Small Schools Relish Class-Based Basketball State Tournaments

While some may decry the multi-class basketball format as too watered down, Jake Holder thinks about helping lift Tecumseh High School to the 1999 Class A championship every single day.

"When we won the Class A state title it was not just about our team it was more about our community," said Holder, now an assistant principal at Center Grove Middle School.

"The shared pride among our three small towns (Lynnville, Elberfeld and Selvin) was something that cannot really be explained but more experienced. It is one experience that I will never forget. It is something special that has had a huge impact on my life."

The Indiana High School Athletic Association implemented a four-class postseason tournament for the 1997-98 season, infuriating purists who clung to the traditional single-class format. Just completing its 20th season, the multi-class tournament is cherished by smaller schools and considered watered-down by some others.

"If you told anyone that has won a class A, 2A or 3A state title that it doesn't mean as much as a single class title they would tell you otherwise," said Holder, who scored a game-high 15 points in leading the Braves to a 55-43 victory over Lafayette Central Catholic in the 1999 title game at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. "State titles are not handed out, they require dedication, sacrifice and a whole lot of hard work. No matter how many A's you put by their name."

Winning the Class A championship was just as important as winning a 4A title, said Tecumseh coach Kevin Oxley after the game.

"We are educators and our goal is to make the players better," Oxley said. "Class basketball gives us that opportunity to make them better. This isn't about Tecumseh or class basketball. This is about kids being successful."

For the sentimentalists - and there are many - Holder even has a tie to Milan. His uncle, Kelly Simpson, once coached Milan. As any self-respecting Indiana prep basketball historian knows, the 1986 movie "Hoosiers" is loosely based on Milan winning the 1954 state championship, forever keeping the hopes of David slaying Goliath alive.

"A lot of people don't realize that Milan has two state tournament banners," Holder said. "They lost (in the semifinals) in 1953 and won in '54. We go and visit on Thanksgiving and drive through town. We go into the gym and see the trophy."

Asked how many times he has seen "Hoosiers," Holder said: "Too many to count. It's a big deal. I've even watched it with my son (Lucas). That's a big part of the tradition."

Michael Adams has seen postseason from both sides. Once coach of tiny Washington Catholic, he lifted Reitz to the Class 4A state championship game in 2015. Adams, who guided Toby Madison-led Washington Catholic to a single-class sectional titles in 1991 and '93, firmly remains old school.

"I still believe the old system was better," Adams said. "Change came about so it would be more fair? I'm not sure that it is."

He noted there is a greater disparity between the enrollment of smaller 4A schools such as Reitz and the mammoth Indianapolis public schools than between Class A, 2A and 3A schools.

"I'm not sure if that is totally true or not, but we are at 1,292 and I know some of the Indy schools are 4,000 to 5,000," Adams said. "And to be fair, I have never agreed that a school gets to host and play on their home floor during tournament play. It should be at a neutral gym. Then you get into the topic of seeding or not? A lot to think about."

But at the end of the day, Adams said, "We still have a great thing here in Indiana." Flaws and all.

Downtown Elberfeld once a hoops hotbed

Named after the now-defunct Tecumseh coal mine, Tecumseh High consolidated Lynnville and Elberfeld's junior and senior high schools in 1965. Holder said most of the major players on the Braves' 1999 team were from Elberfeld. They played pickup ball since they were little kids in downtown Elberfeld, "If there is a downtown Elberfeld," Holder joked.

"The main thing is Tecumseh doesn't have a lot of advantages. Bigger schools have larger facilities. But we worked well together and we worked hard."

Holder said Oxley, whom he describes as a Tecumseh fixture, taught the Braves the meaning of hard work.

"We bought into what he taught wholeheartedly," Holder said.

Holder, who won the Trester Mental Attitude Award following the title game and later played for Franklin College, learned what goes along with attention comes responsibility.

"You interact with a lot of people you don't know," Holder said. "It helps administratively in that you learn how to become a leader. A lot of people can talk the talk."

Before 1999 Tecumseh had never won a sectional title, let alone a state championship.

"At our awards banquet at the end of the season coach Oxley talked about how on any program at a basketball game it will tell a player's height, weight and grade," Holder said. "But one thing you wouldn't find is the size of that player's heart. Coach Oxley praised our dedication, competitiveness, and will to do whatever it took to be successful."

Tecumseh was so balanced that four starters averaged double digits.

"All we cared about was winning games," Holder said. "Growing up at that time these were my brothers and I would have done anything for them. Our community recognized this bond and work ethic. They really got behind us and supported us all the way through the season. Being a small school, we were constantly playing the role of underdog. But you wouldn't be able to tell that based on all of our fans at every game."

Oxley was inducted into the HBCA (Hoosier Basketball Coaches Association) Hall of Excellence last April during a gathering at Bloomington North before the East-West All-Star Game. Holder went to see him and listen to his acceptance speech.

