The SLANT remembers the Wabash Valley Tournament
by: Andy Amey, Terre Haute Tribune Star
photos by: Tony Harper/Indiana Sports Network
If you drive on any two-lane highway in west-central Indiana or east-central Illinois, you might not have to go more than 10 miles before finding a community that used to have a high school but doesn’t anymore – places like Freelandville, Plainville, Bainbridge, Switz City, Flat Rock (Ill.), Unionville, Monroe City . . . you get the picture.
And if you stop in any one of them and happen to find a person of a certain age, you’ll probably be able to coax a story out of them about the Wabash Valley Tournament.
Because, despite future players the National Basketball Association like Clyde Lovellette, Bobby Leonard and Terry Dischinger also being in the tournament (and winning it), those smaller schools are also former Wabash Valley Tournament champions.
Brazil High School, photo taken by: Tony Harper/Indiana Sports Network
According to a book published in 1997 by the late Dean Kendall, a total of 198 schools appeared in at least one Wabash Valley Tournament between 1916 and 1972. Just five teams competed in the first tournament, the brainchild of Terre Haute Tribune sports editor Ralph White, but by 1936 there were 105 entrants, and there were never fewer than 100 again until 1962. After the Terre Haute Tribune-Star dropped its sponsorship, the number kept falling until 14 were entered in the final year, 1972.
Terre Haute Wiley was the biggest school to win the tournament (twice) and the only winner with an enrollment above 1,000. Flat Rock, enrollment 82 at the time, is the smallest winner. And the bigger Terre Haute schools, with the tournament finals usually in their back yard, won just 11 times in 57 seasons.
Gary Fears attended his first tournament as a 10-year-old in 1952 and played in the tournament for Honey Creek in 1959 and 1960. His last appearance in the tournament came in a loss to Carlisle, another school that no longer exists.
Gary Fears, photo by: Tony Harper/Indiana Sports Network
When Fears became an executive with Pizza Hut, he began a one-night “Pizza Hut Classic” in Terre Haute’s Hulman Center for a few years involving the Wabash Valley’s four biggest rivals – Terre Haute North, Terre Haute South, West Vigo and Northview – each of whom was capable of a 20-win season annually at that time.
Fears and Hall of Fame coaches Jim Jones (at TH North) and Pat Rady (at TH South) began putting together the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic, a 12-team tournament its first year (2000) that grew to 16 teams by the next season. That’s the maximum number the Indiana High School Athletic Association will allow now, or several other schools – who are on a waiting list – would also be involved.
And some of the small schools are still winning it. Rockville, which won the first three in 1916, 1917 and 1918, has also won the new tournament, and so has Marshall, Ill., which won the last two in 1971 and 1972.
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