The State Tournament: Better Than Advertised

A USA-365.com Special Commentary by Mark Smith
03-06-2007

Aren't you tired of hearing how the Indiana state basketball tournament "isn't what it used to be?" Oh, please. Tell me again how 1.5 million people attended the state tournament in 1962 (i.e., the "Good Old days").

Last year, less than 500,000 attended. So the tourney is just another example of the decline of western society. In other words, because people who had nothing better to do found something better to do and stopped attending games just to be there, the state tourney is now lame.

Find someone who is living in the past and they can bend your ear until sunrise with tales of how nobody even locked their doors in small town Indiana on winter nights back in the "Happy Days" era because all the lowlifes were all sitting next to them at the ball game. Please.

And I believe that Richie and Fonzie grew up to be motion picture actors and directors.

Permission to speak freely? Maybe 1.5 million people attended the state tournament in 1962 because we were a backward state where young folks' idea of excitement was tipping cows and chewing straw. Fewer fans go to the state tournament these days largely because there are fewer casual fans. Basketball is an acquired taste, but lots of people will go if their school is playing. It was a community gathering event. Now we have phones.

Let's tell some truth. There used to be over 700 schools in the state in the 1950s and now there are under 400. Let's say I attended EC Washington and our rival was EC Roosevelt. Once those schools consolidated, if I didn't really love basketball and was just going to be social, why should I continue to attend games? My old school is gone and my neighbor's school is gone. That's happened all over Indiana in the last 40 years. Tippecanoe valley is a hybrid of four schools. If my school disappears and my schools' rival disappears, what keeps me going to the games?

There's a point to be made about basketball. Not everybody loves it. If you look at films of the 1950s and Indiana basketball, the folks there were dressed in suits and ties. The game was like church. You were almost required to go. It was the social event of the week in many small Indiana towns.

And let's be honest. In the 1960s, there was no cable TV and little or no color TV. You were upper middle class if you had a good radio. If you didn't go to the game on Friday, all you could do was sit at home and watch your dog wag his tail.

Take it from someone who goes to a hundred games a year, most of them are lopsided. If you do not love the game, you will not like the experience. And the experience has not been maintained by the caretakers. At the recent East Chicago Sectional, large sections of the upper deck were closed off, I assume, so they wouldn't have to clean them later. That would be unheard of years ago. It made the rest of the gym a crowded elbow fest. If I came Friday night and it was like that, why would I come back Saturday if my team was eliminated?

The tournaments have unnecessarily been dropped on top of each other. When girls teams make the state finals, boys teams at the same school have to postpone the sectional to Monday night. Why? Because some bean counters in Indianapolis decided how many weeks the winter tourneys could take. Logic says, push the entire boys season back one week and avoid Monday night basketball. But the caretakers of the game don't see that.

Sectionals formerly were played all week long. Now, almost everyone plays Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. That hugely limits the audience, although the IHSAA and basketball people, the caretakers of the game, are too bull-headed to admit it.

If half the sectionals played Monday, Wednesday and Friday while the other half played Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, attendance would jump sharply. But the tourney is immune to suggestions and the caretakers play into the hands of those who insist the tourney is no good.

We like to whine. There are far better prep ballplayers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, but their friends are too busy gang banging and shopping for "bling" to go to basketball games. By realistic standards, over 400,000 is a huge attendance number for a four week youth basketball tournament. Especially when everyone over 50 cries 24-7 about how it's been ruined. We need a lot of older people to pass on to that great hardwood court in the sky so future generations can hear a positive spin and appreciate what we have. We don't promote it. We won't update it.

Still, 400,000 come. They must still get it.

Here's what I appreciate. Fifteen years ago, Hanover Central was getting beat by 50 points at the sectional. Morgan Township was getting hammered by Valpo at the sectional. Those little schools have a chance now and I like it like that.

Indiana's tradition-rich North Central Conference has won over 300 sectionals combined. How? They attracted (read: recruited) players to the old Indiana factory towns like Kokomo and Marion because daddy could get a job and little Timmy Turnover could win a state title. Little Timmy couldn't win anything at places like Mississinewa, because Marion annually neutered Mississinewa in the old one class tournament.

Of course the big schools don't like class sports playoffs. The "fix" isn't in anymore. Oregon-Davis can win.

Little schools lost in the post season and their fans would go watch the big schools play. Big schools lose and their fans are too sour on memories of bye gone days to go watch the little schools. And still, the final two title games have been sold out for the last two years at Conseco Fieldhouse. It still works. The next two weeks, a regional and a semistate title game will be telecast state wide. That's a great idea and it was also a great idea 30 years ago when it should have been first tried.

The Chicago Cubs prove that if you put a good sports entertainment product on TV, you breed an audience that nothing can kill. Not even those who think that all good things ended in 1965.

Sectional title game draw large and enthusiastic crowds. Regionals do even better. The double semistate format fills buildings. Four schools win big every year and they love the feeling. Not one of them would trade it for a 40-point regional whipping by Warsaw.

When you look at the empty seats at the Illinois state finals, you see how the other half lives. Most states don't have successful basketball tournaments. Not to the extent that Indiana does. The diminished attendance is a sign of the inevitable fracturing of the entertainment hour and dollar.

The Indiana state basketball tournament isn't about maximum attendance. It's about the experience for the kids in the stands and the ones on the floor. More kids win the title game now. Certainly more girls do. More kids lose in the title game now. And the kids in the stands are the ones who really care. Not the ones who are simply there.

We don't need the old timers. Anyone who still thinks that one school and one town celebrating a championship in the quintessential Indiana sport is somehow better than eight (four boys and four girls) does not realize that high school athletics isn't about them.

What do you think of the IHSAA basketball tournaments? Let us know by e-mailing USA-365 Sports at USA365@Ameritech.net.