Milan (2,076) Built 1959
February 14, 2026: South Dearborn vs. Milan (Boys)
February 14, 2026: South Dearborn vs. Milan (Boys)
This spring I was given the chance to be one of the speakers at the biannual Rosie's Roundup luncheon in Thorntown. Rosie's Roundup is a gathering of Indiana high school basketball "people" I guess would be the best way to put it. There are former and current coaches, officials, athletic directors, and just plain old fans like me. It's been going on for a few decades now, but my first time was last spring. It was a really cool experience. To be around like-minded people who care so much about the game and legacy of it in our state is awesome. I was asked to speak about all the gyms I've seen and just kind of what this blog has become. I was hesitant to say yes because not only did I feel unworthy to get up and talk about basketball in front of so many legends of the game in Indiana, I'm also genuinely terrified of public speaking. At my brother's wedding back in January I had to give the best man speech, and apparently I was talking a mile a minute without even realizing it while sweating in a way I was very much aware of. All of this to say, I was pretty nervous. As I prepared my presentation, I knew I was going to talk about the gyms in Versailles and Milan. I also knew that my brain would want to pronounce them the "correct" way, meaning the European way: me-lahn and ver-sigh. The problem is that in Indiana, this is very much the incorrect way to pronounce them, and people will gladly correct you if you mess up. Around here the correct pronunciations are my-lun and ver-sails. I told myself over and over, don't screw this up! Well the first one that came up in the presentation was Versailles, and I nailed it. Then Milan comes up, and I pronounce it like I'm talking about the city in northern Italy, and instantly someone kindly from the back says "It's my-lun!" and I started kicking myself mentally. I prepared all week and still messed it up. To anyone outside of Indiana, it might seem odd that such a small mispronunciation would matter so much. To anyone familiar with Hoosier Hysteria, they get it. That name isn't just the name of a town, it is Hoosier Hysteria. It's everything we love. It's everything Indiana high school basketball represents. It's the epitome of what this blog is all about. It's Milan.
The first blog I ever wrote for this site was about the Hoosier Gym in Knightstown. In that blog I talk about while I loved seeing everything from the movie Hoosiers, what really struck me the most was hearing stories about when the Knightstown Panthers played there from an older gentleman who actually was on some of those teams. Hoosiers is a perfect movie in my humble opinion. It does an impeccable job capturing what Hoosier Hysteria was like during its absolute peak in the 50s before consolidation hit. As perfect of a film as it is though, it's just that, a film. It's a depiction of something that actually happened, but it's not the real thing. Just as I found the the true stories of the Knightstown gym a little more compelling than the ones told in the movie (and those are fantastic too, don't get me wrong!), the real story of what inspired the movie Hoosiers is even more exhilarating. If you're reading this blog, I probably don't need to remind you of that story, but here's the extremely truncated version just in case. In 1954, 752 schools competed for the Indiana boys basketball state championship. Milan only had around 70 boys in their high school, yet they put together one of the best teams the state has ever seen. Their run to the state finals would have been unbelievable, if they hadn't already made it that far the year before (when it truly was inconceivable). That year they lost to South Bend Central in the morning game of the state finals. In 1954 they not only returned to the state finals, but beat the almighty Muncie Central Bearcats on a pull-up jumpshot by Bobby Plump as time was running out. No school the size of Milan had ever gone all the way to Hinkle Fieldhouse and won it all, and no one did it again until the day single-class basketball died in 1997. When it died, the chance for another Milan Miracle run died with it.
I'm not sure it's possible to put into words the impact that the 1954 Milan Indians had on our state. I was born exactly 40 years after all of it happened, and even I felt the effects. My idols were the varsity basketball players in my hometown. Every Friday night in the winter, there was only one place I wanted to be. In the summer my friends and I played basketball outside, and in the winter we played it inside in the basement. I never wanted to be an Indiana Hoosier or a Indiana Pacer, I wanted to be a Westview Warrior. And the thing is, there were so many kids who were even crazier about it than me. I was that nuts about it, and I only amounted to being an average high school player. So many kids were inspired to the point that they lived in the gym, on the playground courts, and in the haymows up in the barns. Bobby Plump, Ray Craft, Gene White, and the rest of that team inspired a Hoosier Hysteria that burned so bright that it was the envy of every basketball fan across the country that didn't live in Indiana. They made every single kid who grew up in a small town believe that they could do something special on a basketball court. It didn't matter how big you were, how fast you were, or how far you lived from Indianapolis: if you worked hard enough, you could make it. Generation after generation chased after that dream. It reached a boiling point in 1990 when Damon Bailey led Bedford North Lawrence to a state championship in front of more than 40,000 fans in a football stadium. While the advent of class basketball and the emergence of a million different things vying for teenagers' attention has maybe quelled the fervor slightly, it certainly hasnt killed it. There's still something special about Indiana high school basketball, and Milan is still at the heart of it.
