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This era arguably begs for two thrones in the castle of Indiana high school sports.
Indiana high school football continues to make notable gains in high school sports fan attendance and gameday spirit in the last ten years.
Is the heartbeat of football Friday nights in Indiana now beating just as hard in football season as it does in basketball? Are there some communities where football’s game day heart beats harder?
Last Monday marked my 30th anniversary living in Michiana, including the last 28 years in Kosciusko County. Among these years, I’ve kept up with local sports (among residences in Goshen, Milford, then – since 2004 – Warsaw) each school year.
I moved here from Ohio 30 years ago this past week eager – and fortunate enough - to see the single class state basketball tournament, the football season move from eight to nine regular season games, Shanna Zolman’s inimitable high school career, and Warsaw’s 2024 run as the IHSAA Class 5A football runner-up squad... and much more.
Somewhere over the past thirty years, something has changed among most Indiana communities. Football didn’t overtake Indiana high school basketball sports throne, but when you enter the castle, there now arguably sits not one, but two thrones.
There was a time when Indiana basketball wasn't merely a sport. It was the social calendar from November to March. A winter Friday night game could draw half the town. I arrived in the late 1990s era that had just followed decades of sectionals feeling like civic holidays.
As for the kids? They didn't dream of playing under stadium lights in those days. They dreamed of hitting the game-winning jumper in front of 8,000 people.
What else are the kids dreaming about today, though?
The evidence is sitting right in front of us every late summer and autumn. Parking lots fill earlier before kickoff, and bear in mind there is no junior varsity game warming up the crowd before the customary 7 p.m. kickoff.
This is the first season, in fact, where I’ll take a very close look at the viability of earlier abridged welcoming announcements as greater numbers of fans arrive in their seats earlier than past seasons.
Student sections arrive in costume, and social media posts abound. Increasing numbers among the Indiana communities gather around a field under the lights while basketball quietly waits on its still well-deserved throne… for winter.
That's not an insult, and it’s not a harbinger of bad times for basketball by any stretch of imagination. Each January (girls) and February (boys) final regular season month brings the excitement of the final stretch of the conference schedules.
One thing I immediately liked about Indiana prep hoops was the single round robin tournament as opposed to Ohio’s schools’ tendency to have a home-and-home double round robin league slate.
It’s a lot tougher to think about losing the single conference hoops frays for an entire year. More joyful, on the other hand, is a win over your toughest conference foes carrying almost 365 days into the ensuing season.
Football didn't get a throne next to basketball because football became better. Its crown
Is in place because modern life has changed.
Football offers urgency while basketball asks for patience.
Football lives one game per week in prime-time America at each of its levels. Millions watch the action at football’s professional and collegiate levels, and games’ ratings exceed almost all other television programming for that same week.
Basketball still rewards those willing to commit to the journey, so – again - basketball hasn't really lost anything. It still produces packed gyms in certain regions of the state, and it maintains an air of rivalry.
To its credit, basketball played around the state features more tournament tests in regular season than there used to be. Each Times Union area basketball team has beefed up its non-conference regular season slate to ready itself for the rigors of postseason. These choices trade the gate draw of local rivalries with a chance to see opponents with featured college prospects from other areas in the Hoosier State.
February and March for the girls and boys, respectively still delivers the most dramatic month on the high school calendar when sectional tournament time rolls around. If we're being honest, though, the center of gravity has shifted.
Football is now the event, and basketball is now the tradition. This is the most Indiana thing imaginable. We spend our autumns talking about football, and winters are spent remembering basketball.
Titles in royalty vary among the princes and princesses, and there can be certain regions within a kingdom under their rein.
Football rules the calendar. Basketball, on the other throne, rules the soul.
