April 29, 1996.
A historic day for Hoosier Hysteria.
On that date just over three decades ago, the IHSAA Board of Directors voted by a 13-5 count to make the boys basketball state tournament series a multi-class event. The decision, which was implemented with the 1996-97 school year, also included the switch for volleyball, girls basketball, baseball and softball.
Was the decision the right one? Has the decision proved to detract from or enhance what was regarded nationally as the best high school state tournament in the country?
The day the decision was made
Jim Russell was in his second year as the Sports Information Director for the IHSAA when the decision was made.
The day of the infamous decision had arrived, and Russell was greeted by quite the interesting scenario as he pulled into the parking lot of the IHSAA Offices in Indianapolis.
“I remember it was a sunny Monday, and we knew that all kinds of people would want to be there that day for the meeting,” recounted Russell. “I remember getting there early that day about 6:45 a.m. and there was a dead duck in the driveway at our IHSAA offices. I don’t think that got there by accident. People knew what was coming down that day.”
Russell grew up in the basketball hotbed of Anderson. He was raised in a newspaper family, later working for the Indianapolis News for 13 years. He was with the IHSAA from 1994 to 2001.
“I had mixed emotions about the decision,” Russell said. “I had a deep affinity for the one-class tournament and the place that Indiana high school basketball had in our culture.
“Intellectually, I understood the decision. The state of Indiana had changed dramatically, in terms of its demographics and the enrollments of schools. That had accelerated the gap between the big and small schools, especially in the Metro areas in the state.”
There was a principals’ referendum vote in September of 1996 on the multiple-class tournament decision made earlier that year. The final count in that vote was 220-157 in favor of the IHSAA’s decision.
Current IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig believes in the current system in place.
“I understand the purists, but we still have a really good tournament,” said Neidig, who has been Commissioner since 2020. “From top to bottom, I think that any other state would be hard pressed to match us with the athleticism, skill level and coaching we have.
“People have to understand that it’s a different environment now than it was 30 years ago. The school model has changed so much and that landscape continues to change with a school like Carmel now north of 5,000 students and other things like charter schools. Our job is to try and continue to evolve our athletic system that supports our student athletes the best.”
The pros and cons
If you want to have a good old-fashioned debate even now, just ask someone connected to prep basketball in Indiana about which tournament is better.
Legendary Hall of Fame coach Al Rhodes is not shy at all about the topic. Rhodes won 693 games in his 40-year high school coaching career in Indiana, highlighted by a state championship at Warsaw during the single-class era in 1984. Rhodes played at Penn High School and coached the Kingsmen to a 239-128 mark in 15 seasons before retiring after the 2022-23 season.
Rhodes, who was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010, makes no bones about his feelings on the decision that was made along big school versus small school lines.
“To me, there is no comparison to what we had,” said Rhodes. “The coaches wanted the tournament to stay like it was at the time and we were ignored by the school principals. I don’t think that it was handled fairly at the time.”
Rhodes is the lone coach in state history to take teams to the final four of the state tournament in five different decades. Rhodes won 70% of his tournament games over his coaching career at Warsaw, Fort Wayne Northrop, Logansport and Penn.
Jason Groves has lived both sides of the tournament. He grew up dreaming of winning a sectional title, then doing so in the one-class system with John Glenn High School in Walkerton. He said getting a chance to play Warsaw in the regional was “special.”
His coaching career has now taken him to Class 1A-level Triton. He won a state title in 2008, has been to the state finals five times and is 371-153 in 21 seasons with the Trojans.
“I can tell you that I see the positives of both,” Groves said. “I know that it was special for so long like it was. But it’s almost impossible for a Milan to happen now. I know that the class system has been a great thing for us at Triton.
“I don’t think that the class tournament takes away from the excitement. It is still really tough to win a sectional. I know that our kids this season were truly excited about their run (to state).”
Ron Hecklinski, a South Bend native, coached at Anderson when “The Wigwam” was one of the state’s iconic high school hoops venues.
“We had a sold-out Wigwam every night for sectional play, and I can tell you that was the biggest thing then that happened to all the towns around there with teams in our sectional,” Hecklinski said. “We took pride in that. It was just how special the Wigwam was then to teams and fans.”
Hecklinski played at South Bend Saint Joseph’s for Bob Donewald. The Hall of Famer then coached at six Indiana high schools, compiling a 434-245 mark in 30 seasons. His final stop was at Mishawaka High School from 2017-22, where he went 66-49.
