The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told

There are a lot of great basketball stories out there, amazing firsts (1966 Texas Western basketball) and individual accomplishments (J-Mac is hotter than a pistol and if you don't get tears watching this video; you really might not have a heart).  One of my all time favorites, however, is the story about the mighty men of Milan. You probably know of them as Hickory or... Hoosiers.   Recently, I read the book by Greg Guffey, The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told about the Milan Miracle squad.

Naturally, I thought this book was a great read but there were some things that really stood out to me about the team and the small town in the middle of nowhere.  They had enough talent to make it to state the year before they won it all says something about the squad and the ability to meet and exceed the immense pressure they had and the enormous expectations.  The whole town rose and sank with their wins and losses; small school basketball in Indiana doesn't play for the team.  They played for their school, previous players, players not even born yet, families, their friends and their town.  These towns had bragging rights that went above a day or week; they held onto teams and their wins for years, even decades... heck, in this case, maybe even a century! 

Something that really shocked me about the team and community, however, was the amount of athletes they had.  I'm not talking small-school really good local athletes that didn't compete at the next level.  I am talking, legit, multi-sport athletes that could play in college:

Bob Plump (Real life Jimmy Chitwood, except the whole he doesn't play bball thing) played at Butler and earned 4 varsity letters.

Bob Engel had offers from Xavier and Cincinnati (who later got Oscar Robertson to play there.. fast fact: Milan beat Robertson's team at state when he was a sophomore).  Engel didn't play college basketball because he was worried about not being in shape due to a back injury.

Ron Truitt played college basketball at the University of Houston.

Gene White played college basketball at Franklin College.

Ken Wendelman tried out with the Cincinnati Reds and holds/(held?) the Milan long jump record at over 21 feet.

Ray Craft joined Bob Plump at Butler University.

Roger Schroeder played at Franklin College with Gene White.

Bill Jordan also had a tryout with the Cincinnati Reds and then went to Hollywood to make it big as an actor.

Glenn Butte earned a scholarship to play basketball at Indiana University and earned a letter in 1960.

Rollin Cutter joined Plump and Craft at Butler, but had to quit because of injuries.

For those of you keeping track at home, that's 10 kids and 7 played college basketball, another turned down the opportunity and the other 2? Well, they tried out for the Cincinnati Reds. Disgusting athletes in Milan.

I think the biggest part of the book for me was they continued theme on "what it used to be like..." They talk about when they were kids, they talk about the 1 class system, they talk about the consolidated schools, the community, the integrity,

Hard work, determination, kids that didn't have much that thought playing basketball and running for 2 hours was enjoyable and a break from their regular life. They worked tough jobs during the summer and when they weren't working? They were playing basketball or baseball. A big night for them was going downtown Milan. No texting, no video games, no tv, no IPOD's, no cars; just a tight knit group of hard-working friends that had some natural talent. You know that hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.. in this case, they had talent and worked hard... a coach's dream.

Reading something like this makes me feel sick about the future of basketball and even kid's today. Do they have it rough? Yeah, but it's a different kind of rough, I certainly wouldn't mind that kind of rough over the days of today. Society brings it on them and parents and kids don't deflect it.

This is a great book; one that I'm going to purchase and read to my son/daughter when they are young and afterwards.  Skipping the children's books and going to this, the Pistol Pete and Larry Bird books. They won't have a choice, but to want to play and work hard!