I first visited Milan a few winters ago when I stopped by the Milan 54 Museum. Along with the Hoosier Gym and the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, these three venues make up the Triple Crown of places Indiana basketball fans have to visit in their lifetime. It's just an unbelievable tribute to that team and Hoosier Hysteria as a whole, set in the historic downtown part of Milan. Since then I've passed through the town a couple times on my travels to old gyms around the state. Going to a game in the current high school gym has been something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I finally got the perfect chance when they announced they would be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Hoosiers by wearing Hickory Husker uniforms when they played South Dearborn in February. Being the hopeless romantic I am, I asked my wife if she'd be okay with me spending Valentine's Day two and a half hours away at a game, and being the saint she is, she said sure! Walking in, the first thing you see is the new display area honoring the 1954 team and other great Milan sports teams from the past. Old pictures line the upper walls of a three-walled room of sorts. Trophies line cases below. In the center of an old hardwood floor, sitting inside a glass case, is the most important trophy ever won as far as I'm concerned: the 1954 boys basketball state championship trophy. The names of the players are inscribed at the bottom. Also in the trophy cases you can find balls from the 1954 state championship team, the 1953 state finals team, and the 1953 state finalist trophy. They knocked this display out of the park. It's awesome.
I wasn't sure how I would feel about Milan's current gym considering it's a little disconnected from the 1954 team and all the history that goes with it. It's well-documented that the state championship team played their home games over at the Tyson Auditorium in Versailles since their own gym was too small for the growing crowds (that gym used to sit where the parking lot is now). A few years after all the craziness happened, they finally got a nice gym of their own. Looking at pictures, I wasn't expecting too much, but I was actually pleasantly surprised when I got down there in person. There are single sections of bleachers along each sideline. One has modern black plastic retractable bleachers that go up 18 rows, and the other has permanent wooden bleaches that go up about 15 rows. The only other place with a setup like this that I can think of is Shenandoah. It's certainly unique! The bottom corners of the permanent bleachers have little tunnels leading to locker rooms and hallways underneath. The baseline opposite of the main entrance to the gym has a really wide old stage that has been paneled over with a white backdrop. Considering black and yellow athletic accomplishment banners are now hanging across it on those panels, I'm guessing it is never used as a stage anymore which is too bad, but not uncommon for schools that later built auditoriums elsewhere. In the bottom of the middle row of those athletic accomplishment banners is a pretty small and insignificant looking Ohio River Valley conference banner. It's really the only part of the gym I dislike.
The opposing baseline wall above the entrance has a lot to like. Here you'll find a beautiful old black and yellow circular mural of an Indian chieftain of sorts. It's the kind of mural that's getting painted over in lots of places these days, and I pray it never does here. To the right of it are some big old school banners recognizing the 1973 Milan basketball team that won a regional, and one for a past baseball team. To the left is a colorized team photo of the 1954 title team, and even further left are the greatest two banners in sports history. The 1953 and 1954 state finalist and championship banners are the biggest you will find, the classiest you will find, and the most meaningful you will find. They sit behind glass to protect them, as they should. They look gorgeous displayed side by side like this. In opposite corners of the gym are some of the oldest looking scoreboards you'll see in any active high school gym. I just love them and hope they don't get replaced soon. Finally, the court itself is pretty classy as well. Most of it is stained a very light-gold color, with darker hues inside the three-point arcs. "Milan" is written right inside the free throw lines. "Indians" is written in smaller than normal font across the baselines in yellow against a black backdrop. A giant black "M" is at center court (looking at old pictures, they used to have a sick center court design in the shape of Indiana, I wish they would've kept that). Finally, they have "Heart of Hoosier Hysteria" written in beautiful cursive font right inside the sidelines. It's the perfect finishing touch to an aesthetically beautiful gym that ties the past to the present very nicely.
For Christmas this year, I received a copy of The Milan Miracle: The Town That Hoosiers Left Behind by Bill Riley. It follows a Milan team in the early 2010's led by coach Josh Blankinship over the course of their entire season. It does an incredible job of capturing what life is like in modern day Milan for typical Indiana kids trying to make a name for themselves while playing in the shadow of the greatest sports story ever told. I read it over the course of a couple days and couldn't put it down. What was evident from that book and my own experience at the game this year is that like so many other small Indiana towns, the community still cares about basketball. People still show up. People still question the coaches. There are still boys who want to grow up and represent their town really well on the basketball court, there's just not as many. I'm not going to sit here and try and tell you nothing's changed, because it certainly has. That doesn't mean the impact of the 1954 Milan Indians isn't felt anymore though, because it is. Again, I'm having a hard time putting it into words (kind of a problem when you're a writer). It's just a feeling that is unlike anything else I've experienced. I feel it everytime I watch Hoosiers. I feel it every time I step into an old gym for the first time. I feel it every time I hear the Whistler when Westview takes the court. And I felt it when I walked into the Milan gym and looked up at those banners. It's just Hoosier Hysteria. I don't know how else to put it.
