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.
Hoosiers is a 1986 American sports film written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh in his feature directorial debut. It tells the story of a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that enters the state championship. It is loosely based on the story of the Milan High School team that participated in the 1954 state championship.
John Robert Wooden was an American basketball player and coach. Nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood," he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships in a 12-year period as head coach for the UCLA Bruins, including a record seven in a row. No other team has won more than four in a row in Division I college men's or women's basketball. Within this period, his teams won an NCAA men's basketball record 88 consecutive games. Wooden won the prestigious Henry Iba Award as national coach of the year a record seven times and won the AP award five times.
Indiana University South Bend is a public university in South Bend, Indiana. It is the third largest and northernmost campus of Indiana University.
Hastings College is a private Presbyterian college in Hastings, Nebraska.
Crispus Attucks High School is a high school of the Indianapolis Public Schools in Indianapolis, in the U.S. state of Indiana. It is named for Crispus Attucks, an American patriot killed during what became known as the Boston Massacre. The school was built near Indiana Avenue northwest of downtown Indianapolis and opened on September 12, 1927, when it was the only public high school in the city designated specifically for African Americans. Despite the passage of federal and state school desegregation laws, Attucks was the city's only high school with a single-race student body in 1953, largely due to residential segregation, and remained a segregated school until 1971. Attucks was converted to a junior high school in 1986, due to declining enrollment, and a middle school in 1993. It became a medical magnet high school in 2006, partially due to the school's proximity to the campus of the Indiana University School of Medicine and its associated hospitals.
Hinkle Fieldhouse is a basketball arena on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. Completed in early 1928, it was the largest basketball arena in the United States until 1950. The facility was renamed Hinkle Fieldhouse in 1966 in honor of Butler's longtime coach and athletic director, Paul D. "Tony" Hinkle. It is the sixth-oldest college basketball arena still in use. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1987, Hinkle Fieldhouse is sometimes referred to as "Indiana's Basketball Cathedral."
Oakland City University (OCU) is a private university affiliated with the General Baptist Church and located in Oakland City, Indiana. It is the only General Baptist Church-affiliated college or university in the United States. Founded in 1885, it has slowly grown to the present student enrollment of about 1,200 on the main campus and, counting all sites, about 2,000 total. OCU's athletics teams, known as the Oaks, play in the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the River States Conference.
Better known for its high school basketball, Indiana high school football has also been a staple of Hoosier weekends for more than 100 years. In 1930, more than 30,000 people jammed Notre Dame Stadium to watch Mishawaka beat undefeated South Bend Central, 6-0. At the time, it was one of the largest crowds to witness a high school football game in the United States. Indiana high school football is still immensely popular, with tens of thousands now packing Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to watch six state championship games over two days in November. The following is a history of Indiana's big school state football championship.
John Adams High School is a public high school in South Bend, Indiana.
The 1954 Milan High School Indians won the Indiana High School Boys Basketball Tournament championship in 1954. With an enrollment of only 161, Milan was the smallest school ever to win a single-class state basketball title in Indiana, beating the team from the much larger Muncie Central High School in a classic competition known as the Milan Miracle. The team and town are the inspiration for the 1986 film Hoosiers. The team finished its regular season 19–2 and sported a 28–2 overall record.
Pete Trgovich is an American former college basketball player. He played for the UCLA Bruins, who won two national championships during his career.
Glenn M. Curtis was an American basketball coach. He was the head coach at Indiana State University from 1938 to 1946. He won 122 games and led the Sycamores to three NAIA Tournaments, reaching the national championship in 1946. The Sycamores also won the Midwest Invitational Tournament in 1946. His career collegiate record is 122–45 (.724).
Elmer Harold Burnham was an American football coach and all-around athlete, known particularly for his basketball skills both in college and in amateur YMCA play in Indiana. He was the head football coach at Purdue University in 1942 and 1943. Burnham's 1943 Purdue squad went 9–0 and shared the Big Ten Conference title with Michigan. From 1944 to 1960, Burnham served as the head coach at the University of Rochester, where he compiled a record of 82–48–6 in 17 seasons. Burnham served as Purdue's freshman football coach for seven years before assuming the role as varsity head coach in 1942. Before coming to Purdue, Burnham coached football at Central High School in South Bend, Indiana for 16 seasons, tallying a mark of 118–30–8.
Crawfordsville High School is a former public high school erected in 1910 on East Jefferson Street in Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, Indiana, and was a part of the Crawfordsville Community Schools. The building was expanded in 1914, 1921, and 1941 to provide additional classrooms, an auditorium, and a gymnasium. In 2000 the old school building was converted to a multi-use facility of offices, residential housing, and a fitness center. The former high school building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. A new Crawfordsville High School facility opened at One Athenian Drive in 1993.
The Versailles School and Tyson Auditorium is a historic school and auditorium located at Versailles, Ripley County, Indiana. The school was built in 1938, and is a two-story, flat roofed Art Deco style building. The auditorium was added in 1950. James H. Tyson, a founder of Walgreens, funded the buildings. The famous Milan basketball team often played its games in the building, as their home court was often too small for all the spectators.
In 1947–48 Indiana State Sycamores men's basketball season, the Sycamores were led by coach John Wooden, NAIB All-American Duane Klueh and future NBA players, John Hazen and Bob Royer. The Sycamores finished as the national runner-up with a record of 27–7; they lost to Louisville by a score of 82-70 in the title game. This season represented Indiana State's second NAIA Final Four, its second national title game and its second national runner-up finish.
Clemens L. "Lenny" Rzeszewski was an American college basketball player and, later, a high school coach. He also coached Baseball at South Bend LaSalle and in 1984 they were rated number 1 going into sectional play.
The Indiana High School Boys Basketball Tournament, organized by the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA), is the oldest state high school basketball tournament in America. The tournament has often featured future NCAA and National Basketball Association (NBA) players. The Milan Miracle team in the 1953–54 season inspired the 1986 movie Hoosiers. In the early 1920s, the tournament was dominated by the Franklin Wonder Five, who won three consecutive state championships, followed by a college championship at Franklin College. They won several games against professional teams.
Raymond Province Crowe was a basketball coach, educator, school administrator, and Republican politician in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is best known as the head basketball coach of Crispus Attucks High School from 1950 to 1957, after which he served another decade as the school's athletic director. His teams won the Indiana state basketball championship in 1955 and 1956, becoming the first all-black school to win a state championship in the country, and the first Indianapolis team to win the Hoosier state title. Crowe coached numerous Indiana All-Star players, including Oscar Robertson, Hallie Bryant, and Willie Meriweather, and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1968.
