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.
Rivals Deliver Another Classic Finish as Northville Finishes 1st as Team for 1st Time
November 5, 2022
BROOKLYN – Benne Anderson knew he had his hands full with Seth Norder, so he couldn’t allow himself to worry about the strong wind the Grand Rapids-area rivals were running into for nearly 15 minutes Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
“You kind of just have to ignore it, kind of just push,” Anderson said. “Most of this sport is just mental. You’ve got to lock yourself in and go.”
Anderson, a senior at Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills, and Norder, a junior at Grand Haven, were locked in a sprint to the finish that appeared to be taking place in slow motion because of the heavy winds.
“It feels like you’re running with weights, like running through snow,” Anderson said.
It was Anderson who overcame the elements and the competition to win the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 championship with a time of 15:17.32. Norder was a close second in 15:18.95.
Anderson was in the lead as the runners came into view from the finish line area. Norder briefly caught him before Anderson won with one last surge.
“Any time you try to pick up the pace, the wind gets faster and faster and is slowing you down,” Norder said. “It’s really tough. I was able to catch up to him. He just had another gear. He’s a really great runner.”
A year ago, the tables were flipped, with Norder placing second in 15:20.0 behind Hartland’s Riley Hough and Anderson taking third in 15:22.9.
“I was nervous,” Anderson said. “Seth is a crazy runner. I’ve been thinking about beating him today for the whole year. I had to get my revenge from last year. He kind of stole that from me.”
Despite running in the same region of the state, it was only the second encounter this season between Anderson and Norder. They raced each other at the Portage Invitational four weeks ago, with Anderson running 14:44.1 to take second and Norder 14:45.4 to place third. The race was won by eventual four-time Division 3 champion Hunter Jones of Benzie Central.
“We’ve been racing together my whole high school career,” Norder said. “We’ve always been back and forth. I figured it would come down to a sprint-off. That’s what it did at Portage. That’s the only time we raced this year. He ended up getting me in a sprint there. I was hoping to get him here, but I came up a little short.”
Northville, which has been a regular at the MHSAA Finals, won its first team championship by scoring 122 points. Traverse City Central was second with 196 and 2021 champion Brighton was third with 229.
Junior Brendan Herger was third in 15:34.05 to lead Northville, which earned a runner-up finish in 2015. Senior Brady Heron was 14th (15:56.17), sophomore Ethan Powell was 28th (16:13.00), senior Brock Malaikal was 58th (16:31.63) and junior Nicholas Yaquinto was 85th (16:43.45) to complete the Mustangs’ scoring.
Traverse City Central placed Joe Muha (ninth) and Micah Bauer (10th) among the top 10; its next finishers were 47th, 110th and 134th overall.
PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids’ Benne Anderson, left, and Grand Haven’s Seth Norder sprint the stretch of the LPD1 boys championship race. (Middle) Northville’s Brendan Herger pushes toward the finish in placing third for the team champion. (Click for more from Dave McCauley/RunMichigan.com.)