UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, April 25, 1996
3B
Indiana's one-class basketball may end
Athletic association to vote on changing controversial structure
The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — It's played in the small towns and big cities, on sandlot courts and in modern arenas. Its heroes are revered. Its traditions are sacred.
High school basketball unites Indiana in a way no other sport does. These days, the same game that brings the state together is dividing it.
On Monday, the Indiana High School Athletic Association is scheduled to vote on a controversial proposal to replace the state basketball tournament's traditional one-class format and divide schools into classes based on enrollment.
Big schools, which have dominated the tournament for more than 40 years, would play only big schools; small schools at last would get a share of the glory competing against schools their own size.
Indiana, which separates football teams into classes, is one of only four states with single-class basketball. The others are Delaware, Hawali and Kentucky, which has an in-season tournament for smaller schools that is not sponsored by the state association.
Supporters of the change say it's a simple issue of fairness. Opponents call the class proposal heresy, a sellout of tradition for more trophies.
"Big schools don't win state championships, but good basketball programs do," said Steve Witty, basketball coach at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis.
Ben Davis, the state's largest school with an enrollment of 2,700, has won the state tournament in the past two seasons and has reached the semifinals four years in a row.
"If bigness was such a key, we've been one of the biggest schools in Indiana forever. But why did it take 86 years for us to win our first one?" Witty said.
The one-class tournament, which has included big and small schools alike since the early years of this century, has made Hoosier Hysteria a phenomenon that has reached far beyond the state's borders. Players such as John Wooden, Oscar Robertson, George McGinnis, Rick Mount, Larry Bird and Glenn Robinson have made Indiana basketball famous.
The boys' tournament finals moved from Market Square Arena to the larger RCA Dome six years ago.
That was the year Damon Bailey was a senior at Bedford North Lawrence High School. More than 40,000 fans, the largest crowd ever to see a U.S. high school game, turned out to watch the future Indiana star.
Indiana basketball also was the subject of the hit movie "Hoosiers," based on the championship won by tiny Milan, the last small school to win the state tournament.
But that was way back in 1954, and the proponents of change point to that example as evidence that the single tournament should be scrapped. Only eight other small-school teams have even reached the tournament semifinals since then, and none of them has won.
"The world of 1996 is much different from the world of 1954, just as the game of basketball is much different now," said Terry Rademacher, girls' coach at 150-student Borden High School. "Students in small schools who aren't competitive in sectionals wonder why they are made sacrificial lams to perpetuate an unfair competition."
But the coach of that Milan team, Mary Wood, doesn't see it that way.
"I will really be disappointed if we're the last little school that has a shot at winning one," Wood said. "I think we'd
lose a lot more than people realize."
Because of closings and consolidations, the number of high schools has dwindled from almost 800 in the 1930s to under 400 today, and the concentration of talent in the state's biggest schools has made it impossible for the smallest schools to compete, supporters of separate classes said.
New Castle High School, a big school, gave the small-school supporters plenty of ammunition this year with sectional tournament victories by margins of 95, 49 and 45 points against schools less than half its size.
Even Indiana University coach Bob Knight has come out in favor of dividing schools into classes, even though he appreciates the tradition of the present format.
"If we would go to three classes, three times as many kids and three times as many communities would get to enjoy the same thing that one group of four (finalists) does now," Knight said.
But Wooden, the former UCLA coach who played on a state championship team at Martinsville High School, wants to keep the tournament the way it is.
"I don't think you have to outscore somebody to win," he said. "I think you can outscore somebody and lose. And just to have more winners, I think that's a poor excuse. ... I think it cheapens the championships.
"There isn't progress without change; I know that. But not all change is progress."
Bobby Plump, the man who hit the winning shot in Milan's 1954 championship, organized a group to fight the proposed change. The members of Friends of Hoosier Hysteria include Robertson and former Indiana Pacers coach Bob Leonard.
"It'll be a big mistake for Indiana," Plump said. "We've got something unique that's recognized throughout the United States as the high school
The call for separate basketball tournaments began in the 1970s, but not much came of it. In recent years, with a new generation of coaches and administrators in power, the effort has been renewed.
An Indiana high school class sports committee reviewed more than 1,500 pages of documents from 32 other state associations. The committee also held 11 formal meetings and gathered information from the Indiana association's member schools and selected coaches associations.
In January and February, fans were surveyed at games throughout the state. Fans from larger schools tended to favor keeping the one-class format, and fans from smaller schools tended to favor class divisions.
The 17-member association executive board that will vote on Monday is comprised mainly of athletic directors and principals, from both big and small schools.
"No matter what recommendation comes forth, we're not going to please everybody," said association board member Bruce Whitehead, athletic director at 554-student Crawfordsville High School. "If there isn't a change, some of the class people will say, 'There they go again. They swept it under the rug.' And if the decision is to make a change, the purists and traditionalists will say, 'You're ruining something that has been successful for a long time."
The smallest school at which fans voted against separate class tournaments was Cannelton High School, which regularly draws up to 10 times as many fans to its games as its listed enrollment of 75 student.
"I like the old way," Cannelton coach and athletic director Mike McClintic said. "These people have a lot of pride. From the way I see people here, anything less than what they have now would take something away."
NBA to create a women's league Eight teams to play in summer during a 25-30 game schedule
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The NBA, recognizing the popularity of the women's game, intends to start a new pro basketball league for them in the summer of 1997.
Stern promised details about television arrangements, the number of teams and the cities in which they will operate by Julv1.
"We are working on the concept," commissioner David Stern said after the NBA Board of Governors approved the idea. "It's all tentative. It's a working model, subject to lots of changes."
"We are excited about the prospects of using the assets of the NBA and its teams to give life to a concept which is ready to bloom." Stern said.
The league expects to play from mid-June to mid-August and Val Ackerman, NBA director of business affairs and liaison with the U.S. women's national team, said she anticipates eight teams playing a 25-30 game schedule over 10 weeks in NBIA cities.
In Europe, Ackerman said, good players earn from $1,500 a month to as much as $200,000 to $300,000 per year. "The average is about $70,000 and the best players get six figures," she said.
Stern said the NBA concept is to launch the league as a single enterprise. Players would sign contracts with the league and be dispersed to teams on the basis of territorial-competitive considerations as well as through a draft. He emphasized that all of this was tentative. "Today was just to get board approval," he said.
Stern said the board was enthusiastic about the concept. "There was a strong statement of interest that this is a good idea, a right idea," he said. "This is another opportunity to grow the sport of basketball."
And, the Stern said, he expects the NBA's women's league to be a success.
"We don't enjoy failing," he said. "We've raised the stakes and we'll make it happen. That's the way we are. It's time and we're going to do it."
In other business Wednesday, the league approved sale of the Philadelphia 76ers from Harold Katz to Comcast, a cable television company, and decided three tiebreaks for the college draft.
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