by Kent Sterling
The most storied and best formatted high school tournament in America was forever diluted in 1997, when school administrators voted to split basketball into four classes. Further change to it has been considered for over a year, but the IHSAA decided to hit the brakes before agitating the easily excited rabble that pines for a return to the past.
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It’s hasn’t been the same since 1997, and it will never be the same. Many miss the excitement of watching the same team need to win twice on the same day to win a championship, but that’s the way it goes. Things change, and not always for the better.
More champions doesn’t mean a better championship, but addlepated chuckleheads from 1A schools who wanted to legislate their way to a sectional title were impossible to argue with, so here we are with schools busing 50 or more miles to sectionals that used to be neighborhood wars.
That’s life. We needed to move on from the frustration that decision caused, and for the most part we have. Watching all four state championships is still a wonderful way to spend a day in late March, and unlike college and professional basketball, these games are for the kids – not the fans.
Winning is just as meaningful for the players today as it was back in 1973 when Norman Mukes and Charlie Mitchell led New Albany to it’s only state championship, when Glenn Robinson pushed Gary Roosevelt past Alan Henderson and the Brebeuf Braves in 1991, or when Scott Skiles shot Plymouth to the 1982 championship.
We are finally to a point when the seniors playing in next year’s tournament were likely not born when Bloomington North won the last one-class tournament.
So it makes total sense that the IHSAA would consider scrapping the four-class structure in favor of three classes – which is really a six-class tourney, but let’s set aside the complications that seem to attach themselves to every plan created by a committee of bureaucrats.
Why let the kids enjoy participating in the tourney that they grew up watching when it can be tinkered with by people with nothing better to do?
The one question that I have not seen answered about this new format is what problems it is created to solve. Oddly, that’s the only question I would like to an answer to.
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Earlier this week, the IHSAA decided to take some more time to gauge the passion among membership for a change, which means that they need to get a handle on how many calls will be generated by the aging population who loved the one-class tournament when they read about another change that falls short of THE change they covet.
Instead of grousing over the bizarre ruminations that occasionally emanate from IHSAA headquarters, high school basketball fans should embrace watching teenagers play a great game on winter nights – just like they did a century before. There is no difference in high school basketball today from late November through the end of February and what existed prior to 1997.
Enjoy that, instead of lamenting the loss of the one class tournament, or changing this imperfect system without a great reason to do it.