When former high school basketball players from the 1960s and 1970s get together and discuss that era of play, several themes often emerge. Close games, a victory over a much better team or an upset defeat by a lesser team, last second shots, games played against future basketball greats. Or it could be a simpler thing, a perfectly blocked shot, an awesome rebound, or a quick surprising pass that leads to a basket at a key moment in the game.
There was no three point line then, and the game seemed purer.
Of all of these situations, perhaps the most exciting, the act that is remembered best and discussed over time, was the making of “the big play,” an action that changed the course of an important high school basketball contest.
Recently, while researching for something else, of course, I came across one of these iconic stories. It occurred in the 1969-1970 high school basketball season in southern Indiana. The Blue Chip Conference was just two years old then and made up of eight small-town teams that played in the state’s single-class system. Despite their newness, this conference of small schools was loaded that season with great teams- South Knox, Loogootee, Springs Valley, Mitchell, and Bloomfield.
Four of these squads would win sectional championships and advance to regional play, and tiny Loogootee would go all the way to the state finals. Interestingly, however, the Loogootee regular season losses that year, three, were to Blue Chip foes.
And one of those games produced an unexpected hero and a game changing moment, the play of the game.
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Springs Valley looked to be solid that year. They had won the Huntingburg sectional in 1969 but had just been moved from the Huntingburg sectional to the Paoli sectional the next year. Coach Jones believed, however, that his teams would reign over the other Paoli sectional teams, noting to one sports reporter, “We should be the favorite or co-favorite every year.”
There was much cause for this hope. The Blackhawks would have several veterans back for 1969-1970, including several strong seniors- Greg Charnes, Bob Lane, Rex Willoughby, and Charles Young, among others. Among the better juniors was Mark Bird, one of Larry Bird’s older brothers. Senior Mike Bird, the oldest Bird brother, did not start but got into many games.
Another less noticed senior was 5-6 Eddie Land. He weighed all of 126 pounds but was scrappy as hell, having been his team’s leading tackler in football that year.
When Loogootee came to French Lick to battle Springs Valley in late January of 1970, the Lions were led by a tall senior named Jim Trout and a scrappy sophomore guard, Brain Canada. Trout would lead both squads in scoring that night with 30 points and Canada would add 18, hitting over 50 percent from the field.
But the main force when it came to creating wins for Loogootee was the school’s coach, legendary Jack Butcher. He would eventually become the winningest basketball coach in the state, a record he would hold for many years.
As it turned out, the pivotal basket in the Springs Valley/Loogootee contest came from a player who ended up with only four points. His name was Eddie Land, and he had been put into the game early in the third period when Mike Bird got his fourth foul trying to guard big Jim Trout.
Eddie pulled off his bench jacket and scooted to the scoring table. When he finally got into the game, the Loogootee fans were going wild. They were a single point down and had possession of the ball. Everyone in the gym could feel the game turning Loogootee’s way.
Almost everyone in the packed gym were standing.
Louisville Courier-Journal sports reporter, Russ Brown captured the story in his write-up the next day. He told of Jack Butcher nervously pulling off his tie “early in the second half.” Then Butcher began pacing and unbuttoning the collar of his white dress shirt. “Next came the gold blazer about midway through the third quarter, and Butcher paced some more. That was the kind of game it was here last night in an important Blue Chip Conference game before a near capacity crowd of about 2,500 at Valley’s sweltering gymnasium.”
Then Brown captured in narrative the turning point in the basketball struggle under the sub-headline- My Land!
Playing what coach Jim Jones later called “our best game of the season,” Springs Vally never trailed in the second half, yet couldn’t quite shake the visitors. In fact, Loogootee was within a single point, 56-57, with two and a half minutes left when Valley’s plucky little reserve guard, Eddie Land, turned in the play that just may have been the most important one of the well-played game. Land, who carries 126 pounds on his 5-foot-6 frame, stole the ball and raced the length of the floor to score on a lay-up, his only basket of the game. He landed in the bleachers in the process but jumped up and sank a free throw. “That was the deciding factor,” said Jones of Land’s three-point play.
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There would be a bitter irony that season for the Springs Valley team and for Jim Jones. Although they beat Loogootee and ended up winning the tough Blue Chip Conference, they would lose to Paoli in the sectional. Loogootee, meanwhile, hurdled their way to the finals of state tournament play, a dream come true for any Hoosier high school basketball team.
Eddie Land was perhaps the only Valley team member with a joyful memory of that year, the sudden slapping away of the ball, his mad speeding down court and rising toward the basket, carefully flipping the ball to that sweet spot on the backboard as a rude hand pushes him hard out of bounds, all this in a manner of seconds, although it felt like an eternity.
