Classes Still Create Hoosier Hysteria
July 27, 2017
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
This is the fourth part in a series on MHSAA tournament classification, past and present, that will be published over the next two weeks. This series originally ran in this spring's edition of MHSAA benchmarks.
Twenty years ago, Bloomington North High School won the Indiana High School Athletic Association boys basketball championship, defeating Delta 75-54 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.
The date, March 22, 1997, is at the same time revered and disdained by traditionalists in the state who saw it as the last schoolboy championship game the state would ever host.
That’s how devout the game of basketball, particularly interscholastic basketball, had become in the Hoosier state during the 87 years a state champion – one state champion, to be precise – was crowned.
Following that 1997 season, the IHSAA moved to a four-class system for its roundball tournaments, like so many of its state association counterparts had done years earlier.
It would be shocking to find more than a small percentage of current high school basketball players around the country unfamiliar with the iconic movie Hoosiers, even though the film is now more than 30 years old.
And, the storyline for that blockbuster unfolded more than 30 years prior to its release, when small-town, undermanned Milan High School defeated Muncie Central High School 32-30 in the 1954 IHSAA title game.
Perhaps it’s because of the David vs Goliath notion, or the fame of the movie that replaced Milan with the fictional Hickory and real-life star Bobby Plump with Hollywood hero Jimmy Chitwood, or the simple fact that Indiana had something other states didn’t.
Whatever the reason, plenty of opposition remains to this day to basketball classification in the state.
The fact is, the small rural schools were regularly being beaten handily by the much larger suburban and city schools as the tournament progressed each season.
Small schools also were closing at a rapid rate following the state’s School Reorganization Act in 1959, as students converged on larger, centralized county schools. From 1960 to 2000, the number of schools entering the tournament dropped from 694 to 381, and in 1997 a total of 382 schools and 4,584 athletes began competition at the Sectional level (the first level of the IHSAA Basketball Tournament).
It was at the entry level of the tournament where school administrators felt the pain of the new class system, but not necessarily for the same nostalgic reasons as the fans who either attended or boycotted the tournament.
At the Sectional round of the tournament, the IHSAA was culling just 2 percent of the revenue, with the participating schools splitting the balance. So, when Sectional attendance dropped by 14 percent in that first year of class basketball, many schools realized a financial loss. It was money they had grown to count on in prior years to help fund various aspects of the department.
Schools cumulatively received more than $900,000 from Sectional competition in 1998, but that total was down from more than $1 million in the last year of the single-class tournament.
Yet, the current format provides a great deal more opportunity and realistic chances at championship runs for schools of all enrollments.
To date, 60 additional teams have championship or runner-up trophies on display in school trophy cases around Indiana.
That was the mission in front of then-IHSAA commissioner Bob Gardner (now National Federation executive director) once the board made its decision: to give thousands more student-athletes the opportunity for once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
As any statistician knows, figures can be manipulated to tell any side of a story. Declining attendance in year one of class basketball is such a number.
The truth is tournament attendance had been on a steady downward spiral since its peak of just over 1.5 million in 1962. By the last single-class event in 1997, the total attendance was half that.
The challenge then and today, as it is for all state associations, is to find that delicate balance for those holding onto tradition, those holding onto trophies, and the number of trophies to hand out.
Editor’s Note: Stories from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in 1998 and from a 2007 issue of Indianapolis Monthly provided facts in this article.
Spartan Success Suggests Plenty of Possibilities as Karg Seeks Finals Redemption
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
September 18, 2025
Brody Karg doesn’t know how fast he can run anymore, and he’s OK with that.
In fact, it excites him.
After the pull of competition helped him to a personal best time of 15 minutes, 47.2 seconds on a tough Forest Akers East cross country course at the Spartan Invitational this past Friday, the Harbor Beach senior is adjusting his goals.
“After MSU, it seems like the sky is the limit,” Karg said. “I figured, before the season, that I’d be able to run like 15:35 by the end, but honestly, I feel like that State time, that might have been worth 15:30 if it was on a fast course in good conditions. I beat some guys that have already run 15:30 this year. I don’t know what I’m capable of. I’m trying to keep that open mind, like you really don’t know how good you are until you go out and test yourself. I think that mid 15:20s could be possible. But we’ll see.”
