Hall of Fame ceremony ‘sparks memories'

FC basketball legend Roger Burkman, at left, a few months ago is presented a plague in recognition of his impending induction into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Making the presentation is the Flashes' athletic director, Brian Avery. FTONEWS.com file photo.

Pardon the personal references that follow, but when Franklin Central basketball legend Roger Burkman was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, March 21, it reminded me of my early Hoosier Hysteria indoctrination.

It was a condensed, Clift's Notes-type version, if you will. One that very early on championed the late Bill Garrett, whose legacy embraces an impact of historic proportions when it comes to the game of basketball.

Back in 1974, my family and I motored for the first time to Shelbyville, where on Saturday, March 17, I was to be interviewed for the sports editor position at The Shelbyville News.

We were greeted by a festive parade – no, not for us, but what back then was a traditional St. Patrick's Day staple that brought hundreds upon hundreds of people to the primary heartbeat of Shelby County. It also presented an unexpected traffic challenge for the uninitiated – that being us on this rather sunny day.

Upon entering Shelbyville from the north by way of State Road 9, we were immediately detoured toward the east along very narrow streets and past what looked like a section of row houses and a couple of industrial plants. Along the way we caught a glimpse of the parade being led by a green-colored horse with a rider decked out in appropriate St. Patrick's Day attire. We later learned that the man atop the horse and beneath the top hat was Tom Franklin, a popular on-air personality on the local WSVL radio station.

That was our introduction to Shelbyville. The parade moved along rather fine, and so did the interview. On Monday, April 1 (April Fool's Day), the local daily newspaper had a new sports editor. And the Kansas native, by way of Alabama and northern Illinois, was ripe for discovering and learning about Indiana high school basketball.

Back then in Shelbyville, I am not sure which was the chicken or which was the egg, but you soon learn two must-know things:

• No. 1, some tiny school named Milan had won the Indiana high school open-class basketball championship in 1954, and had done so against odds that today would not be allowed on the Las Vegas betting lines. And that one of the players, guard Ray Craft, off that fabled Milan team is now the principal at Shelbyville High School.
• No. 2, that Shelbyville, itself, had captured an Indiana open-class basketball championship in 1947. And that the Golden Bears were led by Bill Garrett, named Indiana's Mr. Basketball at the end of that season by The Indianapolis Star.

For a veteran sports scribe new to Indiana, that first full year at The Shelbyville News was quite memorable in several respects.

Relative to basketball, Bill Garrett died unexpectedly of a heart attack on August 7, 1974, at age 45. It was a sad day throughout Indiana. After starring at Shelbyville in the prep ranks, Garrett had gone on to become an All-American basketball player at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he was acknowledged as the first black to play regularly in the Big Ten Conference. After serving two years in the U.S. Army, he toured three years with the crowd-pleasing Harlem Globetrotters.

Garrett capped off his legendary basketball career by coaching 10 years at Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis. He directed Attucks to the 1959 state championship, becoming only the third person ever to win the Indiana high school title as both a player and as a coach. He also served as the school's athletic director for two years.

Bill Garrett, Indiana Hall of Fame, 1974

On February 7, 1975, Shelbyville High School named its basketball facility the William L. Garrett Gymnasium. Among those on hand for the dedication ceremony, in addition to Bill Garrett's surviving family members, were Principal Craft and the school's athletic director, Blake Ress. The latter, since mid-2000, has been serving as the seventh commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association. Craft presently is the organization's associate commissioner, having joined the IHSAA's staff as an assistant commissioner in 1983.

A special treat for me back during that first full year in Indiana was a first-hand look at the IHSAA basketball post-season. Shelbyville, in 1975, played host to a seven-school sectional that included intruders Franklin Central, Greenfield , New Palestine, Morristown, Roncalli and Triton Central.

It was a time when the anticipation for the start of sectional hoops play was electrifying, the major topic of conversation at any coffee shop or barbershop across what at least one radio sports talk show host now refers to as the Hoosier Nation.

In Shelbyville, it was a time of year when Ray Craft would break out his state championship ring, the one he had earned a couple of decades earlier when Milan had done the unthinkable by besting Muncie Central 32-30 in capturing the state crown.

Craft was his team's leading scorer in that storied championship game, although Bobby Plump is remembered for what his Hall of Fame inscription states as firing “The Shot Heard Round The State,” the game-winner against Muncie Central that forever cast Milan as a symbol of hope for small Indiana schools. Both Craft and Plump went on to play for Coach Tony Hinkle at Butler University.

Fast-forwarding for a moment to 1979, Craft's ring took on a little added glitter that year when Shelbyville wrapped up its first regional championship in 26 years, qualifying for an Indianapolis semi-state appearance at Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse. What made it extra special for Craft is that his son, Mark, was a starting guard for the Golden Bears.

“I think our players can relate to the ring,” Craft said when quoted for a column bearing my by-line in The Shelbyville News on March 13 of that year. “Many of them have come up and wanted to see it. The championship ring doesn't change, only from round to square every other year. The rings for this year's tourney will be about the same as the one I have.”

Now returning back to that 1975 Shelbyville Sectional tournament. Franklin Central was the eventual champion with a lineup that featured Jeff Hanni, John Rockey, Larry Wilcher, Roscoe Kendrick, Scott Collins and a solid sophomore mid-to-late-season key contributor by the name of Roger Burkman. As a junior, he and the Flashes would return to Shelbyville to earn a repeat sectional title.

Burkman's exploits as a high school and college basketball player were outlined just days ago during his induction ceremony at nearby Primo Banquet Hall & Convention Center, where the former Acton youngster was among 14 individuals enshrined into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. He was recognized not only for his prep career, but also for being an integral member of the 1980 University of Louisville basketball team that harvested the NCAA national championship at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

Now 48, Burkman is the athletic director at Spalding University in Louisville . During halftime of a Franklin Central boys' basketball game against Bloomington North in late January, he was recognized for his selection and impending induction into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

But my recollections of Burkman are memories emanating from that first full year of being the sports editor at The Shelbyville News and extending on to today. It is one of those connect-the-dots exercises that links something like this:

• First, learning of Bill Garrett, the greatest-ever basketball player at Shelbyville High School, who in 1974 – only shortly before my arrival in this state – had been inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
• The premature death of Bill Garrett in August of 1974, followed by the naming of the Shelbyville High School basketball arena in February of 1975 as the William L. Garrett Gymnasium.
• The 1975 IHSAA Shelbyville Sectional basketball tournament, won by Franklin Central with a roster that included sophomore Roger Burkman.
• The 2007 induction of Burkman into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, recalling that as a high school player at Franklin Central he had twice won sectional titles while playing on a floor named for Bill Garrett, another Hall of Fame inductee.

That, in my mind and perhaps in a roundabout way, connects the dots.

- FTONEWS.com -