Hoosier Hysteria: 1954 state champion Milan team will celebrate 70th anniversary
One of Indiana’s most famous high school basketball teams will celebrate its 70th anniversary on March 23.
The legendary 1954 Milan state championship team will be honored with an anniversary celebration at the Milan High School gymnasium. The event will begin at 11 a.m. and admission is free and open to the public. The celebration will include remarks from dignitaries and feature a panel discussion with Milan players, which will be moderated by Greg Rakestraw of the ISC Sports Network.
Doyel: How much longer will we cherish the 1954 Milan Miracle?
Following the formal ceremony, Milan players and actors from the movie “Hoosiers” will sign autographs. Merchandise from the Milan ’54 Hoosiers Museum will be available for purchase. The museum will be open to the public from 8-10 a.m. and from 2-4 p.m., before and after the ceremony at the high school.
Milan’s 1954 state championship, which culminated with Bobby Plump’s game-winning last-second shot to give the small school underdogs a 32-30 victory over Muncie Central, was introduced to a new generation of basketball fans when the movie “Hoosiers” hit movie theaters in 1986.
The day after Milan became the smallest school in Indiana history to win the state championship, 40,000 people visited the community of 1,150 people for a celebration.
“When we won that championship, we didn’t realize what we’d done,” Glen Butte said in 2014, 60 years after he and his teammates won the title. “And I’m still not sure we do.”
Butte died in 2020 at 81. He said in 2014 of Plump’s shot: “We’d seen him make that shot thousands of times behind Schroder’s barn in Pierceville. It was basically the same shot.”
Those planning to attend the event are asked to RSVP at the following link: https://forms.gle/WQGtzm2jMnfWCB9D7
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 1954 Milan Miracle team to be honored with 70th anniversary celebration
