It's often said that while Dr. James Naismith invented basketball in
Massachusetts, the sport was raised and ultimately came of age in the
high schools of Indiana, the state where politics, religion, and sweet
corn fall in line behind the game played with the round orange ball.
Tales from the Indiana High School Basketball Locker Room, now newly
revised, centers on those special people who have played the game--their
stories, their passion, their drive for excellence, their laughs, and
their tears. This is a book about Lebanon schoolboy hero Rick Mount, the
first prep basketball player ever featured on the cover of Sports
Illustrated; it's about Gene Cato, the Indiana High School Athletic
Association's former commissioner whose father--his high school
coach--would not put the young scoring phenomenon into a game until his
team's fans demanded it; it's also about Marion's "Purple
Reign"--consecutive state championships in 1985, 1986, and 1987 when the
Giants were the most important game on every opponent's schedule. John
Wooden, Bobby Plump, Steve Alford, Damon Bailey, Gary Harris, Caleb
Swanigan, Yogi Ferrell--it's as easy for an Indiana high school
basketball fan to roll the names off the tongue as it is to find the
broadcast of a high school game on AM radio on any Friday night during
an Indiana winter. Tales from the Indiana High School Basketball Locker
Room is not so much about statistics and winning streaks as it is about
the personalities and emotions of those who created a phenomenon that
became a way of life in the Hoosier State.
