Basketball Tradition Ends In Indiana
It’s over. Two semifinals and then the championship Saturday night, and the single-class tradition of Indiana high school basketball ends.
Supporters of separate classes won a war that had festered for decades, then erupted in recent years and divided the state between the purists and those to whom fairness outweighed history.
Larger schools tended to support the format that had served the state for the past 87 years. Smaller schools tended to favor the separate classes.
The Miracle of Milan perpetuated a legend that even the smallest school has a chance against their big-city brethren. Everyone loves an underdog.
But history showed that Milan’s upset of powerful Muncie Central 43 years ago was more of a fluke than a trend.
No small school has won the championship since Milan in 1954, and only eight schools with an enrollment below 500 have reached the Final Four during that span.
The smallest school to reach this year’s Final Four was Delta, with an enrollment of more than 900. Kokomo, with more than 2,000 students, was the largest. LaPorte and Bloomington North fell in between.
Almost one year ago, the Indiana High School Athletic Association executive committee approved the proposal to split all team sports into separate classes. But it was basketball that drew the most attention and, the greatest debate.
Opponents launched an effort to have the vote over-turned and gathered enough signatures in each of the IHSAA’s geographic districts to force a referendum.
In September, the principals ratified the change 220-157. As far as the IHSAA was concerned, the matter was closed and the separate tournaments will begin in the 1997-98 school year, with an evaluation after the first two years.
All of the Final Four coaches this year opposed separate tournaments.
“I’m not sure that once you change it you’ll ever get it back, in spite of assurances that if it doesn’t work well …,” LaPorte’s Joe Otis said. “I think it was a big mistake to start with four classes. It was almost like we followed football’s example, because they struggled at the beginning of their class tournament.”
Bloomington coach Tom McKinney said, “The players don’t think very much about it. The underclassmen are going to play basketball and be involved next year.
“I’m against class basketball, but I also understand why small schools might want to have it,” McKinney said. “I think there could have been a compromise. I would have hoped maybe we could have divided the thing up for the sectionals and regionals and then for the semistate brought everybody back together.”