Who Won?
- Thread starter milandidit
- Start date
*unofficial*, but the best i could find under short notice 
http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/120859-9608-042.html
http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/120859-9608-042.html
Way to go Hack! As I sit here on this great Labor Day weekend just minutes from the campus (yeah right), it's nice to know as the 50 yr anny is almost upon us, some people still remember what sports is all about!
MILAN, Ind. ? The water tower by the railroad tracks ? remnant of a furniture factory that long ago closed ? still announces the identity of a town with one blinking stoplight.
"State champs. 1954."
Fifty years later, needing a boost the way so many off-the-interstate places do, Milan hopes one more time to relive its moment as Cinderella. The fairy tale that led to the movie "Hoosiers."
There is no pharmacy in Milan anymore. No theater. No dry cleaners. Most of the main street businesses are gone. But there is the milk-and-cookies tale of its basketball team and the charm of the people who cherish it. Time has not yet robbed Milan of that.
"We don't have much going for us in Milan except basketball and the reputation of basketball," Daren Baker said, sitting behind a desk in the car dealership he owns. "We may not have a lot to talk about in the future. So we concentrate on the past."
This dot in southeastern Indiana ? population then 1,150 and now just under 2,000 ? is arguably the most famous small town in high school sports history. Once upon a time, its bite-sized school of 161 students ? 73 boys ? won the celebrated Indiana basketball championship on a last-second shot.
In a hoops-happy state, that made Milan an Indiana landmark, even if one needed a good map to find it. More than 40,000 people came to town the next day.
The years went by, and the story faded a bit. But then came the movie.
In 1986, "Hoosiers" was released. The script changed the town's name to Hickory, and the plot was mostly fiction. But the story's essence was the same.
So the mystique of Milan got second wind and is drawing another one this year with the 50th anniversary, which includes Saturday's rematch of the teams from the 1954 title game ? Milan vs. Muncie Central ? followed by a reunion at the state finals in March and a celebration coinciding with Milan's sesquicentennial in July.
"People ask me if I ever get tired of talking about 1954," said Bobby Plump, an Indianapolis businessman and also the skinny, short-haired Milan guard who buried the winning jump shot. "I never have. I don't think I ever will."
Maybe that's because the echoes of 1954 go far beyond sports. The Milan players are now men in their 60s, and it is their lives that suggest the places one basketball game might lead.
Milan was hardly a boomtown in the 1950s. Plump, raised in even smaller Pierceville two miles west, didn't have a telephone.
But of the 12 varsity players that season, nine graduated from college. Six went into coaching. The only one not still living ? starting forward Ron Truitt, who died of cancer in 1988 ? has a Houston school named after him.
"I think what 1954 did not just for myself but for all the players and all the students and the town is raise expectations a little bit," Plump said. "I think they assumed they could do things they assumed they couldn't do before."
By his count, 17 of his class of 30 went to college.
"It changed the direction of my life," said Ray Craft, Plump's backcourt mate and now assistant commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association.
"You couldn't find better representatives of the state of Indiana than those boys," said Roselyn McKittrick, who operates an antique store in Milan ? with part of it a museum dedicated to 1954.
If there is a battle to keep the memory of 1954 alive, and possibly useful in some sort of Milan economic rebirth, then McKittrick is Gen. Patton.
She is rallying support to expand the museum, organizing ways to mark the occasion, marching to any class or council meeting to make the case to the young generation of Milan the importance of one moment in time.
"What we're trying to do is start from the elementary level on up," she said. "I tell them, `Your town is known statewide. And we're responsible for that name. We have to live up to its reputation. If you could meet those 12 men, you'd love this story, because they have never outgrown Milan.'
"It's always home here."
Home could use a little help. The population has grown, and the citizens talk of the quality of the community's schools and its heart ? more than $6,000 was raised last month to help a local cancer victim. But the jobs and the commerce are mostly somewhere else.
The latest casualty? "Closed until doctor's release," the sign says on the door of Nichols' Barber Shop ? a 1950s gathering spot ? just down Carr Street from McKittrick's store. But the word is Chet Nichols may never be back.
Maybe, McKittrick and her allies hope, the 50th anniversary can be a kick-start for a town whose name still rings bells with strangers in Indiana and beyond. The curious still stop by on a regular basis. Milan High School athletic director Marty Layden said hardly a week passes that an intrigued out-of-towner does not ask to look around.
