Best single sports day of the year, in my opinion. Not as widely "consumable" as Thursday/Friday of March Madness, or the Super Bowl, or Opening Day for baseball...but in terms of the overall experience, the nostalgia, the community effect...if you live in Indiana, and have a "home school" playing tonight...it just doesn't get much better!
I'll be sitting in historic Northside Gym tonight in Elkhart. Every time I walk into Northside, and I mean every time, the history pours over me. The smells...popcorn mixed with that familiar "old school building" odor. If I could buy "Northside Gym Air Freshener", I would. I'll get goosebumps when I walk up the stairs and come out and see the court, because I do, every time. The last time I was there, my son's 8th grade team won a thrilling game to win their conference tournament championship...another vivid and rich memory to add to the personal scrapbook! Honestly, probably the best one yet. And that's saying a lot!
I was lucky enough to see Shawn Kemp play a game in Northside, sectionals...I think?? I wish I was old enough to fully remember that game! I remember the smell of the gym, how loud it was, and I know now that I took watching him play for granted. Because as young as I was, I just assumed basketball like that was common. It wasn't common. It was historic. And as I watched him become the "Rain Man" later on, I was always brought back to those feelings I had that night at Northside...and the smells, always the smells.
My next memory was watching my high school play against Brad Miller and East Noble, in the morning game of the Elkhart Regional. I had watched our team play nearly every game that season, somehow it all looked different though that morning. The colors were brighter, the jerseys were shinier, the players looked bigger, stronger, faster. East Noble whipped our butts that morning, we didn't have an answer for Miller, but they had other really good players too! Thinking back to that day, the anticipation and excitement of watching Northridge High School, in a Regional Game!...well it was amazing. And again, always present in my Northside memories, are the smells.
Next it was my turn to personally experience it all. After winning Sectionals my senior year, we had the difficult task of playing South Bend Clay in the 2nd game of the morning session. Our coach decided that we wouldn't come watch the first game, so that setup one of the most amazing, emotional, experiences I've ever had in my life...running out for warmups in our regional game. Northside is a big gym, it seats over 7,000 people. And its a fairly tall gym too. Back then, they turned out the lights to the upper bowl. The effect that had, for players on the floor, I'll never in my life forget. When we ran out for warmups, I looked up into the stands, and couldn't see the top of the stands. It might as well have gone on up forever! And seeing a very distinct, very geometrical, Green rectangle in the corner...which was our section of fans...again, I'll never, ever forget that feeling. That Clay team had numerous college players on it, including Jaron Cornell, who was only a couple years removed from hitting their version of "The Shot" on Bryce Drew and Valpo in the state title game. They were ranked in the top 10, maybe top 5, in the state. Everyone was counting down the days until the following week when they'd face the eventual Mr. Basketball in Kevin Ault and Warsaw, in the Ft Wayne Semistate. I don't remember the specific game plan, all I remember was we had very specific orders not to "Make Cornell mad!"...don't talk trash with him, don't bump him harder than normal, don't do anything to light his fire. We put our best defender on him, and he stayed in front of him all game, was intense but very "polite" with him. I'm guessing it was the most pleasant "bad game" he ever played. He finished well below his average...and we played amazing, and destroyed them! We weren't slouches, so this isn't a David and Goliath story. We had 4 college players too, a couple of us were really good small college players. But the euphoria of doing what we did, in front of that many people...amazing. And as an added bonus, the game before us, the unranked East Noble Knights...yes them again...upset the ranked Penn Kingsmen. So in our minds, we were already thinking about Memorial Coliseum in Ft Wayne!
We arrived early for the championship that night. As we entered Northside...the smells... it was much more laid back that night, for whatever reason. I think part of it was we really thought we were going to handle East Noble. They weren't ranked. They were from Noble County. Honestly, I didn't even make the connection to the game a few years earlier where East Noble destroyed Northridge in the same gym. We watched the 3 point and dunk contests (they did them back then, sectional teams that fed into the Regional would send competitors for them on to the Regional. Then if your team lost in Regional, the 3 losing teams would send competitors on with whoever won the contests at the Regional...and so on. And they crowned winners at State!) So we watched that, then leisurely went in to get ready for warmups. I don't remember warmups as much this time. What I do remember is the first play of the game. East Noble got the tip...warning number 1. Our big was 6'7", with long arms, he rarely ever lost the tip. They proceeded to run a version of a swing offense, for roughly 2 minutes, very easily handling the ball against our signature pressure defense...warning number 2. We usually made it very difficult for teams to run long possessions. Then they ran a double screen play for the guy on their scouting report that wasn't supposed to hurt us. It was one of those plays where two guys close together at the top of the key, kind of a closing gate type play. I happen to have switched on this guy, and I'm the one that got caught in the gate. I'll never forget the foreboding feeling I felt as that guy rose up and calmly buried a 20 footer. As we quickly realized after that, East Noble was REALLY, REALLY good. Their point guard was a D1 prospect. Their big is one of the best players to ever play at Trine University. Their shooting guard recently coached Central Noble girls to a state title, after a good college playing career. They were legit. And they were the exact type of team we didn't want to play in that situation. Controlled, methodical, long possessions. We got down double digits early. And I remember the desperate feeling we all had going into the locker room at halftime. A lot of our team was juniors. I was the senior leader of the team. And I remember going to each of the main rotation guys, looking them in the eye, and telling them I loved them and believed in them. No clue why I did that, but its another one of those "burnt in memories" that always come up when I walk into that gym. The second half was completely different. You can't "roar back" against a team like that. But we chipped away at the lead. Finally with about a minute to play, our big hit a baseline turnaround jumper to tie the game. Ive never in my life heard a sporting event, really any event, be that loud. We had about 2/3 of the crown in the gym that night. Their next possession, we were able to force a steal near half court...our guy that stole the ball was streaking to the basket, and I was trailing. He was going way too fast, his layup was contested a little bit, and he missed it, I jumped up and I'll never forget the feeling of that ball being just out of reach and glancing off my fingertips. They got the ball and went down and scored in a scrambled play. We still had a chance, with the ball, down 2, with plenty of time left. We ran a play that basically always netted a good shot for us. They had us scouted really well, because the future Central Noble coach jumped the pass and stole the ball, and streaked down the floor ending up getting fouled. He made both free throws to put them up 4 with 10 seconds to go. We didn't have any timeouts left, and I hit a 3 with 4 seconds to go. Back then the clock didn't stop under a minute...so again, another feeling and memory I'll never forget is the crushing feeling of those last couple seconds ticking away. 41-40...loss...17 game win streak over...in a blink. (I mentioned earlier most of the team was juniors...they had a solid year the following year as well, but lost to East Noble in regionals, again. The score? 41-40. Weird)
That was 1996 for those that don't know that already. I've had many, many, many memories in that gym since. Recently, Northridge has won a handful of sectionals. And while the environment is definitely different now than it was back then. The smells are still the same. The connection to that gym is stronger than ever. I literally can not wait to walk into Northside Gym tonight. I'll be misty eyed, my family will make fun of me, I'll be adding another memory to my scrapbook. My son enters high school next year. I've already warned my wife that I'll probably be full on crying, before the games even start.
Thanks for reading this far if you did. Sorry for the long post. I could go on and on and on about the range of lessons I learned on my regional day at Northside Gym. But mostly I just want to go take a deep breath, close my eyes, feel the goosebumps...and watch my Raiders give it their all tonight!
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