Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (33 page)

Hoosiers
is one of the most popular sports movies ever made.
Here’s the true story that inspired the movie—and an even better
story about how one team changed the game of basketball.

Indiana’s love of basketball goes all the way back to 1893, when the state hosted the first game ever played outside of Massachusetts, where it was founded. By the 1950s, the game was so integral to Indiana’s culture, wrote sportswriter David Halber-stam, that “there was church and there was basketball.” Every town with a high school had a basketball team, even towns too small to put together a football or baseball team. And on Friday nights, gyms across the state were filled with hundreds—even thousands—of fans.

For all of those young teams, the holy grail was winning the Indiana High School State Basketball Championship. And amazingly enough, every team had that chance. In most states, high school sports are divided into three or four classes, based on the school’s size and location. But Indiana had one big winner-take-all tournament, where small schools played large schools, inner-city schools played rural schools, and, by the 1950s, all-white schools played all-black schools.

One result of Indiana’s state tournament program was the 1954 “Milan Miracle,” when a tiny rural school won the state championship, an event immortalized in the 1986 movie
Hoosiers
. In the film, all-white “Hickory High” won the State Championship by defeating an all-black inner-city team that was dominated by one super-talented player. But that isn’t exactly how it happened. In real life, small-town Milan (pronounced “MY-lin”) High School beat Muncie Central, an integrated team with three black players. The super-talented black player that the character in
Hoosiers
was modeled on—future NBA Hall-of-Famer Oscar Robertson—
didn’t play for Muncie; he played for Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, which didn’t make it to the finals. And that year Robertson was only starting out as a player.

But the David-and-Goliath aspect of the story is true. Robertson later described the players from Milan as “a bunch of farm boys who were unfamiliar with stoplights, let alone neon.” Milan High School had a total of 161 students; Muncie Central had 1,500. Even so, the Milan Indians were a seasoned, well-coached team that had made it all the way to the Finals the previous year. The 1954 squad was dominated by seniors, particularly their star guard, Bobby Plump. As small as the town of Milan was, Plump was from even smaller Pierceville (population: 45).

The Indians were famous for a four-corners offense called the “cat and mouse.” “It was an extremely successful offensive weapon, a slow-down game,” said Plump. The guard—in this case, Bobby—would stand at the top of the “key” (at the foul line), while the other players went to four corners, forming a square. They’d then pass the ball back and forth at least four times until an opening in the defense showed and someone would take a jump shot.

But the “cat and mouse” didn’t really work against powerhouse Muncie Central in the championship game, and Plump had a bad night shooting. With Muncie ahead 28–26 in the fourth quarter, Plump held the ball on his hip…for four minutes. How is that possible? There was no 30-second shot clock in those days, so Plump could hold it as long as he wanted. After a couple of scores by both teams, they were tied 30–30 with less than a minute to go. Plump held the ball for another half a minute, and then with the clock running down, he sank a 15-foot jump shot to win the game, 32–30.

By today’s standards, the Milan victory may not sound very exciting, but that night all 15,000 spectators at Butler Fieldhouse in Indianapolis were on their feet, and all of Indiana went crazy over the spectacular win. To this day, Bobby Plump is still one of the most famous basketball players in Indiana. (He owns a popular Indianapolis restaurant called Plump’s Last Shot.)

Milan
did
play Oscar Robertson’s team that year, but not in the Finals. The two teams met in the Regional Finals, known as the “Semi-states.” Robertson was just a sophomore playing in the tournament for the first time. (Even so, he had 22 points in that game.) Bobby Plump was the dominant player, leading all scorers with 28 points, and Milan won 65–52. But the Milan coach, Marvin Wood, recognized that the grace and power of Oscar Robertson had only been held in check by the age and experience of his own squad. Bobby Plump agreed: “I’m glad we got him when he was a sophomore and not a senior.” Only a footnote in Milan’s David and Goliath story, Oscar Robertson’s team—the Crispus Attucks Tigers—would make their own history over the next two years.

• “My heat was shut off so I had to stay home to keep my snake warm.”

• “I had to go to bingo.”

• “I got locked in my trunk by my son.”

• “My husband thinks it’s funny to hide my car keys before he goes to work.”

• “I walked into a spider web on the way out the door and couldn’t find the spider, so I had to go inside and shower again.”

• “A gurney fell out of an ambulance and delayed traffic.”

• “I was attacked by a raccoon, so I had to stop by the hospital to make sure it wasn’t rabid.”

• “A groundhog bit my bike tire and made it flat.”

• “My driveway washed away in the rain last night.”

• “I feel like I’m in everyone’s way if I show up on time.”

