We talked with fans, former players, searched newspaper records and found valuable information from sources such as Boxscore, the publication of the Indiana High School Basketball Historical Society; Bill May’s book, Tourney Time; research by basketball historian Bob Adams; Herb Schwomeyer’s Hoosier Hysteria, and Harley Sheet’s booklet, Indiana High School Basketball Review, and the Hickory Husker website.

We visited libraries and received copies of newspaper stories and yearbooks from librarians elsewhere.  We are grateful for the assists they and others graciously provided.

 We watched basketball games played by teams in each of the four classes during the 2003-2004 season.  We saw the ardor that remains with fans who continue to watch their teams and the enthusiasm non-partisan observers still have for the game.  We talked with fans across the state and found mixed emotions about multi-class tournaments that many blame for declining attendance at games.

We were impressed by the sincerity of former players, coaches, and students who recalled the excitement that came when their small schools upset tournament favorites to win sectionals in games that would forever be a part of their heritages.  We share this research in the pages that follow.

We thank Damon Bailey, the epitome of the goodness of Indiana basketball, for prompting us to undertake the project, and also Gary Varvel, editorial cartoonist for the Indianapolis Star, for designing the covers of most of our books.

BOYS ONLY 

 We are certain to hear complaints that there is little mention of girls’ basketball in the pages that follow.  We admit we are less attuned to their game as we are to that played by boys and men.  The coed game does not have a long 100-year-old history and has yet to be accepted in some areas and to attract the fervor of that played by the male students.

That aside, we have attended girls’ games both this season and in the past and watched telecasts of the finals that have determined the state championships since the first in 1976.

And we agree, as others have noted, the games played by girls are more pure from a basketball standpoint than that played by the boys.  While too many male players have turned to dunks, individualism and the pursuit of personal glory, the girls have stressed fundamentals, team play and have, in the meantime, become better shooters.  Their enthusiasm is shared with team-mates rather than with flexed muscle, self-adulation and “watch-what-I-did” demonstrations boys sometimes display for spectators.