HISTORY OF BASKETBALL AT CHS Part 1
Since the history of Crawfordsville High School basketball dominated the history of Indiana basketball in the early years, Crawfordsville can truly be called the "cradle of Indiana basketball". From the first game of basketball played outside of Massachusetts, where Dr. James Naismith invented the game, to the last-second shot by Matt Petty which propelled CHS past McCutcheon in the 1989 North Montgomery Sectional, the excitement of Indiana basketball has been a prominent part of life at CHS.
The story begins in the old YMCA upstairs at the Interurban Terminal building on the corner of Washington and Main. Reverend Nicholas McKay, student of Dr. James Naismith of Springfield, Massachusetts, had introduced the new activity in December of 1891 so that football players could stay active in the winter. The game was loosely modeled after lacrosse with the names of the positions on the court taken from that game. The goal (a peach basket) was placed above the court to make it more difficult to defend, and basketball began. McKay had become the general secretary of the Crawfordsville YMCA in the early 90s and brought the game with him. The first game played outside of Massachusetts between two different towns was played on March 16, 1894, between the Crawfordsville YMCA and the Lafayette YMCA. Crawfordsville, of course, won 45 -21. Later on Feb. 19, 1897, Wabash College played Purdue University at the old YMCA in the first collegiate basketball game. Crawfordsville High School players had been playing basketball almost from the beginning on the YMCA teams, so they were well trained when they began to compete against other high school teams in 1900-1901. This explains the dominance of CHS and Montgomery County in the early years. CHS basketball teams started the 20th century by winning the unofficial State Championship six times in the first ten years. This was before the IHSAA began to sanction and sponsor basketball tournaments, and the Athenians were usually acclaimed or declared State Champs because they had defeated every other team in the state that played basketball. The Athenians won the championship of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa in 1900-01 and were never beaten by a high school team. They won the championship of Illinois by defeating Danville, the Illinois State Champ and claimed the championship of Iowa because Danville had defeated the Iowa State Champ.
The team of 1901-02 according to the 1902 Utopian..."was as successful as their predecessors, having never been beaten by a high school team." The only outside game CHS played that year was with Shortridge of Indianapolis who had already beaten Manual of Indianapolis. CHS claimed the championship that year by the fact that all other high school teams refused to play them. The first high school team included Harter Walter, (who later wrote the CHS Alma Mater, The Gold and Blue) Will Sprow, later a star of early Wabash College championship teams, Ralph Wicks, (also a star on early Wabash teams) , Robert Irons, Rome Williams, Glenn Henry, and Heber Banks. The CHS girls also played basketball in 1901-02 losing their only game to the more experienced Shortridge girls 12- 11.
The 1903-04 team had a record of 13-2, losing only to the University of Minnesota and the Crawfordsville Business College. Along the way, they defeated Wabash College twice in a year when the college lost only three games. Little wonder that when Ralph Wicks, Will Sprow, and Harter Walter went to Wabash College after graduation they led the Little Giant basketball teams to a record of 66 - 3 in the next four years. In 1907-08, their senior year, Wicks,
Sprow, and Walter led Wabash to a 24 - 0 record. The first Wabash College "Wonder Five" was proclaimed "World Basketball Champions." One of the only teams to beat the Little Giants during those four years was the 1907-08 Crawfordsville High School team, and they did it twice. Starters on that team were Robert "Pete" Vaughan, Paul Stump, Justin "Jud" Molony, and Emmett Poston. The College team was considered number one in the country when CHS defeated them on the old YMCA court.
For the next two years, 1904-05 and 1905-06, CHS was reloading. Coach Ralph Jones was developing new talent and older players like "Pete" Vaughan, Ward "Piggy" Lambert, Justin Molony, Paul Stump, and Sherman Yount were polishing their skills. They laid claim to the State Championship again in 1904-05. In 1906-07, the Athenians were ready and loaded. Led by Molony, Poston, Stump, and Vaughan, CHS won every game and finished 12 - 0. They won the City league and with it the Wicks Cup, defeating the "Little Giants", All-Western champions of the year before in both games 23 - 21 and 24 - 21. They also defeated the YMCA twice and the Co. "B" team twice. CHS won the State Championship by defeating the two Indianapolis rivals, Manual and Shortridge. "Throughout the whole year, the team did not lose a single game: to college, YMCA or High School teams and as winners of the Wicks Cup and the State Championship, we should be proud of the team and grateful to Mr. Jones, whose hard work and faithfulness, much of our success was due." So wrote the editor of the 1907 Athenian. Three Athenians, Sherman Poston, Justin Molony, and Paul Stump made the All-State team.
The season of 1908-09 saw the demise of the city league, but not the dominance of CHS basketball. Led by former players Perry Stump, and "Piggy" Lambert as coaches, the Athenians raced to a 17 - 1 record. They beat the YMCA two out of three games for the City Championship and defeated Lebanon twice to "gain a better title than any for first place" according to the 1909 Athenian. At the conclusion of the season, Ernest "Rosie" Herron was unanimously chosen by all newspaper critics as the best forward in the state. The Indiana Sportsman proclaimed that, "Crawfordsville had the best team but the Crawfordsville team was not one of stars, but was an evenly balanced outfit."
