Who says that contemporary high school kids don’t play the game as hard as they once did? Spencerville’s Owen Sensabaugh (above) in the Bearcats’ district tourney game with Coldwater. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
No matter where they play, our area basketball teams in the state tournament (and many others they compete against) represent their small-town cultures by respecting and playing the game the right way.
A couple Sunday afternoons ago I talked tournaments and small-school basketball with my dad for more than an hour. I updated him on which teams were doing well in the tournament and which ones should go far.
He was interested in the big schools and small schools. It’s all basketball to him.
He’s a proud 1955 graduate of Springfield High School. He was sorry to hear the Wildcats didn’t make it far, and he can’t understand why. He was at the 1950 state championship game victory, a fact he likes to talk about.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Dad doesn’t go to games like he used to. Not like the nights when we went to Hobart Arena, squeezed through the front door, smelled the popcorn, found the best seats we could and watched great competition. It didn’t matter who was playing on that old brown floor of dead spots. We romanticize the past more than we should. But if there were good old days in my life, those were the ones.
Our Sunday afternoon conversation got around to small schools and small towns and big enthusiastic crowds. He reminisced about going to Clark County basketball tournaments at the old Wittenberg field house in the 40s and 50s with his dad, a native Hoosier, who couldn’t get enough roundball action. Dad remembered many names. Many of the schools he watched play no longer exist.
Now that I’m writing about basketball teams from the Shelby County Athletic League and the Midwest Athletic Conference for Press Pros, I have been reintroduced to small-town, small-school hoops. Small is good.
But not just because it’s small. That’s not what makes programs like the ones at state this year – Fort Loramie girls, Russia boys, Marion Local boys – good programs. Those programs, and many others small and large (but not all), and their fan bases respect the way the game should be played.
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We hear a lot about respecting the game from pregame scripts that fans give about as much attention to as they do seatbelt instructions on airplanes. Those ideas about fair play and treating others well are appropriate goals.
But when coaches talk about respecting the game, they are talking about preparing and competing with a 100% mindset. The game demands all you have to give if you want to play for a championship. Not every program figures that out. Sometimes it’s the coach that doesn’t know how to demand it. Sometimes it’s the players not getting it. Sometimes it’s an apathetic community.
Kipton Cordonnier, son of Russia’s Coach Spencer Cordonnier, gets in some extra shooting work for the future during a recent Raiders’ tournament win.
But in these towns you know well, expectations exist to compete at the highest level possible. Basketball season isn’t just a fun winter activity. Basketball, from the administration to the coaches to the players to the community, is about striving to be the best. They want the state to know where they come from matters. They collectively push to get the most out of the 12 kids who are privileged to wear that uniform.
These programs, led by demanding coaches, have a healthy and appropriate respect for the game. One of the coaches marveled to me this season about how much harder the kids play now than in his day.
Well, doesn’t that just contradict everything we hear about Gen Z.
On the basketball court, at least, these kids don’t act entitled. Adults tell them what it takes to be champions. Adults tell them to do everything with 100% focus and 100% effort every time. Not just when you feel like it, not just when the coach is watching, not just when you need to make sure you win. And the coaches are developing leaders that hold less-willing teammates accountable.
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Do not underestimate the effect the communities that raise these kids have on these programs and their will to win. That attitude existed in my hometown of New Carlisle 85 years ago.
The elementary school I attended used to be New Carlisle High School. In one of the hallways stood a trophy case with a somewhat tarnished symbol of the past. The Tigers, champions of Clark County, won the Class B boys state championship in 1940. My neighbor played on that team and scored 15 points in the championship game.
In those days, the state tournament was a 16-team field in Class A and Class B. From Thursday to Saturday, every game was played at the fairgrounds coliseum in Columbus. Times have certainly changed and spread the tournament thinly across the state.
When the Tigers returned home, they were greeted by most of the people in town at a rally on Main Street. The other day I watched a video of the Russia boys returning home as regional champions to a throng as they entered town. It reminded me of the stories and photos I’ve seen of the Tigers’ big day.
But I didn’t get to play in an environment quite like that. I lived in a small town, but my high school days were at Tecumseh, a good-sized school formed by consolidation in the 1950s. We came from several small communities. The school tied us together, but not much else did.
My first experience with small-school sports came at my first newspaper job in Virginia’s rural Shenandoah County. There are three schools all tied to a small town. Some pushed hard for consolidation about 35 years ago, but it didn’t happen. Each school wanted to keep its identity. And each school excelled at the state level in different sports.
I witnessed the passion for those small schools and teams in a way I never had before. Now I’m seeing it again.
Every high school team has its fans who won’t miss a game. But in places like Fort Loramie, Russia and Maria Stein, the faithful make a much larger percentage than at urban schools. Lots of people stay and raise families. Some go away to college and come back. Some teach and coach at their alma mater.
Cheering for your kids on the teams you played on – sometimes for the same coach – just means more. And so small-school sports will continue to thrive no matter how the state is structured. They love where they live, but they still enjoy trips to places like UD Arena. That’s always been a goal for district finals, which weren’t held there this year.
Last Friday in the state semifinals the Fort Loramie and Minster girls played in a great atmosphere at jam-packed Elida Fieldhouse. This Friday the Russia and Marion Local boys will play in the Stroh Center at Bowling Green. And those two fan bases will fill the place as much as they can.
Because that’s what small towns, like the ones you know, do. No matter where you put the games, they will come because they know their teams will play hard. They would rather be at UD with the rest of the state. But you can’t stop them just because they’re small.
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