, the water tower is still emblazoned with “1954 state basketball champions” on its white sides. But, In 1997, the IHSAA ditched its single-class basketball tournament and divided the schools into four classes, so a repeat of the Cinderella story isn’t even possible. For Bobby Plump, it’s the ending of the saddest story ever told.
THE END OF CLASS
“I express it like this. We had class basketball, and now we have multi-class,” Plump says with a raised eyebrow. “I think you understand that.”
Bobby and an assortment of noted individuals (one of which was Mr. John Wooden himself) formed an organization called Friends of Hoosier Hysteria 18 months before the IHSAA conducted the vote to move from single class basketball to the current format. Their ultimate goal: to stop the IHSAA from defamating one of the greatest stories ever told the rise of the underdog.
“Prior to the vote, just to give you an impact that Indiana high school basketball had on the nation, every major newspaper in the United States either came here or called me Sports Illustrated, every TV station in the state, Peter VanZandt and his TV crew and everyone of those gentlemen or ladies expressed their opinion on Indiana basketball,” Plump said. “I’ll clean it up for you, but they all basically said, “What in the hell is wrong with the IHSAA? You’ve got the greatest high school basketball tournament in the nation and they want to screw around with it? What’s wrong with them?’ Everybody knew what was at stake here.”
Plump began in-depth research of other states still practicing the single-class system, four to be exact: Kentucky, Indiana, Delaware and Hawaii. According to his findings, none drew the crowds that Indiana’s tournament did; none had their tournament televised statewide or nationwide; none of them had the financial strength that the IHSAA did (thanks to the tournament); and none of them had a TV contract worth $1 million a year to broadcast the tournament (a 10-year total contract).
“I heard a figure at one time, and I can’t say that it’s true, but we gave back a million dollars to the member schools of the tournament. Most of the other states that had multi-class basketball charged their students to participate in athletics because they weren’t making enough money to do it, and they charged the schools a fee to belong to the association. In Indiana, our fee was $1 per year. What was so wrong with that? Why change a good thing?”
Plump firmly stands behind the fact that he never would have gone head to head with the IHSAA were it not for one thing.
Bobby and the Friends of Hoosier Hysteria (FOHH) conducted their own financial impact study and hired an accounting firm to paint them, the general public and the IHSAA a picture. Randy Effner, who was the outside auditor for the Wisconsin Interscholastic High School Association, had also audited the books for the Illinois High School Association for seven years, so the FOHH had definitely brought in the big guns. The crew put together a presentation, complete with the staggering financial statistics should the IHSAA choose to ditch the single-class system. With the four-class format, the revenue loss would be $185,000 if attendance remained the same on a percentage basis. And these numbers only accounted for the attendance standpoint, money from TV and corporate sponsorships was not considered.
“We brought it before the IHSAA board and they basically said, “Well, it’s a nice little presentation, but we think we can make more money. Attendance has been decreasing, and we think we need to do this to increase attendance,” Plump recalled. “Well, as this thing went on, they quit talking about attendance, which they had used to begin with as their major factor for making the change.”
Bobby and the FOHH then tried to get a non-binding referendum before the general public. The IHSAA had a lobbyist kill the bill before it even reached the public.
“Never once did they talk to the coaches’ association prior to their “two-year experiment’ to test’ this thing out,” Plump said. “We asked Bob Gardner (IHSAA Commissioner), wouldn’t an experiment warrant some criteria? What criteria are you going to use? Would you mind putting that down in writing?”
The IHSAA conducted a series of polls for the general public to vote on regarding the class issue. Tables were set up at basketball games. Some schools’ athletic directors even went so far as to pass out the ballots themselves, seizing the opportunity for the IHSAA to hear their voice on the issue.
“South Dearborn High, for instance, voted 92 percent to keep the single-class game, yet somehow ended up on the roster as pro multi-class,” Bobby said.” Their athletic director called me, very upset, but I told him there was nothing I could do about it. It was their [the IHSAA’s] basketball, their goal and their rules, although not their courtŃthe taxpayers pay for that.”
Gardner’s next step was to allow the students to vote on the issue, in a poll designed by the IHSAA.
