Museum Corner April 2022
1919-1920— Just 29 years after the game of basketball was created, Bedford High School (BHS) made it to the state finals but lost to Franklin’s “Wonder Five” (31-13). Team members and coach: Front row l to r., Stanley Crowe, Otis Wibel, Charles Emery and John Gainey. Back row: Harold Laughlin (Gimbel mental attitude award winner 1920), Barney Crowe, Coach Merle Abbett and Dave Jackson.
Early basketball was rough and tumble
By Becky Buher
(Printed in the Times-Mail newspaper on April 2022)
The 2022 March Madness games with rules and unbiased referees have been completed this year, but the game of basketball has been around for 131 years, and we sort of forget what the game was like in its beginning.
Most of us know that basketball was created in America in 1891 when Dr. James A. Naismith, a YMCA instructor in Springfield, Mass., nailed a couple of peach baskets on opposite ends of a gymnasium balcony.
According to an article in the 1975 Sesquicentennial edition of the local newspaper, here’s what basketball was like in Bedford in 1904 when the game itself was about ten years old:
“The action was rough-and-tumble and brawn was 90 per cent of the game.
According to reports handed down, the brawny lads of the freshman and sophomore classes of Bedford High School [BHS] in 1904 had a football team, but the members were interested in the new game of basketball.
“One day they were practicing on the school grounds when they saw a youth with a big ‘I’ ornamenting the front of his sweater. They first thought the youth was a ‘spy’ sent to scout their practice as they were practicing for a [football] game with Salem.
“So Ralph McCurdy, team captain, was sent over to ask a few questions.
“It turned out that the youth was Albert J. Fields who was just out of Indiana [University’s] law school and had a new office in Bedford. He had won his letter [‘I’] at Indiana University and ‘knew’ basketball.”
The first BHS basketball team was recruited from these football players and Albert J. Fields, the new attorney became the first coach.
The story continued, “Records show that the roster of the first Bedford team included: Bina Boyd and James Culhan, forwards; Ralph McCurdy, center; John McCormick and Earl Richards, guards; Joe Burnham, Mike Murphy, Alfred Rowe, Lou Cosner and Joe Trainer, substitutes or reserves.
“Allis Lowder was named trainer and Robert Newland, student manager. William Henry Dobbins and his pup became team mascots.
“Since play called for more muscle than ability, the uniforms were made for protection—heavily padded pants, heavy wool jerseys, leather knee pads, elbow pads and even nose protectors. It was mentioned at the time that even helmets would have helped.
“Mr. Fields was coach for three and one-half years and Bedford was finally declared champion of the Southern Indiana Association.”
Mr. Fields once said: “A team did everything short of murder to win. They could call all the fouls they wanted to for a player never fouled out. It was customary for the visiting coach to referee the game.”
The schedule included Mitchell, Orleans, Shoals, Salem, and New Albany. Coach Fields said that Bloomington refused to play Bedford in basketball during those years.
Games were played in existing buildings. In Orleans, the basketball floor was a 25 x 50 ft. storeroom with a 10-ft. ceiling. Mitchell games were played in a large vacant room over a drug store. Shoals played in an abandoned church.
Bedford’s 1904 team played at Wilson Hall on an upper floor of Wilson’s Department Store—a large area where Agricultural Fairs, dances and other events were also held. The building was first erected in 1860 and served then as the Town Hall. The building changed drastically in 1922-23 when a fourth story was added to the existing building, the exterior clad with limestone, and it became the Stone City Bank building. Most recently it was German-American Bank building. This historic building and the spirit of long-past basketball games is currently empty and for sale.
According to the 1975 story, “The longest string of consecutive victories ever turned in by a Hoosier high school was started by a Bedford team during the 1904-05 season back in the days when the sport was definitely a ‘knock ‘em down’ game. The team was unbeaten during the season and the streak continued for three and one-half years.”
It was said that local teams in the 1904-1907 era could likely have earned state championship titles, but organization for state tourneys did not yet exist.
In more recent history Lawrence County’s Bedford North Lawrence (BNL) basketball teams have been very successful. The BNL men’s basketball team won the state championship in 1990.
The BNL Lady Stars won state titles in 1983, 1991, 2013 and 2014.
Source: The headline and many of the facts and quotes in this story are based on an article by Al Brewster, written May 15, 1975, Daily Times-Mail, Bedford, Indiana, Page 10.