Views from Bob Adam’s pictorial history on Indiana Basketball, Hoosier High School Basketball. BUY NOW>
Indiana is the first state that comes to mind when one thinks of high school basketball. There are the reports of the first game played in the state, in 1894, and there are the memories of high school gyms were filled beyond capacity. (Indiana is home to 15 of the largest 16 high school gyms in the nation.) Now, with another season only a few weeks away, it’s the perfect time to look at these rare and powerful images of the state’s favorite sport.
In the early twentieth century, basketball spread to Hoosier high schools like Williamsport High School. Note the heavy uniforms worn by these players to protect themselves while playing on outside courts made of gravel and cinders.
Williamsport High
The 1913 Frichton girls in action during the 1912-13 season.
The Girls Played, Too
The 1921-22 Decatur girls won thirteen straight games to finish the season undefeated. This team lost only three games in three seasons.
1921- 1922 Decatur High
Mulford “Muff” Davis
Mulford “Muff” Davis spent 15 years coaching at Frankton, where his teams won 139 games. Davis, an Elwood grad, went on to play at the University of Kentucky. He was selected for the Silver Anniversary Team in 1966 and elected to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989.
Decatur Gym 1922
This shot was taken from the Decatur sectional of 1922, and shows the interior of the Decatur gym. This building was later dismantled and taken six miles west of Decatur and used by Kirkland Township as a gym.
This old basketball goal is on the grounds of the former Booker T. Washington School in Rushville. Black students in Rushville went to this school until they began high school.
Practically every girl at Lancaster Central in Huntington County was a member of the “Lancer” cheer block.
Lancer Pride
Probably the most photographed water tower in the world, the Milan water tower honors the 1954 Milan Indians, who won the state championship that season with a 32-30 win over Muncie Central. The movie Hoosiers was based on the 1954 Milan win.