“I mean, I guess it’s all right to allow 16- 17- and 18-year-olds to set policy,” Bobby said. “The boys, again for instance, voted to keep the single-class format, and I used that percentage to prove why this shouldn’t happen. I related the number in a story in the Indy Star, and the next day Bob Gardner fired back in a different story saying, “Yeah, they voted 60 percent, but we don’t know if that represents everyone.’ Well, who designed the poll? Are you getting the picture here?”
The benefits of changing the game weren’t evident to Bobby.
“Wouldn’t you think that if you had an organization that operated on a $3.1 million budget and had $2, 3, 4 million in the bank, wouldn’t it be advisable to do a financial impact study?” Plump said. “If you were the CEO of a corporation, and you just decided to go from making widgits to making basketballs, wouldn’t you like to see a financial impact of that change and know what’s going to happen?”
At the end of the two-year experiment testing the multi-class basketball system, the Friends of Hoosier Hysteria financial impact study projected a loss of $382,000. In reality, the loss was closer to $550,000. Television ratings for the tournament plummeted from 14.4 to 4, and the contract was canceled.
“Bob Gardner, of course, quickly retorted and said, “That’s not true, we didn’t lose $550,000. We had a decrease in revenue.’ He then went on to say “Some people lost money, but not the IHSAA.’”
After the two-year period, coaches voted 83 percent to go back to the single-class system. Before the experiment, they had voted 60 percent to keep things the way they were. The TV contract was non-existent, revenue was down and the coaches wanted out.
“Gardner acknowledged that all of these things were accurate, but that the IHSAA was going to stay with the multi-class format because that’s what was best for the kids,” he said. “So I ask you, what was the two-year experiment? There WAS no experimentŃit was a system forced on the state of Indiana, and any reasonable person could see that.”
A group from Bainbridge visited Bobby’s restaurant, Plump’s Last Shot in Broad Ripple, a few weeks prior to the final decision. They traveled all over the state to various high schools if they knew a good game of high school ball was brewing.
They said, “You know, Bob, maybe they’ve got something here. Other kids ought to be able to experience what you experienced, and at the end of all of this, if it’s not working, they’ll go back to the way things were,’” Plump said. I told them then, You all are living in a dream world! Don’t you understand why there’s a two-year experiment for this system? They [the IHSAA] can’t get it any other way!’”
Results of the final vote were released April 29, 1996. The IHSAA board members voted 12 to 5 in favor of the multi-class system. It was the saddest day in basketball history. The fairy tale was over.
“What I am telling you has nothing to do with the accomplishments of the multi-class student athletes,” Plump said. It’s a great thing for them. I’m happy for them, but I am extremely disappointed in the IHSAA because I held them to such a high standard. I lost a ton of respect for them simply because of the manner in which this was all conducted. But I do want to make it clear that this is nothing against the students or their accomplishments.”
Plump met a player from Speedway in 2002 after making a speech at the World Games in Indianapolis.
“He came up to me and said, “Mr. Plump, I’ve got one of those rings too,’ and I said, “Hey, that’s great! Congratulations. That’s super that you won a state tournament,’” Bobby recalled. And he looked at me and said, “You know what? I would have rather won a sectional game in the single-class. It was very anti-climactic.”
For Bobby, it was yet another reminder that someone remembered the best kind of happy ending in the world of high school basketball.
“Now it’s too far down the line for most of these kids to understand how it used to be,” Plump said. “I knew it would happen. Anyone could see that if it was in the past long enough, they would forget. The kids have no concept of the excitement that was created in the single-class system, and that’s a tragedy.”
Attendance certainly isn’t what it used to be. The tournament has lost 350,000 fans since the end of the single-class tournament.
“There are those who said, “Bob, you already got your championship, no wonder you’re for it.’ And I said and will still say to this day, the tournament wasn’t made for winning state championships, it was made at the sectional level playing your rivals, and if you could knock off the favorite team, or if you won that sectional, you were king for that year. When you won, the entire region was behind you, because your win was a win for that whole area of the state. Everything was forgiven. We used to beat the hell out of each other at South Ripley, you would have thought we hated each other. But whoever won, we followed them, because we wanted them to do well. That’s where the tournament was made. It’s not the arrival that’s important, it’s the journey, and that’s why the tournament was so important, because of that journey.”
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