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.
LakeVille's Hammond Not Seeking Spotlight, but Thriving Amid Pressure as Reigning Champ
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
February 4, 2026
Fred Hammond remembers what a thrill it was to have Otisville-LakeVille Memorial varsity wrestlers at his club practices when he was younger.
So now that Hammond – the reigning Division 4 Individual Finals champion at 165 pounds and school record holder for wins – is doing the same, there’s no doubt the current LakeVille youth team is experiencing that same thrill.
At the same time, Hammond is finding it just as exciting to be on the other side.
“One of my coaches is our club coach and talks about how his son, when he goes home, he’ll talk about me being there,” Hammond said. “But I just like seeing their smiles. I like being in the room, playing dodgeball with them and teaching them moves. That was a real cool experience for me (as a kid), and I imagine that’s how those guys look at me now.”
Hammond is giving back to the program that has given him so much, all while still helping to elevate the Falcons to new heights.
This past weekend, he picked up his 200th career victory, which tied LakeVille great Stan Marshall for most in school history. Hammond then surpassed that mark to take the record for himself.
He’s now 41-0 on the season with 23 wins by pin fall and seven by technical fall. In his LakeVille career, Hammond is 202-10 and has placed three times at the Individual Finals, taking sixth at 150 pounds as a freshman and third at 165 as a sophomore, both in Division 3. As a junior, he became LakeVille’s first champ since 1999 when he pinned his first three opponents and won by tech in the championship match to claim the 165-pound crown in Division 4.
“Stan Marshall was a three-time state champ, four-time placer, and Stan held every record we had,” LakeVille coach Dan Huggler said. “Ever since Freddy was a middle schooler, he wanted to break all those records. He’s trained hard, and he’s pretty much broke them all. He has the career takedown, pins and wins records. He’s only allowed five takedowns in the past three seasons. He wrestles a lot of tough matches – we’ll wrestle Dundee, (Detroit Catholic Central), as much as we can. His sophomore year, he gave up three takedowns. Last year, he gave up two. This year, he hasn’t given up any. It’s pretty amazing.”
While Huggler had plenty to say about his star wrestler’s exploits on the mat, his voice raised in excitement when talking about the type of person that sits on top of his program’s record books.
“He’s a National Honor Society student, student council member, has over a 3.8 GPA,” Huggler said. “He’s the kindest kid you could imagine – just friendly, smiles at everyone, part of everybody’s group and gets along with everybody. He relates to the people in the Chess Club. He can relate with everyone. He never makes it about himself.”
To that point, Hammond’s milestone victory was achieved while his team won the Tamonta Hill Team Tournament and helped Huggler reach a milestone of his own: his 300th career dual coaching victory.
“I’ve been through LakeVille’s program for a long time, and having these guys coaching me and around all the way through my career, it’s been great,” Hammond said. “It’s pretty cool that on the same day I hit 200, he hit 300. It was cool to do that in front of our home crowd.”
LakeVille is back in Division 3 this season and No. 8 in Michigan Grappler’s latest team rankings. The Falcons won the Mid-Michigan Activities Conference for the third straight season, and three other wrestlers – Adam Hoch, Jake Hascall and George Gavan – have collected career victory No. 100 this season.
As Hammond has been looking at new goals following his individual title a year ago, all of that team success has him thinking big.
“Honestly, I’ve been thinking about college a lot and what I could do there, and obviously helping my teammates,” he said. “Now I’m thinking about team state titles and all of that. That would be real cool to win a team state championship.”
He’s also chasing another individual title, and along the way has accomplished quite a bit outside of the career milestone, having won the Detroit Catholic Central Invitational and Genesee County titles.
As a returning Finals champion, Hammond is well aware that he’ll have a target on his back, but he’s not only prepared for that – he welcomes it.
“I feel like even over the summer, I kind of took a little break just to relax and I hadn’t taken a break from wrestling in a while. But every day since I got back, I always try to get a little better, and I feel like I’m wrestling well going into the postseason,” Hammond said. “I like that feeling of being tracked down. I like being the guy to beat.”
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) Otisville-LakeVille Memorial’s Fred Hammond (in yellow) works toward a win during last season’s MHSAA Individual Finals. (Middle) Hammond celebrates his championship at Ford Field. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)