Hoosier Hysteria Blog Unveiled
Welcome to Hoosier Hysteria, a blog dedicated to Indiana High School sports, particularly in the northern Indiana area – focusing primarily Marshall, Starke and St. Joe counties.
I’m Doug Griffiths, part of the MAX 98.3 FM and WKVI 99.3 FM family and am thrilled to have this space dedicated to my thoughts on some of the standout high school players, their coaches and teams I get to cover on a weekly basis.
Anyone who knows me, would tell you almost from the outset how much I truly love Indiana high school sports. You see growing up in Anderson, Indiana in the 1970s and 80s and getting to live and die high school hoops in the infamous Wigwam will make you that way.
I was teammates with eventual Indiana Mr. Basketball and Purdue star Troy Lewis … in junior high before I moved to Indianapolis where I attended North Central High School. Yes, the Panthers have had their share of great players and teams over the years.
In all honesty, I never would’ve made Anderson’s basketball team – too short, too slow … I’m sure some of you can relate. Boy, those were some damn good hoops squads, too, as Norm Held guided the Indians to state runner-up showings in ’79, ’81 & ’83.
I have to admit attending a high school of around 4,000 students as North Central was intimidating to say the least. Heck our football team’s backfield consisted of QB Gary Thurman (a 1st round draft pick of the Kansas City Royals), RB Ray Wallace (a Parade All-American who played 4 years in the NFL after starring at Purdue) and RB Lars Tate (who went on to become one of Georgia’s top all-time rushers and played 3 years in the NFL). Believe it or not, my Panthers never made a deep run in the state playoffs … somebody named Jeff George dashed all of those dreams.
As you could imagine, intramural sports at North Central were pretty popular since it was like going to a small college. With that in mind, I like to call myself an intramural All-American. Not really. I wasn’t that good, not even close. I just loved to participate, and of course loved to talk about sports and later was blessed enough to write about them.
I’ve gotten to witness close up some incredible moments in Indiana High School sports history. None of those were more memorable than in ’83 when Steve Alford missed back-to-back free throws in the waning seconds in the Wigwam as his New Castle team fell to Anderson in a battle between two of the state’s very best teams.
In 1991, I was in press row to cover the incredible state championship game between Brebeuf and Gary Roosevelt, which featured IU-bound Alan Henderson and Purdue-bound Glenn Robinson – two of the nation’s best high school players. Boy was that a treat!
I also covered the final single-class Indiana high school basketball Final Four in the Hoosier Dome in 1997 for the Indianapolis Star’s website – Indiana’s Game.
More recently and locally I’ve seen some standout performances, too.
Marian’s Zander Horvath, now a San Diego Charger, was a man amongst boys and I got to see it firsthand when the behemoth dominated Glenn in the 2016 sectional.
Two years later covering Culver Academy, led by future IU player Trey Galloway, and its run to a state title was fun to say the least.
Who could forget, too, all the classic Bi-County games? One that is seared into my mind is the 2017 Glenn-Oregon Davis girls basketball game that saw Kyannah Stull score 19 of her 25 points in the second half to will her team to a 64-61 semi-final overtime victory over a very good Lady Bobcat team led by Lexi Minix.
Yes, in my 50-plus years of life I’ve gotten to see some tremendous performances at the high school level. Needless to say I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.
You can follow Doug on his personal Twitter page – @DougGriffMAX983 – as well as keep an eye on his posts on Twitter @Maxsports983 and on Facebook (facebook.com/wymrradio) and MAX’s website – MAX983.net.