"Coach took no credit for himself," Holder said. "He thanked his family, his assistant coaches and all his players. Afterwards when I went to talk to him he tried to downplay the achievement by saying, 'All this means is that I have been around for a long time.' "

Outside of the gym, coach Oxley has a pretty quiet demeanor.

But in the gym, Oxley is in his element, Holder exclaimed.

"His dedication and competitiveness is infectious," Holder said. "One of the things that stands out about coach was all the extra things he did for us. We would have a game on Friday night and come in for practice on Saturday morning and you could tell coach had been there all night watching game tape and doing our game laundry."

Oxley also has a sticker program.

"When he would break down the game film, he would break down each play," Holder said. "We could earn stickers for positive plays. Coach is so competitive, he was constantly challenging all of us to a shooting contest after practice or his favorite line, 'I'll bet you a Coke I can hit this shot (and he usually did make it).' "

As previously mentioned, Holder's uncle coached at Milan, plus Tecumseh and Eminence, totaling 17 seasons. His grandfather, Willis Brown Simpson, was the head basketball coach at Oakland City University from 1965-1974 and coached high school basketball in both Indiana and Kentucky for many years.

Holder's mom, Beckey, now guidance counselor at Oak Hill Elementary, played basketball at OCU. After playing at Franklin College, Jake coached at Brown County, Whiteland and Center Grove high schools, all as an assistant coach.

"Basketball has and will be a big part of my life," Holder said. "I have tried to guide young men and share my experience with them and help them on their own journeys through the game. I just hope to have a positive impact on them the way my coaches, family and teammates helped me."

In an attempt to pacify the purists, the four class champions squared off in the first two years of the new format, in the Tournament of Champions, before it was disbanded. Recalling a bit of the "Milan Miracle," Tecumseh hung close to 4A champion Indianapolis North Central and Jason Gardner, before falling in the T of C, 69-64. Gardner went on to play for Arizona, which advanced to the NCAA championship game in 2001.

The four-class tournament has survived, some might say thrived, despite various proposals through the years. Accompanied by Cox, State Senator Mike Delph held town hall meetings at 11 high schools around the state in 2012, including Vincennes. It allowed citizens an opportunity to voice their opinions on the topic of the old single-class basketball tournament and the multiple-class format. The town halls generated interesting conversation, but nothing came of it.

Some antagonists once said neighboring Illinois had the best of best worlds. The Illinois High School Association split postseason from a single-class tournament to Class A and AA in 1971-72. In theory, postseason wasn't overly watered down and still gave the little guy a chance. Lo and behold, Illinois followed Indiana's footsteps, implementing a four-class format in 2007-08.

For his part, Cox said the decision to move to multiple classes across the team sports governed by the IHSAA has been extremely beneficial to the membership as a whole.

"Schools and communities across our state have enjoyed the opportunity to advance in IHSAA tournament series events where previously were realistically unattainable," Cox said in a statement. "These experiences enrich the school experience for the young people we serve and those patrons and fans in those communities.

"With any change of this magnitude, there are inevitably drawbacks. The most salient challenge to multiple classes is the travel involved for our member schools and fans. The association has worked diligently to accomplish the shortest travel possible for our student-athletes in respect to their academic obligations and family commitments."

As the IHSAA progresses through the next 20 years, there undoubtedly will be further change and adjustments to our team sport tournaments, Cox said.

"As member schools are added, deleted and modified, change is inevitable," he said.

With the notable exception of New Albany's Romeo Langford's senior tour this season, tournament attendance at smaller class sites often rivaled, if not exceeded, their larger counterparts. Langford, arguably the most celebrated Indiana prep player since the halcyon days of Damon Bailey, led 4A New Albany to a state championship as a sophomore. At the 2018 Seymour Semistate, crowds lined up hours before the doors opened to fill an 8,000-seat gym to the rafters.

Bosse advances to state twice in three years

After a modest 13-10 regular season in 2016, Bosse illustrated the difference in classes in its run to the 3A championship game.

Entering postseason play, eight of the Bulldogs' 10 losses were to 4A schools. After losing twice to 3A teams in the regular season, Bosse didn't fall again until the state championship game, 73-68, to Marion.

A Marion native, Bosse coach Shane Burkhart was in fifth, sixth and seventh grade when the Giants recorded a three-peat in the single-class format, in 1985, '86 and '87.

"It is what molded me to the basketball fanatic that I am now," Burkhart said. "The team was playing in front of 8,000-plus a night, there was a lottery system for season ticket holders only to go to sectional, regional, semistate and state games."

Burkhart has guided the Bulldogs to 3A state championship appearances two of the past three years.

"I was not a fan of class basketball until 10 years ago when I got this job," Burkhart said. "Now I look at it so differently, solely based on the meaning it has for my players."

What he dislikes about the class system is teams in the northern part of the state doesn't want to travel to play Southern Indiana teams.

"So, for a competitive person like me, that means we are traveling up north to play good teams all the time," Burkhart said.

"What I like about it is that it continues to drive the brotherhood and comaraderie within the social aspect of high schools within each of the respective classes. It gives kids a reachable goal in each class that is worth a lifetime of memories."

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