California Can’t Relate to Miracle of Hickory : But After Eight Years, the Golden State’s Basketball Tournament Is Starting to Catch On

In California, there are probably a lot of high school basketball players who saw the movie “Hoosiers” and didn’t believe any of it.

The thrilling conclusion, for example, was hard to swallow: Team from tiny farm town beats big-city school on final shot to win the Indiana high school tournament. And even the love angle was a stretch: Barbara Hershey and Gene Hackman?

But to many, the movie’s credibility went completely to pot in its depiction of the state tournament. According to “Hoosiers,” the state tourney was a crusade involving entire communities, a mania that swept across the wintry countryside and turned every man, woman and child into a raving lunatic.

Even more preposterous, it seemed in the film that the state tournament was the goal of every player, not only from the beginning of the season, but from the time kids started dribbling basketballs instead of oatmeal.

But the movie was accurate. Indiana does go crazy over its state tournament, and getting into the finals is the dream of every young player, said Ray Craft, who works for the Indiana State High School Assn.

In 1954, Craft was the starting guard for Milan High, a school with 200 students that was the inspiration for “Hoosiers.” Milan (Hickory High in the movie) won the ’54 Indiana tourney on the final shot, just as the movie depicted.

But it’s easy to understand why Californians might not have identified with the film. Only 8 years old, the California tournament has neither the tradition nor the following to generate the kind of galvanizing state-wide excitement found elsewhere in the country. It also suffers from a confusing playoff format, competition from pro and college sports, the geographic vastness of the state and virtual apathy by the media.

But the biggest reason for the tournament’s low profile is the strong identity of the 10 sections that make up the California Interscholastic Federation, which administers high school sports in the state.

From 1929 to 1980, there wasn’t a state championship in basketball, which meant that the section was the ultimate power for more than half a century. It was only natural that when the state reinstituted the tournament in 1981, the sectional championships remained more important in the minds of players, coaches and fans.

Their provincial attitude was best expressed by Coach Gary McKnight of Santa Ana Mater Dei. After coaching his team to the Southern Section’s large-school championship in 1983, McKnight “all of a sudden” realized he and his team would have to go on and play in the state tournament.

“I thought, ‘I don’t want to go,’ ” he said. “For our fans and our players, winning the section was the ultimate.” At the time, McKnight called the state tourney anticlimactic.

McKnight’s statements didn’t sit well with CIF Commissioner Thomas E. Byrnes and sections in Northern California, where the tournament is held, but they accurately reflected feelings that still exist in Southern California. To this day, the preseason goal of many teams is to “win the CIF,” but they mean the CIF Southern Section title, not the CIF state crown.

“Winning your section (title) is like winning the state championship,” said Bob Hawking, coach at Simi Valley High, the Valley’s No. 1 rated team throughout the regular season. “For those of us who’ve never won a section title, that’s the biggest aspiration we have.”

The Southern Section, which takes in most of Southern California--the city of Los Angeles and San Diego have their own sections--is the largest section in the state with 478 schools, more than most states, including Indiana.

Said Southern Section administrator Dean Crowley of the section’s relations with the rest of the CIF: “We’ve been independent and always looked like we did our own thing. There were some jealousies in the past.”

Although the Southern Section didn’t actually impede the growth of the state tournament, neither did it jump on the bandwagon when Dale Lacky began lobbying for one in the 1970s.

“The L.A. City section and Northern California were for it,” said Lacky, who was a member of the CIF board. “But the Southern Section wasn’t because they had so many schools involved in their own tournament. It was almost like a state tournament in itself.”

But in 1977, Lacky became president of the 25-member CIF board--made up of representatives of the 10 sections--and a year later the state tournament proposal won by a single vote. A provision in the rules, however, made tournament participation optional. In 1983, the entire Southern Section chose not to send representatives, citing problems with scheduling.

Lacky moved to California from Illinois in 1953 and knew what it was like to have a successful state tournament. In Illinois, the state finals used to be called the Sweet Sixteen, but now, to accommodate more profitable regional tournaments, the Elite Eight play at the University of Illinois in Champaign.

A big-time state tournament provides operating revenue for the state federation, a consideration in the CIF’s decision to get back into the tournament business. But so far, income in California from the tournament has not reached expectations. Last year, the CIF made only $167,500 from the playoffs. In contrast, the CIF’s Indiana counterpart made more than $500,000 from its basketball tournament.

Margaret Davis, CIF associate commissioner, attributed the lackluster start to a lack of a permanent site and stable tournament management.

