Hoosier Hysteria is the state of excitement surrounding basketball in Indiana or, more specifically, the Indiana high school basketball tournament. In part, the enthusiasm stemmed from the one-class tournament, in which a small town's David might knock off a large city's Goliath. The most famous example occurred in 1954, when Milan defeated Muncie Central to win the state title. The movie Hoosiers was inspired in part by the story of the 1954 Milan team and typifies the hysteria related to basketball in Indiana.
Evansville is a city in and the county seat of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 117,429 at the 2010 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in Southern Indiana, and the 232nd-most populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Evansville metropolitan area, a hub of commercial, medical, and cultural activity of southwestern Indiana and the Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area, that is home to over 911,000 people. The 38th parallel crosses the north side of the city and is marked on Interstate 69.
Bosse Field is a baseball stadium located in Evansville, Indiana. Opened in 1915, it was the first municipally owned sports stadium in the United States and is the third-oldest ballpark still in regular use for professional baseball, surpassed only by Fenway Park (1912) in Boston and Wrigley Field (1914) in Chicago.
Francis Joseph Reitz High School is a public high school on the west side of Evansville, Indiana, United States. It was founded in 1918 in honor of Francis Joseph Reitz, and is the second oldest high school still in use today in the city. It is a member of the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation. It is also known by the IHSAA as Evansville Reitz High School and locally known as simply Reitz High School.
North High School, or Evansville North High School, is a public high school now located on the north side of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, approximately 9.5 miles north of Evansville, Indiana, United States.
Arad A. McCutchan was a collegiate basketball coach. The Evansville, Indiana, native coached his hometown University of Evansville from 1946 to 1977, guiding the Purple Aces to a 514–314 record.
Mater Dei High School or Evansville Mater Dei High School is a private Catholic high school on the west side of Evansville, Indiana, constructed in 1949. It is one of two Catholic high schools that serve the students of Vanderburgh, Posey, Gibson, and Warrick counties as part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Evansville.
Evansville Central High School, also known as Central High, is a public high school on the north side of Evansville, Indiana. It is the oldest high school in continuous operation west of the Allegheny Mountains. It was established in 1854 as Evansville High School. The name was changed to Central High School in 1918 when FJ Reitz High School was built.
Ervin "Pete" Fox was an American professional baseball player from 1930 to 1946. He played 13 seasons in Major League Baseball, principally as a right fielder, for the Detroit Tigers from 1933 to 1940 and the Boston Red Sox from 1941 to 1945. Though his given name was Ervin, Fox became known as "Pete" in 1932 when fans in Beaumont, Texas, dubbed him "Rabbit" in reference to his speed, with the nickname reportedly evolving into "Peter Rabbit" and then simply "Pete".
William Henry Harrison High School, also known as Evansville Harrison High School, is a public high school on the east side of Evansville, Indiana. Students at Harrison come from the Plaza Park Middle School and McGary Middle School.
The Southern Indiana Athletic Conference (SIAC) is a high school athletic conference based in Evansville, Indiana. Five of the conferences eight schools; Bosse, Central, Harrison, North, and Reitz; comprise the public Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation. Mater Dei and Memorial are private Catholic high schools ran by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Evansville, and the largest member is Castle, a public school located in neighboring Newburgh in Warrick County under the Warrick County School Corporation. The league was founded in 1936, and at one point stretched far across southern and western Indiana: from Mount Vernon in the west to New Albany in the east, and from Evansville in the south to Terre Haute in the north. Jasper and Vincennes Lincoln announced in May 2019 that they would leave the disbanding Big Eight Conference to rejoin the Southern Indiana Athletic Conference beginning with the 2020-21 season.
Roger Herschel Zion was an American World War II veteran and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from Indiana from 1967 through 1975.
Martin Ray Simmons is an American basketball coach and former player. He is the head men's basketball coach at Eastern Illinois University, a position he has held since 2021. Simmons served as the head men's basketball coach at Wartburg College from 1996 to 1997, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville from 2002 to 2007, and the University of Evansville from 2007 to 2018. As a high school player, Simmons was named Illinois Mr. Basketball in 1983. He played college basketball at Indiana University Bloomington and Evansville.
Evansville, Indiana is the home to two minor league professional sports teams and one amateur sports team. The city is also the home to two NCAA collegiate teams, and nine high schools that participate in the Indiana High School Athletic Association. Evansville is also the host to the annual Hoosier Nationals and Demolition City Roller Derby.
Benjamin Bosse was an American politician, manufacturer, and businessman who served as the 19th mayor of Evansville, Indiana, from 1914 until his death in 1922.
Charles Martin "Marty" Amsler is a former American football defensive end in the National Football League for the Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals and Green Bay Packers. He played college football at the University of Evansville.
The Evansville Evas was a primary nickname of an early minor league baseball teams in Evansville, Indiana between 1877 and 1931. Early Evansville teams played as members of the League Alliance (1887), Central Interstate League (1889-1890), Interstate League (1891), Northwestern League (1891), Illinois-Indiana League (1892), Southern Association (1895), Central League (1897), Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League (1901–1902), Central League (1903–1911), Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League (1912), Central League (1913–1917) and Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League (1919–1931).
Talitha Washington is an American mathematician and academic who specializes in applied mathematics and STEM education policy. She was recognized by Mathematically Gifted & Black as a Black History Month 2018 Honoree.
Derrick Dowell is an American former professional basketball player. Dowell emerged as a promising prospect while playing for Benjamin Bosse High School in his hometown of Evansville, Indiana, leading his team to a 51–2 record during his final two years with the team. He played collegiately with the USC Trojans while earning two first-team All-Pac-10 nominations in his final two seasons. Dowell was selected in the 1987 NBA draft by the Washington Bullets as the 37th overall pick although he never played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He spent one season with the Rapid City Thrillers of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) before an achilles tendon injury ended his career.
