Milan's upset of Muncie Central 50 years ago wouldn't have been as special if it had come against another school, according to current Milan coach Randy Combs, one of the featured speaker's at Saturday's banquet commemorating the famous 1954 title game.
Over 300 people attended the $25-a-plate banquet. Central athletics director Tom Jarvis presented a paperweight with the engraving, "Milan-Muncie Central 1954-2004" to the players at the beginning of the function. The `54 players from both teams who attended -- 16 in all -- were individually introduced, and Cy Birge, one of the referees who called that game, was introduced to a standing ovation.
"I have to say the 1954 game is one of the greatest, if not the greatest Indiana basketball game ever," Birge said.
Speakers at the noon banquet included Milan hero Bobby Plump, who hit the game winning shot, and Muncie Central's Phil Raisor, who was a starting guard but did not play in the second half in that game.
"It's nice to see ya'll. Want to play it again?" Plump said to the `54 Bearcats with a laugh. "I don't!"
ESPN Classic's Gary Miller also spoke as a last-minute addition to the program, and a four-minute clip of the 1954 game was shown to conclude the banquet.
A reception where fans could meet and get autographs from the `54 players followed the banquet.
Milan has had a reunion every year since 1954, but none of the players seemed tired of talking about the game.
"If you get an A-plus in a class, you wouldn't get tired talking about it," Gene White, the starting center for Milan, said.
"(High school) is a nice time," Plump said. "You're discovering girls, the hormones are going, and you're playin' ball. Most people don't get a chance to talk about it. I get a chance every day."
Raisor, an English professor at Old Dominion University, believes the result of the game is why people are still interested. It reaffirmed an American myth, he said.
"We want a more democratic society -- a sense of any class, race, gender, has the opportunity to go in this world against the larger forces, whether it be corporate, political, whatever," he said.
It took many of the Milan players and Birge a while to realize the magnitude of the upset. The day after it, Milan's players returned home with an estimated 40,000 people waiting.
"When the game was over, we (he and the other referee) went to the dressing room and just thought it was another big upset. In 32 years of refereeing, you're going to have that," Birge said. "At the time, we didn't think it would mushroom into something like this."
The multi-class tournament system was occasionally mentioned throughout the afternoon. While the players generally disliked the system, their reasoning varied.
"You're doing this for more champions. There's always going to be more losers than winners," Raisor said.
"I think they put too much emphasis on winning -- an overemphasis on trophies," White said. "Sports are played for competition, and winning is one of the obvious results."
Birge said he couldn't resist ending his speech with a stab at the multi-class system.
"If Goliath killed David, the Bible would not have included that story," he said. "And if there had been class basketball back in 1954, we wouldn't be here today."
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