Phillip M. Hoose - Hoosiers: The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana

PRAISE FOR Hoosiers: The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana, 2nd edition

Will appeal not only to basketball fanatics but to mainstream readers as well. It is a knowing, respectful and caring look at heartland America.

New York Times

The finest book ever written on Indiana Basketball.

Bob Collins, Sports Editor, Indianapolis Star

Hoose develops a narrative that transcends sports and operates as cultural history Warm, graceful, full of the happy savor of letter jackets and cheerleaders sweaters includes the great personalities of the game

Larry Bird, Rick Mount and the maniacal Bobby Knightyet keeps the locus local, social and intimate.Boston Globe

To say this little gem is a sports book is to say The Sun Also Rises is about bullfighting.Scripps Howard News Service

Terrific reading.Sporting News

The best book ever written on Indiana high school basketball. Hoose not only writes well, but his vignettes and anecdotes are fascinating. His chapter on Larry Bird is probably the best short piece ever written about him.Author Lee Daniel Levine, in Bird: The Making of An American Sports Legend One of ten recommended sports books for kids.

The Kids World Almanac of Records and Facts

A thoughtful, elegantly crafted and shrewdly entertaining examination of a fascinating American subculture An amusing, vital and intelligent book about a slice of America too easily ignored.Kirkus Reviews

This superbly written piece of sports journalism will alternately tickle the funnybone and pluck at the heartstrings of basketball fans everywhere.

Booklist

Phillip Hoose examines the phenomenon of Indiana basketball with wit and whimsy.U.S. News and World Report

Of all the books written about high school basketball in Indiana, this is the one that has lasted and will last, for good reason: None better explains the whys and wherefores, the context, culture, and fascinating history behind the hysteria. Read it to better understand Indiana as you would read Friday Night Lights to better understand Texas, or The City Game to better understand Harlem.Alexander Wolff, Sports Illustrated, Senior Writer

PRAISE FOR Hoosiers: The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana, 1st Edition

A knowing, respectful and caring look at heartland America.

New York Times

A truly superior book Its a steal.Indianapolis News

An unusually perceptive and entertaining study of heartland America.

Chicago Tribune

Transcends sports and operates as cultural history Warm, graceful, full of the happy savor of letter jackets and cheerleaders sweaters.

Boston Globe

Indiana history as viewed through a basketball net An absorbing historical narrative, woven around modern Indiana history, using basketball as the thread.the Indiana Historical Society

If youre a Hoosier Hysteric, call time out and go buy it; if youre not, reading Hoosiers will be like studying the strange ways of a cult that worships gym shoes.Playboy

OTHER BOOKS BY PHILLIP HOOSE

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Perfect, Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird

We Were There Too!: Young People in U.S. History

Hey, Little Ant (With Hannah Hoose)

Its Our World, Too! Young People Who are Making a Difference (and How Theyre Doing it)

Necessities: Racial Barriers in American Sports

Hoosiers: The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana (first and second editions)

Building an Ark: Tools for the Preservation of Natural Diversity through Land Protection

HOOSIERS

HOOSIERS

THE FABULOUS BASKETBALL LIFE OF INDIANA

Third Edition

PHILLIP M. HOOSE

FOREWORD BY BOB PLUMP

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington & Indianapolis

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press

Office of Scholarly Publishing

Herman B Wells Library 350

1320 East 10th Street

Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

2016 by Phillip M. Hoose

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hoose, Phillip M., 1947

Title: Hoosiers : the fabulous basketball life of Indiana / Phillip M. Hoose ;
foreword by Bobby Plump.

Description: Third edition. | Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2016]
| Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016002163 | ISBN 9780253021625 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN
9780253021687 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: BasketballIndianaHistory. | Basketball
playersIndianaBiography.

Classification: LCC GV885.72.I6 H66 2016 | DDC 796.32309772dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002163

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CONTENTS

by Bob Plump

FOREWORD

Bob Plump

I first talked with Phil Hoose about thirty years ago. He had an assignment for Sports Illustrated that later became a book. It was a memorable conversation. Of course, we discussed the 1954 Milan High School Basketball State Tournament win. I was fortunate enough to be a part of that memorable game when my rural high school defeated a much bigger school whose gym could have seated seven times the population of our entire town.

Phil wanted to know what it was like to still have people be so interested in a guy who made a basketball shot in a high school game played over 60 years ago. I told him that it still baffles me, but it is humbling that people from all over are still fascinated by the shot, the game, and me!

To reach the state final game we played and defeated Indianapolis Crispus Attucks High, one of two racially segregated high schools in Indiana at that time. It was an all-black team versus an all-white team, played in the states biggest city. Phil wanted to know what it was like for us as a team and if we had played against black players before. Yes, we had previously played against black players. As far as it being an issue for our team, it just wasnt. Our coach, Marvin Wood never even mentioned it. He DID mention that they were good though! As a result, it was just like any other important game for us. The teams focus was on winning the ballgame not that the opponents were black.

Through painstaking research, skilled interviewing and fine writing, Phil Hoose has written the go-to book about Indiana basketball. Hoosiers is a great read for anyone but especially for those of us who love the sport of basketball. As Sports Illustrated