Karg placed sixth at MSU in the Spartan Elite division. The five runners who finished ahead of him – Brandon Cloud of Northville, Luke Hammond of Grand Haven, Jack MacGregor of Howell, Ian Morgan of Okemos and Aiden Pengelly of Canton – all earned all-state honors at the 2024 Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final, with four of them finishing among the top 10. And of those five, only Cloud (15:34.3) and Hammond (15:38.7) were more than three seconds ahead of Karg.
It was an improvement of 26 places and nearly 50 seconds from his Spartan Invitational performance a year ago. And that was during a year when Karg won eight of his 10 regular-season races, his Division 4 Regional and placed 16th at the MHSAA Finals at Michigan International Speedway.
“I mean, I don’t get a lot of chances like that to really show what I’ve got,” he said. “So those ones always feel a little bigger. Those bigger races always feel a little bigger for me than maybe they would for someone who (regularly sees tougher competition).
“The competition helped push me there, but I’ve also made a big jump from last year to this fitness-wise. I’ve been doing a lot of stuff in training that I haven’t been able to do in previous builds, so I knew that I was ready to make a big jump. It was just a matter of when.”
The Spartan Invitational was one of the few chances Karg has had to prove himself on one of the state’s biggest stages since that 16th-place finish a year ago, joining, most notably, the Division 4 Track & Field Finals, where he placed third in the 3,200 meters.
Third is about where he thought he could have finished at last year’s cross country Finals, too, but a near total-body shutdown as he approached the finish line thwarted that.
With about 400 meters remaining in the race, Karg said he went to make his finishing kick, but his legs wouldn’t let him.
“I was right next to another kid, ready to make my move, and I felt strong enough to make that move, so I was like, ‘OK, we’re moving,’” he said. “I went to make the move, and all of the sudden, my legs had nothing. He starts pulling away from me. I get passed by one guy, by two guys, and I’m wobbling. I can’t stay up. I went down, and then I just got back up and scrambled to the line. It took me like a half hour to get back to the tent. I did puke a couple times. It was horrible.”
To this day, Karg doesn’t know what happened. It could have been a bit of sickness or dehydration, but he said he thought he had hydrated well, and that he felt good running right up until he didn’t.
He’s taken extra precautions in how he prepares now, making sure his eating and sleeping habits are in line, along with his electrolyte intake.
“I was obviously disappointed,” he said. “I felt like I really could have gotten third. But things happen. It gave me some motivation, I guess. I came back and had a successful track season. I’m doing well this cross country season. I’m just hoping to go back to MIS and prove what I can really do.”
Meets like the one at MSU are part of Karg’s schedule to help prepare him for this year’s Finals. He’ll also run at the Portage Invitational and the DXC and Vintage 03 meet at Shepherd, which are sure to feature some of the top competitors in Division 4. Those will also give him a chance to run down the school record of 15:41, which was set in 2015 by Luke Anderson.
Karg will be heading to Portage and Shepherd on his own, but he went to MSU with his teammates. Having them compete on that stage, and getting a chance to watch Karg excel, was important for Harbor Beach coach Debbie Anderson.
“People said, ‘It’s a big venue for you, Deb. Are you sure you want to take the kids?’” Anderson said. “Absolutely I do. Where else are they going to see this during high school? Let’s take them to these big places where they can see kids do amazing things, and on Friday, it was one of our very own kids that did an amazing thing. I want them to see that. One of us shined on Friday, and it was really cool to see one of us in the elite race. We’re so proud of him.”
Anderson is on the same page as Karg in thinking the sky is the limit for him moving forward. He’s dialed in, she said, and even with high-level runners like reigning champion Mark Butkiewicz of Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep in the field, she’s not putting anything past Karg.
“Can he (win the Division 4 Final)? Yes,” Anderson said. “I always say yes. My mantra is, there are no places taken. Don’t act like this guy has first place. No, it depends on how you run. You can change all the places if you want.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Harbor Beach’s Brody Karg (1219) paces with Three Oaks River Valley’s Landon Rogers during last season’s Division 4 Final at MIS. (Middle) Karg charges toward the finish line. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)