Controversial home-courtadvantages. Big-time transfers. Tournament brackets that made you go hmmm. Intense rivalries that don't necessarily bring out the best in sportsmanship.
DATABASE: Find photos and histories of 92 Indiana gyms.
All played a role on the path to that first boys championship, won by the 1911 Crawfordsville High Athenians.
It's fitting that Crawfordsville won that first title, because for all intents and purposes, Indiana's introduction to the sport began here in Montgomery County in the late 19th century.
The beginning
In 1890, Nicholas McCay, a graduate of the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., took a position as general secretary at the Crawfordsville YMCA.
McCay had a direct connection to basketball's inventor. James Naismith taught McCay in Springfield.
McCay introduced the original rules of the game in Crawfordsville in 1893 and made it a regular part of his physical education program. Though McCay resigned his post later that year, the fuse had been lit.
On March 16, 1894, the Crawfordsville YMCA defeated the visiting Lafayette YMCA in what is believed to be the state's first game between two towns, a 45-21 Crawfordsville victory.
"Basketball is a new game, but if the interest taken in the contest last night between the YMCA teams of Crawfordsville and Lafayette is any criterion, it is bound to be popular," read the next day's account in the Crawfordsville Journal-Review newspaper.
By the 1900-01 school year, Crawfordsville High School had its own boys team, though finding other schools to play was difficult. In those early years, just a handful of high schools fielded a team.
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