By Senator Young Press Office—
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Milan Miracle on the Senate floor.
On March 20, 1954, Milan High School – enrollment 161 – defeated Muncie Central in the Indiana High School Boys State Championship, making the Indians the smallest school to ever win the single class tournament in Indiana. The team and town are the inspiration for the movie Hoosiers, released in 1986.
“The memory of Milan lasts because their team and town symbolizes what keeps our communities together…And it’s an inspiration still, across small towns, and struggling places, waiting on their own miracle, where the basketball team brings people together and makes them feel proud of the place they call home. That is why we still celebrate little Milan beating mighty Muncie Central 70 years on,” said Senator Young.
To watch Senator Young’s floor speech, click here.
Senator Young’s full remarks are below:
You might be surprised by the guest book of a museum in a small southern Indiana town.
Inside it are names of visitors from all 50 states and farther away – other countries, other continents, places like Italy, France, Japan, and New Zealand.
They have made their way to Milan, Indiana because…here is where the heart of Hoosier Hysteria lives…and the greatest basketball story ever took place 70 years ago this week.
March, 20, 1954, the Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis…
The finals of the Indiana High School Basketball Tournament…
The Indians of Milan High, enrollment 161, vs. The Bearcats of Muncie Central, enrollment 1,660…
15,000 fans are in the bleachers…with thousands more Hoosiers listening over the radio…
It’s the fourth quarter…
The game is tied at 30…
18 seconds on the clock…
Milan inbounds…
Senior Bobby Plump gets the ball…he fakes left, dribbles right, pulls up, knocks down a 14-foot jump shot just as the clock expires.
The nets come down and the celebration starts.
The next morning, the new state champions headed home in a fleet of Cadillacs along Indiana’s county roads – there was no interstate or highway connecting Indianapolis to Cincinnati, the closest city to Milan.
Hoosiers were waiting along the way, in Greensburg, in Shelbyville, holding signs, waving.
State Road 101, which led back home, was lined with cars and cheering fans for 13 miles.
40,000 people were waiting in Milan, even though at that time the town had only 1,100 residents.
As they rolled into town, two members of the team – Ray Craft and Kenny Wendelman – hopped on the roof of their Cadillac with the championship trophy between them.
The procession ended near Milan High; where that trophy remains today.
The next morning, the crowd was gone.
The small town quiet gradually returned.
In the days that followed members of the team graduated, went off to college, pursued careers and drifted apart.
Coach Marvin Wood took a job up in New Castle.
The passage of time brought other changes, not all of them welcome.
Milan, like so many towns across the country has faced challenges.
And the single class basketball tournament system that gave small town teams like Milan a shot at the title is no more.
Some of the schools that played in the 1954 tournament are gone.
Milan has not won another championship, though they made it to the semi-state back in 1973.
Despite this – or just possibly because of it – the Milan Miracle is inspiring as ever, seven decades on.
Yes, it’s the tale of the little guy, the underdog, David vs. Goliath. The smallest school to ever win the single class tournament.
Literally in fact: Muncie Central’s average height was 6’4. Milan’s was 5’11.
But this story is so much bigger than that or even basketball, or even Indiana.
Milan’s players always note that their championship run in 1954 was not a lightning strike or a stroke of good luck.
The Indians made it to the final four the previous year; most of the players had known and practiced with each other since grade school.
They played tough, were coached well, and had faith in their teammates.
Bobby Plump’s last shot is the moment we remember, but it was the culmination of a lot of hard work, dedication, and teamwork.
And it happened because of the support of families, friends and neighbors.
Milan was a place where when a student needed a winter coat, locals took up a collection at the drug store and bought him one…
…a place where the kids who didn’t have a lot of money could eat for free at Rosie’s.
…and the ones from nearby Pierceville, who often had to walk to school, could count on rides from friends.
And in a different era, when the world seemed so much smaller, the local basketball team was, at least for the month of March, the world.
Even a water shortage in the spring of 1954 didn’t dampen Milan’s or Ripley County’s excitement for the Indians.
As an area newspaper reported, “water or no water, Ripleyians want Milan to bring home the crown.”
Apart from what happened on the hardwood at Hinkle Fieldhouse, the memory of Milan lasts because their team and town symbolizes what keeps our communities together…
…what lifts their hopes and fuels their dreams, even when it feels like hopes and dreams are all they have.
That trophy in the newly refurbished lobby of Milan High’s gymnasium is a symbol of more than just a state championship.
It’s proof how much we can achieve when we work together towards a common goal and resolve to hold our own no matter the odds.
And it’s an inspiration still, across small towns, and struggling places, waiting on their own miracle, where the basketball team brings people together and makes them feel proud of the place they call home.
That is why we still celebrate little Milan beating mighty Muncie Central 70 years on.
It’s why we will for the next 70 years too.
Of course, this is the story that inspired “Hoosiers,” a beloved movie, written and directed by a pair of Hoosiers.
Visitors still come to Indiana in search of the movie’s fictional Hickory, hoping to find the small town epicenter of Hoosier Hysteria.
What they are really searching for is right there in Ripley County.
They will recognize it by the basketball goals in driveways, the backboards on barns…
The black water tower with white lettering reading “STATE CHAMPS 1954”
…the historical marker commemorating the Milan Miracle…and that museum that celebrates it right there in the center of town.
As a newspaper declared back in March of 1954:
“In basketball, Little Milan is the new capital of Indiana.”
70 years later, it is still the capital, and the Indians will always be champions.
