Go, Man, Go!

The Final Four college basketball tournament consumes America this time of year.  And last night's title game was no exception.  Kevin Ware, the Louisville player who broke his leg, was truly inspiring. The tournament brings back thoughts of growing up on high school basketball in Indiana.  If you've seen it, the movie "Hoosiers" is not an overstatement of the love for the sport in the Midwest.

Although the format has changed, the state high school tournament was an all-in, winner-take-all affair.  Every high school  with a team could compete against all others. One class, no divisions, everyone gets an equal chance to win. Pretty cool.

High School basketball in Indiana is the ultimate sport. Even James Naismith, who invented the game in Massachusetts, reportedly said, after viewing a state championship game in the Hoosier State, "Basketball really has its origin in Indiana. It is the center of the sport." Like football is to Texas and hockey is to Minnesota. I went to three high schools during my father's whirlwind military career but there was one in Indiana where I went, left and returned. That school was a champion and still is today. In fact, the Carmel Greyhounds just won their third state basketball championship earlier this year.

As one might expect with a sport that is viewed as a religion by die-hards, tradition is revered. Once the year-end holidays were over, it was basketball all the way to spring. Never an open evening or weekend. Constant pep rallies, booster club meetings, bake sales for new uniforms and equipment, finding new songs to sing on the team bus and Sunday pick-up games. And the games were sold out. Some say the reason basketball has its stature in Indiana is because of the rural nature of the state and the small enrollment at many schools (a victim of consolidations today). You only needed five players and a couple of reserves to field a team. But the fans were a different matter. Even at a medium-sized school when I was playing, our gymnasium was like a Fieldhouse and would seat thousands...and getting a ticket was no easy feat if you hadn't been going to games for years or had a kid that was playing. All eyes were on the Butler University Fieldhouse in Indianapolis (shown above and featured in the movie "Hoosiers"), where the finals were played annually to an SRO-crowd of over 15,000 rabid hoops fans. "Hoosier Hysteria" is what they call it.

There is one unique tradition from my playing days that I'm pretty sure has fallen by the wayside. But, in its own way, it was very special. No other professional team has made a more indelible mark on the sport than the famous Harlem Globetrotters. Their story is lore in Indiana and there's hardly a high school player who has not stood in a circle with his teammates, whistling "Sweet Georgia Brown" while trying to pass the ball behind his back or between his legs. That is the Trotters famous pre-game warm-up.

Two Hollywood movies were made about the Globetrotters and their success but one of them was the vanguard. "Go Man Go" starring Dane Clark (ask your parents) and Sidney Poitier (a basketball player?) seemed magical at the time. It was played as a special feature in every movie house in the state during tournament month. I can't count the number of times I saw it but we would sit through some pretty bad movies to see "Got Man Go" again. Good prints of the film don't seem to exist any longer but, recently, through the magic of eBay, I found a DVD copy of the film. The packaging looks great but the DVD is nothing but a screen shot of the film being shown and, although there are some good segments, it generally is a really bad product.

But "Go Man Go" does bring back the spirit of those days. It has some of the original Globetrotters playing themselves. It's got a lame love story between Dane Clark, the coach, and the woman he married. And it has a true Hollywood ending which, ironically for the 1950's when it was made, is way ahead of its time promoting racial equality in the big championship tournament between all-white and all-black teams.

The film still evokes the emotion of young lives being shaped. It engenders the impact of sport. It brings to life a time when almost everything was new and undiscovered. Basketball may not be America's sport but it is Indiana's sport and "Go Man Go" touches a nerve. The only thing missing is the unexpected late-winter blizzard roaring outside and the concern about whether the team bus will make it to the next game on time. We'll get there, though. "Go Man Go"!


Posted on Tuesday, April 9, 2013