It was just a short note in the 1919 IHSAA Annual, but it had a significant impact on the fortunes of three basketball powerhouses in the state of Indiana. The report reads:
Crawfordsville versus Wingate; Wingate versus Crawfordsville;
- Fletcher Kerr of the Wingate High School is declared ineligible for his entire High School course. The evidence showed that he played base ball on the Melott (Mellott) team while he was a member of the Newton (Newtown) High School.
- The case of Alonzo Goldsberry is continued.
- Marion Blacker, now enrolled in the Crawfordsville High School but who was enrolled in the Wingate High School last semester, was ineligible last semester and is ineligible this semester.
- The Wingate High School is suspended from the I.H.S.A.A. until June 1, 1920, for having played Marion Blacker on their basket ball team last semester.
- The Crawfordsville High School is suspended from the I.H.S.A.A. until June 1, 1920, for having used undue influence in trying to induce Alonzo Goldsberry to enter the Crawfordsville High School and also for having played Marion Blacker on their team this semester.
- The case of Melott (Mellott) High School for having played Fletcher Kerr while he was a member of the Newton (Newtown) High School is continued.
The action of the IHSAA affected both Crawfordsville High School and Wingate High School who were both strong favorites to claim the 1920 basketball crown and Franklin High School which did become the champions starting a string of three straight championships. The major players in our little drama once again show how important basketball was in the early days and the lengths schools would go to in order to win championships.
Crawfordsville had to be considered the odds-on favorite to win in 1920 by virtue of the power of the team coming back off a splendid season in 1919 when they went to the Final Four and had a record of 30-4. They were coached by John Blacker who had been a member of the Wingate championship teams of 1913 and 1914. Blacker had teamed with the immortal Homer Stonebraker called by many the best basketball player in the nation in those days. Abe Saperstein called him the best center he had ever seen. Both Blacker and Stonebraker would go on to Wabash College and become part of the best Little Giant teams ever. Stonebraker would later elected to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. The Athenians were poised to claim yet another state crown when the disaster struck. An intra-county squabble erupted into a full-fledged incident which brought the IHSAA into the picture. The previous summer, the Athenians had played the Newtown baseball team which had a young man from Mellott named Fletcher Kerr playing for them. Kerr ended up on the Wingate basketball team when the fateful season started and the Athenians cried ”foul.” However, Coach Blacker, the hometown hero from Wingate angered the Wingate folks by trying to recruit one of their best players Alonzo Goldsberry. Blacker had already stolen a Wingate player Marion “Jack” Blacker (no relation to the coach) and the Wingate Spartans weren’t about to let this one pass. Both Wingate and Crawfordsville took their cases to the IHSAA who promptly suspended both teams for the whole year.
After the suspension, both teams played an ambitious independent schedule against the best competition they could find. Crawfordsville ended the season with a 28-2 record, with their only losses coming at the hands of the always tough Em-Roe team which was the Indianapolis Independent Champs and their County neighbor, the Wingate Spartans. The County rivals met in the final game of two separate tournaments. Crawfordsville defeated Wingate in the Tri-State Tournament at Cincinnati and Wingate won in the Mid-west Tournament at Chicago. After the Mid-West tourney, the Spartans were proclaimed National Champions for the year of 1920. An interesting note about the Mid-West tourney was reported by Fountain County neighbors of Fletcher Kerr, who later coached at Covington High School. Kerr told his neighbors that a young man who was coaching 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 Crawfordsville in the final game of the tourney 22-16 and gained the designation as National Champs. That young coach’s name, by the way, was Paul D. “Tony” Hinkle, later the legendary coach of the Butler University Bulldogs. I wonder if he ever thought about that when he coached against the Wabash College Little Giants.
Crawfordsville even lost its sectional site that year with the County schools being sent in two different directions. Waynetown, New Market, Alamo, Mace, Ladoga, New Ross, Bowers, Darlington, and Waveland all went to Greencastle where Greencastle defeated 8 time sectional runner-up Ladoga 18-13 and New Richmond and Linden went north to the Lafayette sectional.
Things returned to normal after the 1920 season and Crawfordsville didn’t run afoul of the IHSAA again until 1927 when the IHSAA handbook recorded the following item:
Thorntown-Crawfordsville—These two schools participated in a partly played game of football at Thorntown on November 5. Profuse swearing was done on the field of play and in the dressing rooms by the Crawfordsville players. The officials ejected two or three of these boys from the game, after a warning had been given. Coach Max Kidd of Crawfordsville took his team from the field of play a few minutes before time was up in the fourth quarter. It was stated that the officials made some mistakes in their decisions and that the Thorntown management was somewhat lax in that some spectators rushed onto the field during the arguments.
Decision—Crawfordsville High School place on probation in the I.H.S.A.A. until November 20, 1927 with instructions to the school authorities of Crawfordsville to declare ineligible for all athletics all boys guilty of swearing until the end of football season in 1927, and to take such other steps as may seem necessary to reach the source of the trouble.
At least The Athenians didn’t get the whole athletic program suspended with this incident.
