Column: Ellington, Twin Rivers GBB to get a dose of 'Hoosier Hysteria'

There is a lot of the fictional Hickory High School from the famed movie “Hoosiers” in Ellington High School, while there is a tad bit, but much less so, in the bigger Twin Rivers High School. However, today, there will be a lot of the Royals and Whippets gaining exposure to the Huskers, who (sort of) once won the iconic one-class boy’s basketball state championship in Indiana.

The girl basketball squads of Twin Rivers and Ellington will travel over 400 miles to the east today and play a game (5 p.m.) in the former Knightstown (Ind.) High School gym, now known as the “Hoosier Gym,” which served as the fictional home of the Hickory Huskers in the legendary film.

“It’s going to be a fun trip,” Royals coach David Crockett said.

In an act of full disclosure, I have a multitude of connections to the Hoosier Gym, basketball in the state of Indiana, and the movie, so when I learned that a group of Bootheel kids were going to experience what I have for my entire life, I just wanted to cry tears of joy.

“We’re excited about it,” Crockett said. “The girls are excited.”

Ellington coach David Burrows reached out to Crockett last year about renting the facility, and Crockett, who has visited the tourist hot spot in east-central Indiana, was all in.

“We’ll rent it out for three hours and just play a regular game,” Crockett said.

The movie “Hoosiers” is based on the very real 1954 Indiana state championship game, which until 1997, was a one-class affair in the Hoosier State. In that game, tiny Milan High School, who happened to have the Indiana Mr. Basketball that season (Bobby Plump aka Jimmy Chitwood in the movie), upset tradition-rich (and much, much, much larger) Muncie Central High School.

My mother, Linda (Henley) Davis, was a sophomore member of the cheer block for Muncie Central in the historic moment and raised me a long 3-pointer from the Muncie Fieldhouse, home to the Bearcats.

The real state championship game, as well as the fictional one involving Hickory High, was played in the then-called Butler (University) Fieldhouse, now named Hinkle Fieldhouse, in Indianapolis.

When I was a senior in high school and being recruited to swim in college, my final two choices were Ohio University, which had a multi-million dollar natatorium and strong swim program, and Butler University, which had the oldest indoor pool in the state of Indiana, BUT… it was located in Hinkle Fieldhouse.

On my recruiting visit to Butler, I barely listened to a word that the coach said, as I was fixated on the basketball arena.

When he was finished giving me his spiel, I asked to walk out on the court (more than likely the only swim recruit who made such a request), stood at mid-court with my mouth agape, and said “This is where I am going.”

As it turned out, during my first semester at Butler (fall of 1984), a movie was being filmed at the arena, starring a couple of actors (Dennis Hopper and Gene Hackman), of whom I had no knowledge. So, one night after swim practice, when Hackman stood directly behind me, as I watched my (now wife) take part in a scene as a member of the South Bend Central pep band, and muttered that he “needed to go get a drink,” it really meant very little to me.

When the movie, which no one envisioned doing well, was finally released, I paid full price to see it - seven times. Just about everyone in Indiana did.

The game of basketball, particularly its history in Indiana, made such an impression on me, that when I was 30 years old, I bought the former Chili (Ind.) High School gymnasium (home of the Polar Bears), and renovated it into my home. I still own it to this day.

It’s sort of cool knowing Oscar Robertson, of the great Crispus Attucks High School (which means nothing to people in Missouri, but it is a famed team in Indiana, trust me), played a game in my house.

“I think it is going to be something interesting,” Twin Rivers senior forward Hannah Bader said of today’s experience. “It’s something that we’ve never gotten to do before.

“I’m excited for sure.”

Over Christmas break, Crockett said his team gathered and watched the movie (not seven times, though), and Bader said it resonated with her.

“I like it,” Bader said. “It’s a good basketball movie. The best thing about it was it was a team that was so small, and no one thought they could make it that far.”

What is interesting, as it relates to Missouri, is the fact that Hickory High Schools still exist here, whereas they don’t in Indiana.

There are 165 high schools with enrollments under 100 students in Missouri, however, in Indiana, there are just 13, and only five of them are public schools. Heck, in Stoddard County, alone, there are four such public schools.

The Hickory’s of Indiana have been consolidated into larger, more centralized schools, and play their basketball games in much larger venues.

Of the 17 largest high school gymnasiums in the United States, 16 of them are in the Hoosier State.

“It was cool,” Bader continued on Hickory. “They only had seven players, but they ended up winning it and the crowd was going crazy.”

As a journalist, I have covered several games in the Hoosier Gym, and even watched the movie IN the gym. I never enter the building and don’t have a sense of history enveloping me and raising goosebumps on my arms.

The setting will be more subdued today, for sure, but I do hope the kids from Missouri can gain an appreciation for the history of the gym and its role in the love for the game of basketball in the Hoosier State.

Tom Davis is a freelance sportswriter for Rust Communications.