• “My left turn signal was out so I had to make all right turns to get to work.”

 

Item:
A classical-style oil painting of Jackson dressed as a 16th century king, à la Henry VIII.

Auction estimate:
$4,000 to $6,000

 

Item:
An orange glove covered with hundreds of tiny, orange crystals. It’s similar to the rhinestone-covered white glove Jackson frequently wore in the mid-1980s, except that it’s orange and it’s covered with expensive Swarovski crystals instead of rhinestones.
Auction estimate:
$1,000 to $5,000

 

Item:
An electric golf cart. Painted on the hood is an airbrushed image of Jackson as Peter Pan, surrounded by golden fairy dust and flying pirate ships.

Auction estimate:
$4,000 to $6,000

 

Item:
A silver robotic head—a prop from the 1988 film
Moon-walker
, in which Jackson transforms into a robot in order to defeat the villain. Each face part juts out at the push of a button.
Auction estimate:
$2,000 to $3,000

 

Item:
A mural of Jackson wearing a sparkly white glove and sunglasses, surrounded by images of George Washington, the Mona Lisa, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, and E.T., all of whom are also wearing a single white glove and sunglasses.

Auction estimate:
$1,000 to $2,000

 

Item:
A framed letter from President Ronald Reagan to Jackson. It’s a “get well soon” letter dated February 1, 1984, sent after Jackson was injured when his hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. “I was pleased to learn that you were not seriously
hurt in your recent accident. I know from experience that these things can happen on the set.”

Auction estimate:
$400 to $600

 

Item:
An 8’-tall “welcome” sign from Jackson’s former home at Neverland Ranch. It depicts a Norman Rockwell-esque image of an African-American boy scout talking to a wood nymph, who is playing the flute in front of a full moon.

Auction estimate:
$300 to $500

 

Item:
A 5’-by-8’ black marble tablet etched with the original Jackson poem, “Children of the World.” An excerpt:

Auction estimate:
$600 to $800

 

Item:
The sparkly socks Jackson wore when he performed the Moonwalk for the first time on the 1983 Motown 25th-Anniversary TV special. The uppers (the calf-covering portion) are covered in rhinestones, but they are sewn onto regular old white athletic socks.
Auction estimate:
$600 to $800

 

Item:
A 13”-tall statuette of Jackson as a California Raisin. Custom-made by Will Vinton Studios (creators of the California Raisins), Jackson is purple, wrinkly, and wearing a white glove.
Auction estimate:
$100 to $150’

Buttered Toast • Cheese Pizza • Ear Wax
Garlic • Pencil Shavings • Moldy Cheese

• 99% of Americans say they are willing to use public restrooms if and when the need arises, according to a 2009 poll. (No word on what the other 1% do.) Of these, 30% say they will use public restrooms only in an emergency.

• 19% of men and 13% of women say they’ve stopped whatever it was they were doing and gone home to use the bathroom rather than use a public restroom that was deficient in some way (too dirty, no toilet paper, etc.). Half said that if the restroom were in a restaurant, they’d warn friends and neighbors not to dine there.

• 56% of women and 51% of men say they’ve “snuck” into a restaurant, store, or other business establishment to use the restroom, even though they had no intention of buying anything.

• According to 2007 survey by Dyson, a manufacturer of restroom hand dryers, 42% of Americans say they use toilet paper or paper towels to avoid touching restroom surfaces. And 90% of Americans say they perform “bathroom gymnastics”—turning on the hand dryer with an elbow, flushing the toilet with their shoe, etc.—to avoid touching surfaces in public restrooms.

According to an online poll conducted in 2008 for Ideal Standard International, a Belgian manufacturer of plumbing fixtures, 80% of respondents around the world say they’ve used at least one electronic device in the bathroom.

• Most popular for men: personal data assistants (PDAs), computer games, DVD players, and devices that provide Internet access.

• Most popular for women: telephones or cell phones, bathroom scales, and portable music players.

• 60% of all respondents said they’d spend more time in the bathroom if more electronic products were available in there.

• 59% of Americans say they check e-mail while going to the bathroom, according to a 2008 survey by American Standard, a manufacturer of plumbing fixtures. Top three benefits cited for taking care of business while taking care of business: 1) It saves time (53–56%); 2) It increases availability (25–29%); 3) The bathroom provides privacy (19–22%).

• In the same survey, American Standard asked respondents what annoyed them most about their toilets. Top four complaints: 1) More than one flush needed for the toilet to flush all the way; 2) Unattractive appearance; 3) You have to jiggle the handle to stop the water from running; and 4) Not a model that conserves water.