In a class by itself

Sporting News, The, March 10, 1997 by Tom Dienhart

The players' socks were long and the legs in them even longer. Heck, the hair was even high, as Afros challenged gravity. It was March 29, 1980, and I was in Indianapolis for the Indiana boys high school basketball final four. I was also in heaven.

Don't ask me how a lowly high school freshman who wasn't even on the basketball team got a ticket to the premier event in the state, but when I found out our coach at West Lafayette High, Bill Berberian, had an extra one available, I went after it as if it were a loose ball. Hey, I could at least act like a player.

It's a straight, flat, farm-field-filled shot southeast to Indianapolis. With no chance of being distracted by the scenery over the 60-mile trip, my three buddies and I had the time to dream about how the day's events would unfold. But I don't think any of us envisioned what we would see that Saturday.

With torn tickets in hand and eyes as wide as rims, we watched Indianapolis Broad Ripple and Marion battle back and forth in one of the two late-morning semifinal games to determine one of the participants in that night's championship game. With precious seconds left amid the squeals of cheerleaders and rhythmic stomping and clapping of pep blocks, Marion surged back; it appeared there would be no forth by Broad Ripple.

That's when the Rockets' Stacey Toran--the same Toran who later played football at Notre Dame and for the Los Angeles Raiders before dying in a car crash in 1989--launched a 57-foot shot as the buzzer sounded. The heave seemed to be coming right at us in the upper lower bowl of Market Square Arena. But it never reached us; it was on target and pierced the basket, lifting Broad Ripple to 71-69 victory over the Giants. The day reached a ho-hum conclusion when the Rockets beat New Albany in the title game. That contest was doomed as anti-climactic from the beginning, thanks to Toran's stunning heroics for Broad Ripple in the semifinal.

Tournament time has arrived again in Indiana, where every school--382 in 1996-97--is in the same pool fighting for the right to cut down one net. Denizens of the state call it "Hoosier Hysteria," but this is the last year to really get hysterical about the tournament.

Starting in 1997-98, the sport will be watered down, cheapened by a four-class division that will replace a Midwestern pure single-class event that is the nation's best. So will end a tournament that harkens to a day when crew cuts, set shots and shiny, short shorts with belts received thumbs up from guys such as Fairmount, Ind., native James Dean.

If you're grounded in the touchy-feely 1990s, you're probably applauding the move. Now, more trophies will be handed out, more banners will be hoisted to rafters and more kids will be able to fall asleep calling themselves champions.

Those in favor of the more-is-better mantra point out larger schools have dominated the tourney. But there's still the dream that Bobby Plump created in 1954, when he hit a 15-foot shot that propelled Milan High (with an enrollment of 162) to a 32-30 victory in the state title game over big, bad Muncie Central and inspired the 1986 movie Hoosiers. However, the only "small" school to win it all since has been Plymouth (894 students), which beat Gary Roosevelt in 1982 behind sharpshooting Scott Skiles, and only eight schools with enrollments of fewer than 500 have reached the final four since '54.

Yes, Cinderella stories have been few and very far between, but starting next year, they'll be nonexistent. The anything-is-possible scenario that makes Indiana's tournament toss will be history. Remaining will be a level playing field that today's soccer moms--those who don't want to hurt anyone's feelings--love. Trophies and ribbons for everyone! Now, Indiana's tournament will be like almost every other state's with an A, AA, AAA and AAAA champ. Can I get an "Amen"?

There has been vehement opposition to the splintering of classes since the Indiana High School Athletic Association executive committee approved class basketball for boys and girls last spring. Soon, opponents--spearheaded by Plump, an Indianapolis insurance executive--began collecting signatures in a last-ditch effort to keep the current format. They forced a referendum last September in which principals decided the matter, and they voted 220-157 in favor of dividing schools by enrollment.

But Plump made a last-second appeal to the Indiana General Assembly to enact legislation that would allow voters to decide the fate of the tournament in the fall of 1998. The measure died last month, however.

To non-Indianans, that the battle over class basketball reached such a high level of government probably is disconcerting. Don't Hoosiers have something better to do, such as improve schools, roads and social programs, while also getting a new nickname? Sure they do, but they also wanted to retain their greatest sports treasure, the thing that is more Indiana than cornfields that fade into the horizon, "gentlemen, start your engines" and a jump shot by the Hick from French Lick. (A few states--none with Indiana's population--may imitate Indiana's format, but none can equal its tradition, drama or against-all-odds concept, odds best defied by Plump and his upstart teammates.)