TheAgitator.com
Don’t Get Caught Watchin’ the Paint Dry
Thursday, February 19th, 2004So it was 50 years ago this spring that Bobby Plump drained a jumper from the elbow to give tiny Milan high school the Indiana state high school basketball championship. Milan and Plump were the inspiration for Hickory High and Jimmy Chitwood in the best movie in the history of cinema, Hoosiers, which was pretty much filmed in your humble Agitator’s backyard. In fact, most of the gyms in the movie were still in use when I starred played warmed the bench for the Eastern Hancock seventh and eighth grade squads.
This Sunday, ESPN Classic will televise rare footage from the Milan-Muncie championship game, with commentary from Plump himself. Afterward, the 2004 incarnations of Muncie Central and Milan will go head to head in a comemorative game, which ESPN will cary live.
Pretty cool.
I love that movie. I coach 4th graders and I channel Gene Hackman in practice, yelling 4 passes, 4 passes as we scrimmage in practice.
I played 1A high school basketball in Utah, which is very Indiana like in that regard. We’d play in towns with a population of 500 - and 425 of them were in the gym for the game.
Watching Hoosiers was like re-living my own childhood.
4 passes, 4 passes
Sunday, ESPN classic will be showing footage of the Milan-Muncie Central basketball game that was the inspiration for the movie…
Picket Fence! Run The Picket Fence!
What an outstanding movie. I saw it in the theater when I was 10 years old and I’ve seen it about two dozen times sicne then. I get goosebumps every single time Hickory goes on an 8-0 run at the end of the championship game to win it.
I got the privilege of seeing this movieon a visit to Ft. Wayne when it came out. on a visit to Ft. Wayne.
Wonderful memory.
One thing i’ll miss when i (someday) leave Indiana…