TERRE HAUTE — My wife and I invest a bit of our time on the occasional Saturday wandering through antique stores and junk shops. We do more picking up and putting down than shelling out and loading up, but I was convinced that I couldn’t have made a better investment last fall when I laid down $7.00 for a history book; at least it’s a history book to me.
It’s a “J.C. Higgins Official College Basket Ball Score Book,” a 5”x8” glance at the past made expressively by Sears and Roebuck & Co. of Chicago, and it was purchased and used for the 1924-25 high school basketball season by tiny Judyville High School.
I kept a scorebook for two local schools years ago, and I enjoyed my time at the scorer’s table. It’s the best seat in the house, and there’s a sense of accomplishment that comes from keeping an accurate and orderly scorebook or getting a thumbs-up from two appreciative game officials or a slap on the back from a coach who is happier with your neat columns of 2’s and completely filled 0’s than he is with his team. Judyville’s coach was, in all probability, more pleased with his scorekeeper, one Francis Regan, than his team in the winter of ’24-’25. His squad, most likely called “cagers” since they weren’t too far removed from the era when a wire cage occasionally enclosed the playing floor, went just 2-5, and one of those victories came by forfeit.
Like so many whistlestops from the glory days of Indiana small towns, Judyville still exists today, but more in theory than reality. Tucked away in Warren County’s Liberty Township, the burg actually grew because founder John Finney Judy (originally spelled Tschudi) owned a prosperous farm. Founded in 1903, the town eventually had its own telephone company and, according to an Internet encyclopedia entry, actually minted a “local form of currency known as ‘Judy Money,’” which was accepted throughout the county. Judyville grew as it gained both a trunk line of the old Eastern Illinois Railroad and a post office.
I couldn’t find much of anything about the school there, but the proof that one existed, and that it had a basketball “five” came in the form of that yellowing scorebook that I picked up nearly 85 years after the fact. I’m pretty certain that Judyville High never won a sectional; I have no idea what the team nickname was.
The scorebook is an open window on old, old school Indiana basketball. Since the book never lists a game being played at Judyville, it is probable that the school had no gym, an obstacle that many Indiana schools faced in those days.
The first game recorded in the book came on October 10, 1924: the Judyville team facing Ambia’s Wildcats at Ambia and losing 46-12. Regan listed the five Judyville players by positions, referring to them as right and left forwards, a center, and a back and front guard. Only one referee was used, Glen Farrel.
County rival Williamsport followed four days later. The Bombers apparently lived up to their nickname, handing Judyville a 54-4 loss; Williamsport’s Robert King scored 24 points. All of Judyville’s points came on free throws: two in each half.
On Nov. 1, Judyville traveled north to Boswell in southern Benton County and picked up its first victory of the year despite playing no game; the Blackhawks couldn’t field a team, and Judyville was declared a 2-0 winner. Six days later, it was back to Ambia and another loss, 35-15, despite the fact that two more names appeared in the scorebook for Judyville.
It took a little over a month before Regan made another entry for a game, and it involved a first team from Judyville defeating a second team 27-19; the additional players Judyville had picked up in the interim apparently made no difference. Three days later they faced the Bombers at Williamsport again, and this time the host school showed no mercy in crushing them 98-10.
The second Williamsport game and its score was much more common to old-time Indiana hoops than is often believed. Most of the individual and team scoring records in the books in this state come from the earliest era of our basketball heritage. For instance, Judyville’s old nemesis, Robert King, tossed in 49 of the Bombers’ points, while teammate H. McCosky added 35 more.
Williamsport had a 40-7 halftime lead, but the Bombers’ coach apparently had no intention of asking his team to take it easy; the Bombers scored 58 in the second half.
Keep in mind that it was probable that Judyville rarely touched the ball while scoring only 3 second-half points; in those days a center jump was held after every score, and a team with a dominant player could almost always keep control of the ball at their end of the floor.
In February, Judyville’s squad headed to Boswell; the Blackhawks actually had seven players on their roster by then, but the visitors took their measure anyway in what must have been a real barnburner, 17-16. At least Judyville had won a real game. In an interesting caveat to the game, I found an “I.H.S.A.A. Eligibility Certification” from Boswell’s principal, Edgar Burnette, paper-clipped to the inside cover of the scorebook. It listed the seven eligible Boswell players, including Zerma Trimble and Wilbur Odle.
It is just an old scorebook, but I couldn’t help but see in my mind’s eye, albeit in grays and blacks and whites, a group of farm boys who just wanted to play ball. I can see them in their “Ralph Jones Professional Basket Ball Shoes,” also made by Sears, and I can see them running up and down country roads and gravel highways in Model T’s to play in barn lots.
Basketball is different now; it’s a faster game with more skilled players who use better equipment. But what the game has become all started for us in places like Judyville.
You can email Mike Lunsford at hickory913@aol.com, or can write to him c/o the Tribune-Star at PO Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. His book, “The Off Season: The Newspaper Stories of Mike Lunsford” is available in several local stores; learn more about it or order it online at his Web page at www.mikelunsford.com. Lunsford begins work on his second book this spring.