The school's old gym is long gone, but in the lobby of the current gym is the old scoreboard with 32-30 ? the 1954 final score ? permanently in lights. Also the championship trophy in its own case. And at center circle of the gym floor are the words, "Heart of Hoosier Hysteria."
Plump envisions a downtown given over to nostalgia. A soda fountain and old-time theater and restaurant. Plus the 1954 museum.
"That was such an easy time to grow up," he said. "Nobody had any money, but it didn't make any difference. There weren't many worries, and I think people long for that."
Now in his 10th season, Randy Combs has been Milan's coach longer than anyone. Though the parents of many of his players weren't even born in 1954, he has embraced history while rebuilding a program that dipped badly in the 1990s. Milan's enrollment is now 354, and this year's team will take an 11-6 record into tonight's game against Southwestern (Shelby).
"There are a group of people in town that hope this will be (a shot in the arm)," he said. "I think there's a faction out there that doesn't understand what this really means. And there's a very small group saying, `Why are we celebrating that? It happened 50 years ago.'
"All I've ever said to the kids is that we have people in this gym all the time from all over the nation, and how it's important for us to represent what that means. My perception has always been, `How you could make one of the greatest high school sporting events in history into a negative?'"
Barter Dobson drove the team bus in 1954. Wife Betty worked at the high school. They understand the efforts of those such as Roselyn McKittrick.
"As long as there is someone that was here, or someone who knows something about it, they'll never let it die," Betty said. "I hope ? no, I pray ? this does things for Milan. I'm not leaving. I'll be buried here."
But will it? Does the 1954 team have one last win left in it, turning the lights back on where so many have gone out?
"I don't think anybody knows," Hughes said.
"It's a nice idea. I wish it could happen," Baker said. "But after this is over, I think we might be back to square one."
Craft and Plump both called it "a long shot." But then, if any place knows about long shots coming true, it's Milan.
Miracle to be
revisited Saturday
Original footage of the "Milan Miracle," a 1954 Indiana high school championship game that inspired the movie "Hoosiers," will be shown on ESPN Classic on Saturday (6 p.m. EST). Also on the program to reminisce: Bobby Plump, who hit the game-winning shot for underdog Milan, and Phil Raisor, who started at guard for heavily favored Muncie Central.
MILAN, Ind. ? The water tower by the railroad tracks ? remnant of a furniture factory that long ago closed ? still announces the identity of a town with one blinking stoplight.
"State champs. 1954."
Fifty years later, needing a boost the way so many off-the-interstate places do, Milan hopes one more time to relive its moment as Cinderella. The fairy tale that led to the movie "Hoosiers."
There is no pharmacy in Milan anymore. No theater. No dry cleaners. Most of the main street businesses are gone. But there is the milk-and-cookies tale of its basketball team and the charm of the people who cherish it. Time has not yet robbed Milan of that.
"We don't have much going for us in Milan except basketball and the reputation of basketball," Daren Baker said, sitting behind a desk in the car dealership he owns. "We may not have a lot to talk about in the future. So we concentrate on the past."
This dot in southeastern Indiana ? population then 1,150 and now just under 2,000 ? is arguably the most famous small town in high school sports history. Once upon a time, its bite-sized school of 161 students ? 73 boys ? won the celebrated Indiana basketball championship on a last-second shot.
In a hoops-happy state, that made Milan an Indiana landmark, even if one needed a good map to find it. More than 40,000 people came to town the next day.
The years went by, and the story faded a bit. But then came the movie.
In 1986, "Hoosiers" was released. The script changed the town's name to Hickory, and the plot was mostly fiction. But the story's essence was the same.
So the mystique of Milan got second wind and is drawing another one this year with the 50th anniversary, which includes Saturday's rematch of the teams from the 1954 title game ? Milan vs. Muncie Central ? followed by a reunion at the state finals in March and a celebration coinciding with Milan's sesquicentennial in July.
"People ask me if I ever get tired of talking about 1954," said Bobby Plump, an Indianapolis businessman and also the skinny, short-haired Milan guard who buried the winning jump shot. "I never have. I don't think I ever will."
Maybe that's because the echoes of 1954 go far beyond sports. The Milan players are now men in their 60s, and it is their lives that suggest the places one basketball game might lead.
Milan was hardly a boomtown in the 1950s. Plump, raised in even smaller Pierceville two miles west, didn't have a telephone.
But of the 12 varsity players that season, nine graduated from college. Six went into coaching. The only one not still living ? starting forward Ron Truitt, who died of cancer in 1988 ? has a Houston school named after him.
