I remember reading an article on the history of The IHSAA Tournament, and how magical it used to be when there was one class. I still find it to be somewhat magical with the classes, but there was just something special about a tournament that included every team from Indiana back in the day.
In the article, they interviewed Jimmy (Hoosiers) from Milan. I wish I had a link to put on here or remember what the article's title was, but he stated that he remembered filling out his picks with his father (much like we do for March Madness this time of year) back in the 40s / 50s when there were over 500-600 schools in the state tournament. I'm not sure if this was an elaboration or if there really were that many schools in those days, but I plan to find out.
I made a Tournament Bracket template in Excel and started filling in the results for 1984. I was in fourth grade and Warsaw (where I'm from) won the State Title that year, setting off my own personal Hoosier Hysteria and my nerdy-love of all things tournaments/leagues/brackets/stats/etc...
I've searched through a lot of websites and haven't found anyone that has the tournaments documented via brackets. I've used John Harrell's site to "reverse engineer" the results and enter the data into the brackets I'm currently working on. If this exists, somebody let me know, ha ha, it'll save me a lot of time, otherwise, I've initiated the project of completing each year's tournament bracket. And, if you're somewhat knowledgable in Excel, I could use some help! Kind of a lofty goal to undertake myself, but I know there are other Hoosier Hysteria (and Bracket) Nerds, as well as former players, coaches, and fans out there that would love to take a look at the tournament bracket from the year(s) there team won the State Finals...
In the article, they interviewed Jimmy (Hoosiers) from Milan. I wish I had a link to put on here or remember what the article's title was, but he stated that he remembered filling out his picks with his father (much like we do for March Madness this time of year) back in the 40s / 50s when there were over 500-600 schools in the state tournament. I'm not sure if this was an elaboration or if there really were that many schools in those days, but I plan to find out.
I made a Tournament Bracket template in Excel and started filling in the results for 1984. I was in fourth grade and Warsaw (where I'm from) won the State Title that year, setting off my own personal Hoosier Hysteria and my nerdy-love of all things tournaments/leagues/brackets/stats/etc...
I've searched through a lot of websites and haven't found anyone that has the tournaments documented via brackets. I've used John Harrell's site to "reverse engineer" the results and enter the data into the brackets I'm currently working on. If this exists, somebody let me know, ha ha, it'll save me a lot of time, otherwise, I've initiated the project of completing each year's tournament bracket. And, if you're somewhat knowledgable in Excel, I could use some help! Kind of a lofty goal to undertake myself, but I know there are other Hoosier Hysteria (and Bracket) Nerds, as well as former players, coaches, and fans out there that would love to take a look at the tournament bracket from the year(s) there team won the State Finals...