Sidelines
January 16, 2009
Thumbing through a real history book
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Old friend missing as Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic begins
It occurred to me late last month, as I opened my morning newspaper to read up on the draw for this year’s Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic, that when I walk through Terre Haute South’s doors on Wednesday it will be the first time that I won’t find my old buddy Dean Kendall sitting at one end of the gym, a smile on his face a good while before the first whistle is blown or the first shot is taken.
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SIDELINES: Good for even a traditional Classic buff
Lights down, tree out, another year gone at the Classic.
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Sidelines: Pizza Hut Classic is basketball on caffeine
I’m no coffee connoisseur. If it’s hot and black and in a Styrofoam cup, I’ll drink it.
Knowing I consume a good bit of brew every day, my family helps fuel the addiction by buying Christmas gift cards for me at a local coffee shop, but, since I make it into town only occasionally, the cards stay stashed in my wallet until the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic rolls around. - Sidelines: Feeling cold? Here’s a story that just might warm your feet Despite a glowing space heater that hums near my chilly feet, I still hug my arms and rub my legs as I sit to write this story. The sub-zero temperatures this weekend have brutally reminded us all of our human frailty, of our dependence on stoves and furnaces, electricity and natural gas, on blankets and fleece and wool and warm water.
- Tipping my can in honor of the Classic’s 10th It never ceases to amaze me how fast time slides past us… Or should I say, blows by. I’ve lived in my house 28 years; I’ve taught school for over 30, and I’ve been married a little longer than that.
- Hayden's loyalty to Colts pays off Hours before the former University of Illinois cornerback was due to be designated as the Indianapolis Colts’ franchise player, Kelvin Hayden — who had made it known that he wasn’t interested in playing anywhere else — signed a five-year, $43 million deal with the team.
- Thumbing through a real history book My wife and I invest a bit of our time on the occasional Saturday wandering through antique stores and junk shops.
- Sidelines: When it comes to the Classic, it’s better late than never… I’m normally pretty punctual. Despite having to slip into the back pew at church on the occasionally tardy Sunday morning, I’m not in the habit of paying late fees on bills, standing at the back of any buffet lines, or being the last guy in the neighborhood to mow grass. As a matter of fact, I’m often the first employee to pull into the parking lot every morning.
- Colts notebook: Team won't be very active in free-agent market Now that Indianapolis has re-signed unrestricted free agents Bob Sanders (strong safety), Dallas Clark (tight end) and Ryan Lilja (offensive guard), team officials are planning to sit back and see what’s going to happen with the rest of the team’s free agents.
- SIDELINES: Like fine wine, Classic gets better with age I know virtually nothing about wine, but I do know that the best of it gets better with age. That’s apparently true of the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic.
- Sidelines: A man has to do what a man has to do I have a job to do just after Christmas, and believe me, it’s a tough one; it takes four days, involves putting in long hours, requires both physical and mental sacrifice, and perhaps even holds the chance for long-term injury. But a guy has to do what he has to do to bring home a paycheck.
- Metro roundup: ISU announces Hall of Fame class
- Sidelines: Illinois has its share of unique nicknames too Over the years, I’ve written at least four columns about unique school nicknames, but Casey resident Jim Blome reminded me in a letter about a year ago that I’ve never done a story about interesting names from Illinois schools. I think it’s time I remedied that error.
- Sidelines: Advocates had their chance for higher basket Years ago, if atmospheric conditions were just right, I could occasionally dunk a basketball, particularly at one local gym where pick-up game artists like me knew that one rim was at least three inches lower than regulation height.
- Warm up for Classic with Clyde Quiz An obligation at work kept me from being at the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic luncheon and tournament drawing at Terre Haute South a few weeks ago, but I don’t intend to let much get in my way when it comes to showing up for the lion’s share of the 28 games in the Classic, which, by the way, gets started today.
- Mike Lunsford: It’s not how much we’ve gained, but how much we’ve lost I haven’t seen much basketball this fall; the weather outside has been too nice lately to turn my attention to things indoors just yet. So this is the first Sidelines of the year; I was already writing about hoops in October last season. I hope the old adage of it being better late than never still rings true.
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Sidelines: Mail waste of time for some, but not for me
No matter how many bills or how much junk mail I get, I’m one of those folks who anticipates going to the mailbox like Carter opening Tut’s tomb. I’ve always enjoyed getting mail; there’s a feeling of connectedness one gets when he sees his name on a letter from somewhere in the outside world. It makes little difference that what I most often get isn’t worth the postage it took to send it, even at the bulk rate.
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Sidelines: It doesn’t take much for me to name names
It’s no secret that I enjoy talking about old high school nicknames; I’ve done several columns on the subject before. I usually wait a little while before I write about a topic for a second (or third) time, but when Fred Myers of Riley dropped a letter to me a few weeks ago pointing out a potential mistake I made about a nickname, I just couldn’t resist going into it again. After all, it has been a couple of years.
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Old friend missing as Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic begins
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