“My perception of the tournament has changed over the years, and I think that’s okay,” Hecklinski responded. “We wanted to keep it the same with the tradition, and anything with change we always want to fight.
“But is the Class system successful? Hell yes. I think that it is fine now. People just stopped going to high school basketball games, but not because of Class basketball. What a state championship can do to a town is really special.”
Mike Lopresti has earned his place as one of the top sportswriters that Indiana has ever produced. The Richmond native was covering national sports for USA Today back in 1996, but still living in Indiana with his roots deeply entrenched in Hoosier Hysteria and its place in his home state.
“Traditionalists like me thought that it was a bad idea,” said Lopresti. “I understood the logic of it that principals wanted more trophies for more teams and wanted a more inclusive environment. … The tournament now is a local event. People do not care now about it once their team is out of the tournament. They gave away the magic that it had.
“The Indiana tournament was a very dynamic event. Now, it’s a pale version of what made it unique.”
Rhodes echoed Lopresti’s sentiments.
“The interest in basketball through the entire state was much different then,” said Rhodes. “It really created a lot of interest in communities in terms of the sectionals. Now with the Class tournament, after someone’s team is out of the sectional, none of the other fans go to the games.”
Winning in both eras
Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame coaches Jack Edison and Basil Mawbey each won a state championship in the original one-class format and the four-class system. Edison won at Plymouth in 1982 and then claimed a Class 3A crown in 2007. Mawbey won at Connersville in 1983 and then a Class 2A crown at Lewis Cass in 2003.
Edison’s 1982 Plymouth team featured Scott Skiles, who would go on to play and coach in the NBA. At the time, Plymouth was the smallest school enrollment wise at 894 students to win a state title since the Miracle of Milan in 1954.
“In 1982, it just felt so different because we were considered the underdog and how much of the state we were representing,” said Edison. “On the way down to Indy, our bus stopped in Argos and Rochester, and their students came out to cheer us on. That was so neat. Then when we came back after winning state, we had 8 to 10 thousand people in our gym. And I was just flooded with letters and notes from all over the state after we won it. It was off the charts.”
Mawbey is best known for coaching stints at Connersville and Kokomo. He was the first coach to win state titles in both the old and current tournament formats.
“When I won state at Lewis Cass in 2003, the first question in the press conference after the game was which tournament was better,” Mawbey recalled. “There was no answer. Both are great accomplishments and both teams won their last game of the season, and that is the best that you can do.
“Both of those titles were great and equally exciting to the schools and the communities.”
Edison won 545 games in his 34 years. He still serves as an assistant coach to his son Michael at LaVille High School in Lakeville. Edison’s 2007 Plymouth team won after his 2005 squad lost 74-72 in overtime in the title game on a halfcourt shot by Luke Zeller of Washington High School at the final horn. Zeller went on to play at Notre Dame.
“I was dead against the switch at the time,” Edison said. “To beat the big dog in the sectional in the past was such a huge accomplishment. The rivalries of the past in the one-class format, there was nothing like that.”
Mawbey, at age 83, is still coaching. He has served as an assistant coach at Anderson High School the past six years, where Donnie Bowling is the head coach. Bowling played for Mawbey at Kokomo.
Mawbey began coaching at age 19 while a student at Ball State University and won 703 prep games, the final four coming at North Miami during the 2019-20 season. He also shares his wealth of hoops wisdom with the program at Florida Gulf Coast, when he is in Florida.
“I wish we had what Kentucky has in terms of the tournament,” said Mawbey. “They have a Class tournament around Christmas time and then still a single-class one at the end of the season. I’m a big believer in that.
“It was a thrill to win two state championships. But our tournament now is not the same as it was before. It’s not known as much as it was at one time. It’s just not the same.”
NOTE: This story is part of a special “America 250” project on the history of Indiana high school basketball by journalists within USA Today Co. at the South Bend Tribune, Journal & Courier (Lafayette), The Star Press (Muncie), The Herald-Times (Bloomington) and The Courier & Press (Evansville). All stories will run on those respective sites between July 6-17, with select stories in printed copies of the paper as well.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Is Hoosier Hysteria as good as it once was? Experts weigh in on state tourney
Reporting by Scott Davidson, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Scott Davidson, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
