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.
John Glenn Solo Diver Aiming To Stand Alone Atop Finals Podium
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
January 27, 2022
Jamie Miller is getting used to working alone.
As the lone diver on the Bay City John Glenn swimming & diving team, he spends his practice time by himself, working on the dives he hopes can get him a few steps higher on this year’s Finals podium.
“I’ve worked with plenty of really great coaches, and I’ve been to so many good camps,” Miller said. “I know a lot, and I actually know how to coach. I have a little TV, a little TiVo that records my dives, so 20 seconds later, I can walk up and watch it and see how to fix it. I’m a huge introvert, so I don’t have to talk to anyone and don’t have to worry about anyone.”
So far, so good for the senior, who is off to a strong start after finishing sixth at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals a year ago.
He recently won the Tri-Cities championship at Saginaw Valley State, finishing with a two-day, 11-dive total of 454.5, which would have placed third at this past year’s Finals. He’s also broken the Oscoda pool record, scoring 273.55 for six dives to break the previous mark set in 1989.
“I think it’s going pretty well,” Miller said. “I had had a lot of time off because of COVID, but because of how hard I worked in middle school and my early years of high school, I just jumped right back in where I left off.”
Miller has been diving since seventh grade, although he discovered his skill and love for the sport almost by accident.
“I joined the swim team because it was the only sport I could pick that wasn’t a scary contact sport,” he said. “I started swimming and I got a really bad cramp and was like, ‘This kind of sucks. I’m going to try this other thing.’ Then I actually started to like it.”
He began working with Bay Aquatics Diving and coach Janet Beattie, which he said helped him to grow a lot as a diver. While the pandemic forced him away from the club, the lessons learned have helped him continue to improve.
He was also fortunate to have a strong teammate in Trevor Post, who placed fourth as a senior at the 2021 Finals.
“Trevor’s the kind of guy – you know the saying, ‘Work hard, because someone out there is working harder than you?’ Trevor was that guy, and I got to dive with him every day,” Miller said. “We got so competitive, and if we weren’t on the same team, we would not have been as successful as we were.”
Without Post pushing him daily at practice, Miller said it can sometimes be tough to be self-motivated. But anytime he needs a push, he looks up at the record board in front of him.
“The record I’m trying to beat this year at the schools, it’s been there since 2004, it’s 300 points,” he said. “My highest score is 275, so it’s a reach. We’ve only had two dual meets, and I’ve only got to dive at one of them. We have eight more, so that’s what I’m really going for. It’s going to be close.”
Miller is not only looking to motivate himself every day, he’s also constantly having to get over the fear that creeps in when he’s on the board and prepares to dive. While he considers the sport to be very fun, he’s not afraid to admit it is also “horrifying.”
“I have to get over it every single time I get in the water,” Miller said. “It’s kind of like diving is like a constant mental battle. It’s not a physical sport, it’s all mental. You have to convince yourself of things. You can really learn a lot about your mind with diving.”
As he learns about himself and how to stay motivated, Miller does have a greater goal ahead of him. Only three of the top eight divers from last year’s Division 3 Finals graduated, including two of the top five. Miller has crunched the numbers, and as he sees it, if all remains the same, he will move into the top three this year.
He’s not satisfied with that, though.
“I think the least I can shoot for is top three,” he said. “I should be shooting for first. I should just continue forward, shooting for first for the rest of the season. I know a couple kids who are really good. If nobody (else) just completely shines in their first year and beats me, then I should take third if everything stays the same. But I’m going to shoot for first.”
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) Bay City John Glenn’s Jamie Miller dives during a meet this winter. (Middle) Miller, leading a line of divers on the pool deck, recently won the Tri-Cities diving competition. (Photos by Kent Miller.)