So, after a turnout of fewer than 6,000 at the state final in 1983 at the L.A. Sports Arena, the CIF moved the tournament to the Oakland Coliseum Arena and hired Oakland Athletic League commissioner Aldo Nelson, who ran Oakland’s Tournament of Champions in the 1970s, to manage it. Under Nelson, state tournaments have averaged 13,500 fans the last two years.

But the CIF has also done something radical to juice the state tournament. Last December, it persuaded Reebok shoes to put up $1.5 million to become a sponsor. The three-year contract stipulates that the tournament has to be called the CIF-Reebok Championship. Admonishing letters are sent to papers and stations that omit Reebok in first reference to the tournament.

The money from Reebok will be divided among the sections to use as they see fit, Byrnes said. Reebok will also do promotions for the state tournament. Until last year, the tournament wasn’t publicized beforehand.

“We’re trying to develop the entity of a state basketball tournament,” said Don Baird, a former Australian Olympian in the pole vault who has been working for the CIF as marketing director for the last two years. Baird had a similar position in Oregon, where he obtained corporate sponsorship for that state’s basketball tournament.

California and Oregon are the only states with tournaments sponsored by corporations. Baird said he also is trying to get corporate sponsors for New York and Illinois.

It was Baird who approached Reebok on behalf of the CIF. Byrnes said the CIF was following state Superintendent Bill Honig’s suggestion that schools get involved with the business community. Baird pitched Reebok on the idea of the tournament being “family access marketing.” When Reebok agreed to put up the money, it took the state six months to approve the deal.

Successful, long-running state tournaments can be expected to provide more than just money to the state treasury. Players and teams become part of state lore.

“There’s a madness to state tournaments,” said KNX sports reporter Tom Kelly, who has broadcast the Illinois state tournament for 25 years and has his share of memories.

“I remember back around 1963, the Cobden Appleknockers were the smallest school to go to the state finals since Hebron,” Kelly said. “Three brothers and two cousins in the starting five.

“There were something like 40 kids in the school and only 200 in the whole town. The day of the game, the mayor closed the post office and everybody, all 200 people, made the long trip to Champaign. Something like 300, 400 miles. The mayor said it would have been closer to go to Louisiana.”

In New Mexico, the high school finals are held at the University of New Mexico’s sold-out Pit in Albuquerque. Players are brought back for 50-year reunions. The tournament is on state-wide television and more than 40 radio stations. It’s “Hoosiers” with a Southwest decor.

“People are basketball crazy around here,” said Francis Walsh of the New Mexico high school association, which has been holding tournaments since 1921. “The whole state is involved.”

New Mexico appears to be more the norm than the exception.

“In the majority of the states, you find excitement high for the state tournament,” said Bruce Howard of the National Federation of State High School Assns.

But California, which prides itself on starting national trends, was slow to tumble to this one. The biggest deterrent to a state tournament, of course, is the sheer size of the state, nearly 800 miles from top to bottom. In 1928, the tournament was discontinued 12 years after it began because traveling was just too difficult. California also has 1,200 high schools, more than any other state. The logistics are intimidating.

“You can’t run this like a regular state basketball tournament,” Byrnes said.

The California state tourney is divided into two regionals, North and South. Section winners automatically get invited, along with some sectional runners-up to fill out a field of eight teams in each of five divisions. Competing in the Southern Regional large-school division, for example, will be the large-school champions from the Southern, L.A. City, San Diego and Central sections, plus two at-large teams. The winner of the large-school regional will advance to the state final against the Northern Division winner March 19 in Oakland.

Although the tournament’s structure isn’t easy to understand even for state officials, the CIF makes it even more complicated by reclassifying divisions for the regionals. In the sections, divisions go from from 5-A, the biggest, down through 1-A to Small Schools, the smallest. But in the state tournament, the biggest division is called Division No. 1, for schools with enrollments of more than 2,000.

In the Southern Section, a school like Simi Valley, with 2,300 students, is classified 4-A. But it will be in Division No. 1 for the state tournament. Because of the reclassification, it’s possible that Southern Section division champions in 5-A and 4-A will wind up in the same division in the regionals.

“It’s confusing,” Crowley said.

Another drawback is the absence of real geographic rivalries within the state. In other states, natural rivalries between major cities or areas are usually promoted, but schools from opposite ends of California seldom play each other.

“Except for rankings in USA Today, teams from the north and south are hardly aware of each other,” said Hal Harkness, commissioner of the L.A. City Section.

But despite its problems, the state tournament seems to be gathering momentum. “Down the road, it’ll build,” Crowley said.

Even McKnight has changed his mind about going to the state tournament. Last year, an estimated 4,500 Mater Dei fans traveled to Oakland and watched their team win the large-school title. The game was also broadcast on radio back to Orange County.

Said McKnight: “It was a great experience.”