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Posted by Nick By Doug Wilson, Troy Paino doesn't buy it that class basketball killed the popularity of Indiana high school basketball. A professor who's writing a book on the rise and fall of Indiana high school basketball, Paino agrees with those who say there are many reasons besides class basketball for Hoosiers losing interest in their hometown teams. He accepts, for instance, that some stopped attending high school games because there are now more entertainment options and people can watch basketball on television almost every night. But Paino, a history teacher at Winona State in Minnesota writing a book about Indiana high scchool basketball, says the growing influence of inner-city African-American players has arguably been the biggest change causing Indiana communities to lose the close bond they once had with their local team. Indiana high school basketball exploded in popularity in the 1920s and '30s, he said, because it provided a cohesive force in changing Hoosier communities. As rural farms gave way to impersonal industrial cities, people rallied together behind teams that embodied rural Hoosier values: hard work, self-sacrifice, discipline and merit. High school basketball, Paino says, gave fans a shared connection to their rural heritage. But then basketball changed, and so did its relationship with many Hoosiers, Paino said. It's no coincidence, he believes, that state tournament attendance began to fall soon after Oscar Robertson in 1955 helped Indianapolis Crispus Attucks become the first African American-dominated team to win a state title. Indiana boys' high school basketball tournament attendance peaked at about 1.5 million per year in the late '50s and early '60s, according to Paino, and has been falling for the past 40 years. The trend quickened after the IHSAA decided 1997 would be the last year for the single class tournament. Since 1997, attendance has dropped by almost half just more than 457,000 attending boys' tournament games last year. "I think that people have got it wrong," Paino said. "They're blaming class basketball for the decline of Indiana high school basketball. But class basketball is a symptom. It may have been a nail in the coffin, but the coffin was already being lowered." Paino is an Indianapolis native and lifelong Indiana University basketball fan. As a doctoral student at Michigan State in 1993, he was driving across Indiana on his way to IU's NCAA tournament game in St. Louis when he turned on the radio. "I went from one station to the next, listening to game after game," Paino said. "It took me back to my childhood. I thought this is so rich; there must be a new angle to all this." Hoosier Hysteria rises What started then as a dissertation on how high school basketball grew into almost a religion in Anderson, Muncie and New Castle has evolved into a book Paino is now finishing. In his as yet untitled book and an earlier published paper, Paino describes basketball's rise to such a height of popularity that Indiana towns and cities built some of the nation's largest high school gyms. To research the book, he spent weeks in Indiana towns poring through school records and yearbooks, reviewing old newspaper coverage and talking with basketball fans. He expects to finish the book this spring and look for a publisher this summer. "The connection between Indiana towns and their local high school basketball teams intensified from the 1910s to the 1950s because people truly felt those playing the games were their boys," Paino wrote in a spring 2001 article in the Journal of Sport History. "Those high school players represented their community better than professional or college athletes ever could." The 1986 movie, Hoosiers, "employed every icon of Indiana high school basketball: small rural town, white farm boys turned basketball players, disciplinarian coach, over-involved townsfolk tightly packed into gymnasiums, basketball goals over barn doors, and, most importantly, a team that passed the ball at least three times before shooting, ran back cuts to the basket, set hard picks, learned individual sacrifice for the team and played smothering man-to-man defense," Paino writes. The surprising run of tiny Milan to the 1954 state title inspired the movie. That run made a folk hero of Bobby Plump, a clean-cut white farm boy whose last-second shot lifted Milan to a 32-30 victory in the championship game over heavily favored, racially diverse Muncie Central. The game changes The following year, all-black Crispus Attucks defeated all-black Gary Roosevelt 97-74 for the state championship. Attucks and Roosevelt, a pair of inner-city teams, relentlessly pushed the ball up court. Quick, easy scores were the reward for aggressive, trapping defense, Paino writes. Unlike whites who were taught a highly structured game at YMCAs and schools, Robertson learned the game on the playgrounds of the Lockfield Gardens Housing Project in Indianapolis. With size, ball handling, passing, rebounding and shooting touch, he introduced a unique style of play, Paino writes. "Once African Americans were given a chance to influence the nature of the game that meant so much to Indiana, the relationship between predominantly white communities around the state and high school basketball forever changed," Paino writes. In the 1910s and '20s, between one-quarter and one-third of all native-born men in Indiana paid the $10 initiation fee to join the Ku Klux Klan, according to estimates drawn from membership records. During that time, school boards in cities that had significant black populations Indianapolis, Evansville and Gary opened segregated all-black high schools that IHSAA Permanent Secretary Arthur Trester determined to be ineligible to play in the IHSAA, according to Paino. Although it wasn't officially allowed to compete in IHSAA games until 1942, Crispus Attucks played exhibitions against some small rural schools, including Ellettsville, Smithville and Paragon, as early as the 1930s. Those games, Paino writes, may have helped Crispus Attucks adjust to the deliberate style of basketball played by all-white schools. In winning two straight state championships, Robertson never became popular with the masses. "Suffering the indignation of racial slurs from opposing fans and players, enduring the intensified scrutiny of referees and the press, and finally receiving only a lukewarm celebration by whites in Indianapolis ultimately made Robertson bitter," Paino writes. Popularity falls "Indiana high school basketball was clearly in decline in the 1960s," Paino says. "People talk about there being more competition for people's time, about suburbanization and about there being college and pro games on television. And they talk about there being fewer teams in the tournament (because of school consolidations). I think all of those things play a role. But I think what's missed is that basketball no longer had the same cultural significance it had pre-World War II and certainly before 1955. "Some of that has to do with race. It became increasingly difficult to imagine the game as it was once played, which represented a lot to Hoosiers: the disciplinarian coach, the structured game, the fundamentals of the game and playing as a team. These are things from our frontier past that are rural in origin." Paino argues that in the face of basketball having its best players coming from urban areas, Hoosiers tried to recapture the past as they rallied around such white small-town players as Rick Mount of Lebanon, Steve Alford of New Castle and Damon Bailey of Bedford North Lawrence. During Bailey's run to a state title in 1990, 41,046 fans more than double the U.S. high school attendance record packed the Hoosier Dome for the championship game. "That doesn't necessarily mean that fans are racists, because I know so many who aren't," Paino said. "But I do think race is a factor. You can't ignore it." By contrast, attendance dropped at Ben Davis, where Paino graduated in 1981, after busing brought more African American players to the school in the 1990s. "When I went there, there were one or two black players on the team. The gym was packed, even though the teams weren't that good," Paino said. "More recently, largely with African American players, Ben Davis has won state championships. But the gym was usually half full. People on the west side of Indianapolis didn't feel attached to the team." Paino believes the success of African American-dominated teams was a major factor in the IHSAA deciding to initiate multi-class basketball. As high school basketball declined, IU basketball became a substitute, Paino said. Coach Bob Knight showed Hoosiers that such old-school values as teamwork, discipline and self-sacrifice could still overcome superior talent to win championships. "That's why Bobby Knight became such a cult figure," Paino said. "When he was fired, people thought that everything that has gone wrong with American culture was embodied by those who turned their backs on Knight." The disappointment some traditionalists felt in Knight being fired was made worse when IU hired Mike Davis, an African American who coaches an NBA-style offense and tries to fill his roster with players equipped to flourish in the pro game. "It's hard for them to swallow," Paino said. "Indiana basketball during the Knight era replaced high school basketball in the minds of many Hoosiers. Now where do they have left to turn?" Link: Hoosier Times - Professor says race factor in declining attendance
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