It all began with a trip to Maryland. It was the summer of 1974, and the Northside volleyball team wanted to win a state championship in the fall. The Titans featured a highly-competitive group of multi-sport athletes, young women taking advantage of the recent boon in athletic opportunities for girls.
Steve Shondell, then a Ball State student playing on the men’s volleyball team, had coached some of those girls in softball. His father, then-Ball State men’s volleyball coach Don Shondell, told him about an inaugural AAU national tournament. Steve Shondell, a Northside graduate, decided to take the Titans.
So he and Debbie Millbern Powers, Northside’s coach, took the team to the tournament in Maryland. Two seeds were planted that week.
Burris volleyball coach Steve Shondell.Greg Fallon / The Star Press
Northside won the state championship in 1974, the fall immediately following the trip, the first of two consecutive and three in four years. IHSAA-sanctioned girls sports were in their infancy, and the title was the first state team title for a Muncie girls team in any sport.
The Titans’ trip to Maryland was also the birth of the Munciana club, which has grown from one team of high-schoolers into a large operation with multiple teams of various ages, complete with its own facility in Yorktown. Instead of one particular high school team traveling to chase its dreams, girls from high schools in all directions make the trip to play for Munciana. Steve Shondell said Munciana is the only surviving club from that original AAU tournament.
Muncie has experienced success on the state level in a variety of high-school sports in its 150 years of existence as a city. Its four current and past high schools have combined for more than 40 state championships in five different sports. Athletes from Muncie have also claimed individual titles on the wrestling mat, the track and cross country course and in the swimming pool.
List of state champs from city schools
But volleyball leads the charge, with 31 of the team crowns. And it all began with the 1974 Northside volleyball team and its desire to get better in the offseason.
“A couple years later, girls from other schools began to join the Munciana program,” Steve Shondell said. “And then we had different age divisions. So, yeah, I think that the success that those teams had just really opened up the eyes that club volleyball was a thing to do.”
When Northside won its second volleyball state championship in 1975, it defeated a South Bend Clay squad that included two boys. Boys were allowed to compete against girls in girls sports at the time, a practice that is no longer allowed.
Muncie Fieldhouse has long been a gathering place
Powers believes the ‘David vs. Goliath’ accomplishment of an all-girls Northside team defeating a squad that included boys only added to the mystique of the championship, possibly helping encourage other girls to get involved in volleyball and sports in general. She equates the match to a female version of the movie ‘Hoosiers.’
“Most likely, I think it probably gave girls some confidence,” Powers said. “I think any time you see a David vs. Goliath, it’s empowering. Whether it be boys, girls, monkeys. That’s kind of the story people like is David vs. Goliath and David wins. And so, I’m sure. I’m sure the young girls in the town, the junior high girls, elementary girls were very excited about that.”
Banners hang in the Muncie Fieldhouse. Central will be downgraded from class 4A to class 3A due to downturn in enrollment.
Volleyball has taken such a hold in Muncie that the state finals have been held annually at Worthen Arena since 2007. Burris won another state championship that year, the first one the Owls claimed in their own city (they have since won three more in Worthen Arena). Central has also experienced the joy of winning a state championship in its home city, accomplishing the feat in 2009.
Muncie’s state team championships in other sports are spread around. Some reflect a particular school’s dominance in a certain sport in a certain era. Central turned in three boys cross country titles in a span of just more than a decade, winning in the falls of 1956, 1958 and 1967.
Others reflect the city’s golden years of a particular sport. Northside won a state wrestling championship in 1974, only to have crosstown rival Southside win the state title the following year. Southside then won another title in 1990, and Central had its own period of prominence in wrestling, winning a state title in 1932 after runner-up finishes each of the prior years.
There are, of course, the eight boys basketball state titles for Central, and one for Southside, too (an entire story exists in this commemorative section about basketball).
And there are occasions, like the 1943 Burris boys track team, a school won a state championship, only for its school and city to never win a team championship in that sport again.
Sweet 16, 2008 highlight Ball State sports history
That wasn’t the case in volleyball. Northside won another state volleyball title in 1977, though by that time Denise VanDeWalle had taken over the Titan team.
Powers became the women’s basketball coach at Ball State following her tenure at Northside. She retired from the university after a long tenure there as a professor. Her daughter played volleyball at Central, and she kept a close eye on the volleyball scene she played such an integral role in getting off the ground.
“I liked to dream it was going to come eventually,” Powers said.
Steve Shondell has been more actively involved in the city’s volleyball history since the pair’s trip to Maryland. He eventually took over at Burris, winning 21 state championships for the Owls. His successor, Thanh Harnish coached Burris to its 22nd crown. Steve Shondell left the Owls to take over as the women’s volleyball coach at Ball State, a post he still holds.
The state volleyball championship matches are just a short walk from his office, but Steve Shondell usually can’t attend. The Cardinals typically have a road match that weekend, so that’s where his priorities go. But one year, the schedule aligned such that he was able to attend the matches, catching a glimpse of the current state of the volleyball culture he worked so hard to build. Since the event moved to Worthen Arena, at least one team from Delaware County has played in the event in every year except for one.
“A lot of great memories coaching in the state finals,” he said. “And just watching (them) being played here at Ball State is really a special feeling as well. But yeah, they always bring back a lot of great memories, and hopefully memories that will stay with me forever.”
Contact prep sports reporter Sam Wilson at (765) 213-5807. Follow him on Twitter @SamWilsonTSP.