"I think what 1954 did not just for myself but for all the players and all the students and the town is raise expectations a little bit," Plump said. "I think they assumed they could do things they assumed they couldn't do before."
By his count, 17 of his class of 30 went to college.
"It changed the direction of my life," said Ray Craft, Plump's backcourt mate and now assistant commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association.
"You couldn't find better representatives of the state of Indiana than those boys," said Roselyn McKittrick, who operates an antique store in Milan ? with part of it a museum dedicated to 1954.
If there is a battle to keep the memory of 1954 alive, and possibly useful in some sort of Milan economic rebirth, then McKittrick is Gen. Patton.
She is rallying support to expand the museum, organizing ways to mark the occasion, marching to any class or council meeting to make the case to the young generation of Milan the importance of one moment in time.
"What we're trying to do is start from the elementary level on up," she said. "I tell them, `Your town is known statewide. And we're responsible for that name. We have to live up to its reputation. If you could meet those 12 men, you'd love this story, because they have never outgrown Milan.'
"It's always home here."
Home could use a little help. The population has grown, and the citizens talk of the quality of the community's schools and its heart ? more than $6,000 was raised last month to help a local cancer victim. But the jobs and the commerce are mostly somewhere else.
The latest casualty? "Closed until doctor's release," the sign says on the door of Nichols' Barber Shop ? a 1950s gathering spot ? just down Carr Street from McKittrick's store. But the word is Chet Nichols may never be back.
Maybe, McKittrick and her allies hope, the 50th anniversary can be a kick-start for a town whose name still rings bells with strangers in Indiana and beyond. The curious still stop by on a regular basis. Milan High School athletic director Marty Layden said hardly a week passes that an intrigued out-of-towner does not ask to look around.
The school's old gym is long gone, but in the lobby of the current gym is the old scoreboard with 32-30 ? the 1954 final score ? permanently in lights. Also the championship trophy in its own case. And at center circle of the gym floor are the words, "Heart of Hoosier Hysteria."
Plump envisions a downtown given over to nostalgia. A soda fountain and old-time theater and restaurant. Plus the 1954 museum.
"That was such an easy time to grow up," he said. "Nobody had any money, but it didn't make any difference. There weren't many worries, and I think people long for that."
Now in his 10th season, Randy Combs has been Milan's coach longer than anyone. Though the parents of many of his players weren't even born in 1954, he has embraced history while rebuilding a program that dipped badly in the 1990s. Milan's enrollment is now 354, and this year's team will take an 11-6 record into tonight's game against Southwestern (Shelby).
"There are a group of people in town that hope this will be (a shot in the arm)," he said. "I think there's a faction out there that doesn't understand what this really means. And there's a very small group saying, `Why are we celebrating that? It happened 50 years ago.'
"All I've ever said to the kids is that we have people in this gym all the time from all over the nation, and how it's important for us to represent what that means. My perception has always been, `How you could make one of the greatest high school sporting events in history into a negative?'"
Barter Dobson drove the team bus in 1954. Wife Betty worked at the high school. They understand the efforts of those such as Roselyn McKittrick.
"As long as there is someone that was here, or someone who knows something about it, they'll never let it die," Betty said. "I hope ? no, I pray ? this does things for Milan. I'm not leaving. I'll be buried here."
But will it? Does the 1954 team have one last win left in it, turning the lights back on where so many have gone out?
"I don't think anybody knows," Hughes said.
"It's a nice idea. I wish it could happen," Baker said. "But after this is over, I think we might be back to square one."
Craft and Plump both called it "a long shot." But then, if any place knows about long shots coming true, it's Milan.
Miracle to be
revisited Saturday
Original footage of the "Milan Miracle," a 1954 Indiana high school championship game that inspired the movie "Hoosiers," will be shown on ESPN Classic on Saturday (6 p.m. EST). Also on the program to reminisce: Bobby Plump, who hit the game-winning shot for underdog Milan, and Phil Raisor, who started at guard for heavily favored Muncie Central.
BJ....hmmmm.....well, the story from last *WINTER* a recap of something from 50 years ago.
'
50th anniversary of the milan miracle
Play-by-play recap 1954 championship
Star report
February 15, 2004"
guess high school championships back then were roughly 2 months before college championships are now...(not that i have a CLUE as to when high school championships are these days)
'
50th anniversary of the milan miracle
Play-by-play recap 1954 championship
Star report
February 15, 2004"
guess high school championships back then were roughly 2 months before college championships are now...(not that i have a CLUE as to when high school championships are these days)
