Arenas of Broken Dreams

Tipoff for the junior varsity game was still a half-hour away, and the parking lot at Argos Junior-Senior High School was full. Parking spaces on nearby side streets were already taken, and the ticket line snaked through the lobby.

For years, teen-agers, parents, young couples and the elderly have turned out for the Argos games, no matter what the team’s record.

Like hundreds of other small towns throughout the state, high school basketball is everything. But many in this northern Indiana town of 1,642 are angry.

After 87 years, this is the last of Indiana’s storied one-class basketball tournament, a competition in which small schools play big schools, and every so often, the small school comes out a winner.

Like in 1954, when Milan, with just 161 students, won the state title by beating powerhouse Muncie Central. More than 40 years later, people still talk about Bobby Plump’s winning shot, immortalized by Hollywood in the movie “Hoosiers.”

Where else could a high school game draw a crowd like the 40,000--a national record--that packed the Hoosier Dome in 1990 to watch Damon Bailey lead Bedford North Lawrence to the state championship?

“It’s our game and it’s always been our game,” said Peter Connolly, an Argos resident. “That’s what we like to do, go follow high school basketball.”

The one-class tournament--featuring 382 schools, virtually every high school in the state--ends with the championship game in Indianapolis on March 22.

Next year there will be four separate tournaments, based on school enrollment. Some people think the change is long overdue.

“I really am mixed,” said John Haste, who brings his entire family to the Dragons’ games. “I think with class basketball, we’re going to go further in the tournament, but is the tournament going to mean as much?”

Since Milan, only eight schools with enrollments under 500 have reached the Final Four, the last being Southridge in 1986. Of the eight, only Loogootee reached the championship game, losing to Marion in 1975.

Argos also was one of the eight small schools to make it to the Final Four, losing in the semifinals in 1979 to another big-school power, Anderson. After that, the Dragons didn’t lose in the regular season until 1982, and their 76-game winning streak still stands as an Indiana regular-season record:

“It was chaos. I think the whole town went down there” said Bill Stults, who was in junior high in 1979. “It’s something you’ll never forget.”

Argos residents are as proud of that team today as they were in 1979, maybe more so. A faded picture of the squad sits in the center of the school’s trophy case, flanked by trophies. Another group of photos hangs in the gym.

The Dragons won their last sectional title in 1981. But the town still remembers, and dreams of glory every year at tournament time.

“It adds a little pressure,” said Bill Redinger, a junior forward for Argos. “When they start talking about it, they get you believing. When you don’t, you think about what could have been.”

Surrounded by farmland and located about 45 minutes south of South Bend, Argos still has its sleepy, small - town charm. The downtown consists of a barber shop, a bank, a gas station, a few stores and two taverns. There is no movie theater.

The neighborhoods are neat and quiet, with well-worn basketball hoops in most driveways. It is the kind of town where everyone knows each other, and the regulars at Louie’s Tavern greet newcomers by offering to buy them a beer.

Inevitably, conversations turn to basketball. Sure, everyone follows Indiana and Purdue, but as tournament time nears, all the talk is of the Dragons. Store windows are painted black and gold, Argos’. colors, and the town follows the team as far as it goes.

“Sectional time comes and it’s a holiday,” Nita Baker said. “No matter where you’re from, kids are all excited about it. This is their school and they’re there to back it up. And the town people are the same way.”

Those opposed to the multi-class tournaments fear there won’t be the same enthusiasm next year.

“There is one best team, just one. There is one winner, not five,” Baker said. “If you have four or five classes and you get to the Final Four, you’re not one of the four best teams in Indiana.”

But those who favor multi-class tournaments said small schools barely have a chance of making it to the Final Four now. Chuck Evans, the Argos coach and athletic director, knows how special it is to advance in the tournament.

He was part of the 1979 team, and a smile still crosses his face when he thinks of those games.

“There’s a lot of players out there, there’s a lot of coaches out there who are die-hard, one-class basketball supporters, and they have never experienced it like I have,” he said. “If they knew what that experience was, they might be persuaded in another way.”

Evans’ players aren’t sure what they think. They’ll miss the opportunity to play bigger schools, but they know they’ve got a better chance of winning a class tournament.

The Dragons, 10-9 in the regular season, drew former champio Warsaw in the first round of the sectional, and the players know their season will probably end Tuesday night.

Next year will be different.

“Different can be good,” player Eric Stults said. “You never know until you try it. If no one likes it you can go back to it. But we’ve got to try.”