In 1909-10, CHS again defeated every team and won the state championship as they defeated Lafayette 30-15. They were undefeated in the state and lost only to New Ulm, Wisconsin playing only a few hours after a long and tiring train trip. As representatives of the state of Indiana to the All-Western Basketball Tournament in Madison, Wisconsin, CHS bounced back from the early defeat to finish in second place in the tourney. The 1910 Athenian reported that, "Their floor work and scaling the wall was little short of spectacular." The Athenians finished 4 -1 in the tourney and 17 - 2 overall. That set the stage for the first IHSAA sponsored basketball tournament of 1911.
After being proclaimed Indiana State Champions for several years, the Athenians, under legendary coach, David Glascock, got a chance to take on all comers, winning 12 games and losing only to Marion 34-32 and Lebanon 20-16. They then journeyed to Bloomington to compete for the state crown. They won the championship despite having to play five games in one week including four in twenty-six hours and three games in nine hours. The five iron men who played most of the time for Coach "Davey" were "Newt" Hill, "Chine" Taylor, "Stevie" Stevenson, "Buddie" Miller, and "Cassie" Chadwick. This was Crawfordsville's early version of the "Fab Five". The two subs were "Ick" Shaw and "Chicken" Myers.
The Athenians were moderately successful, according to their own standards, for the next few years. Coach Glascock divided all the basketball candidates into ten teams of seven men each. The teams then played a series of games at the old YMCA with a tourney at the end. Since football had been abolished due to the death of former basketball and football star, Ralph Wilson, the roundballers were able to get an early start. The Athenians finished the season 11-3 and lost to New Richmond 22-14 in the first game of the State Tourney. In 1913 and 1914, Montgomery County basketball fortunes were carried by Wingate who, led by Homer Stonebraker, won the State title both years. CHS was 16-8 in 1912-13 and slipped to 9-6 in 1913-14 losing to eventual State Champ Wingate 26-1.
L.J.C. "Brandy" Freeman had taken over the coaching duties in 1913-14 and in 1914-15, the first year of the IHSAA Sectional format, led the Athenians to a 17-5 record and a Sectional Championship, preparing CHS for the next great run at the State Championship. The 1915-16 team finished with a record of 26-4 and was conceded by most knowledgeable basketball men of the state to be the best team in Indiana. After winning 19 while losing only 3 in the regular season, the Athenians breezed through the sectional which was still being played in the Armory Gymnasium. CHS defeated New Market 39-16, Pine Village 62-27, New Richmond 61-18 and defending State Champion Wingate 53-9. The Athenians continued to coast through the tourney defeating Clinton 40-17, Kokomo 36-19, and Vincennes 33-17. They then entered the final game against Lafayette as heavy favorites. The Athens City Five, however was defeated in overtime 27-26. The upset was so unexpected and the Athenians so clearly the best team in the state that Coach Steihm of Indiana University expressed the sentiment of all present when he said, "I present this trophy to Lafayette not because they are the best team in the state but because they scored the most points in the game just played." The 1915-16 Athenians suffered defeat, but according to the editor of the annual "came up smiling, even when they lost the cup, they grinned' and bore it like men." Thereafter, they were referred to as "The State Champions without a cup." The team captain, Paul Manson, was chosen for the All-State Team at center. Monte Grimes won the forward honor, and the title of "the most versatile player in Indiana." Lester Hunt was called "the best floor guard in the State."
The next two seasons were sub-par for CHS. They were 7-18 under coach Freeman in 1916-17 and 9-12 under Coach Parmer Sims in 1917-18. They rebounded in 1918-19 under coach J.D. (John) Blacker who had played with the State Champion Wingate teams of 1913 and 1914. Blacker led the Athenians to the Final Four in 1918-19 with a record of 30-4. The Athenians were poised to claim yet another state crown when disaster struck. An intra-county squabble between Crawfordsville and Wingate reached the ears of the IHSAA. The previous summer, the Athenians had played the Newtown baseball team which had a young man from Mellott named Fletcher Kerr played for them. Kerr ended up on the Wingate basketball team when the season started and the Athenians cried "Foul". However, Coach Blacker had angered the Wingate folks by recruiting one of their players, Marion "Jack" Blacker, (no relation) to play basketball for CHS. Wingate and Crawfordsville both took their cases the IHSAA, who promptly suspended both schools for the whole year. The irony of the situation is that both C’ville and Wingate pursued an ambitious, independent schedule which led to the Athenians playing the best independent competition possible and ending up with a 28-2 record. Their only losses that year were Em-Roe, the Indianapolis Independent Champs and county neighbor, Wingate in the Mid-West tourney at Chicago. CHS had defeated Wingate previously to win the Tri-State at Cincinnati. An interesting note about the Mid-West Tourney was reported by neighbors of Fletcher Kerr (The Wingate player imported from Mellott). Kerr told his neighbors that a young man at the University of Chicago took a liking to the Wingate team and scouted for them and helped them prepare for the hated Crawfordsville Athenians. Wingate defeated C'Ville in the Chicago Tourney 22-16 and was proclaimed National Champs for the year 1920. That young man's name, by the way, was Paul D. "Tony" Hinkle, later a legendary coach of Butler University’s Bulldogs. CHS had defeated Wingate previously to the win the Tri-State Tourney at Cincinnati. Another irony is that either C'ville or Wingate would probably have won the state that year, but neither was permitted to participate. Crawfordsville even lost its sectional tourney during the "Outlaw Year" as the IHSAA sent the county schools elsewhere. Waynetown, New Market, Alamo, Mace, Ladoga, New Ross, Bowers, Darlington, and Waveland all went to Greencastle where Greencastle defeated Ladoga in the title game 18-13 and New Richmond and Linden went north to the Lafayette Sectional.
