When Rick Jones arrived at Central, there was an established path to the varsity team. Freshmen were kept away from the varsity squad, with a few rare exceptions. Sophomores made their way to the ‘B’ team. When players became juniors, they were brought up to the varsity squad.
With that promotion came all of the lofty expectations of being a varsity player for Central. The Bearcats had already won four state championships by the time Jones arrived. Tickets weren’t available at the door for Central games, with season-ticket holders filling up Muncie Fieldhouse. Those called up to the varsity, like Jones, were expected to maintain the tradition that put all those people in the seats.
“It was your time when you got to be a junior,” Jones said. “And that’s when you had to produce, and either you did or you didn’t. If you had it, it showed. And if you didn’t, then it showed as well. But I didn’t really realize how good we could be until my junior year.”
Jones helped deliver a fifth state title in his senior year, winning Mr. Basketball in 1963 as Central won its first state title since 1952. He is an Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame inductee who went on to play at Miami (Florida).
Muncie Fieldhouse has long been a gathering place
When Ben Botts saw his own role increase as a junior at Central, more than 40 years after Jones’ playing days, he felt similar expectations. The Bearcats had been the state runner-up during his sophomore season in 2004-05, but with a team built heavily on seniors. When Botts and his teammates jumped in to fill those spots, there was no mincing words about goals. Even though they were an unproven bunch, they wanted to go to state as well.
“From the time you’re little and you get a chance to go to those games at (Muncie Fieldhouse), there’s just that passion and that belief to challenge for a state title,” Botts said. “We didn’t quite get there, but we always kind of looked up to people that were above us and then when it was our turn, we didn’t want to let other people down, we wanted to kind of continue that.”
Former Central player and Mr. Basketball Rick Jones talks before Friday’s final regular-season boys basketball game between Muncie Central and Southside in the Muncie Fieldhouse.
As Muncie celebrates its 150th anniversary as a city, high school basketball plays an important role in its first century-and-a-half. The Bearcats, led by Jones, Botts and so many other players throughout the years, take up several pages in those history books. After Jones guided them to a fifth state title, three more championships followed over the years, the eighth and most recent in 1988.
And Central hasn’t been the only school to bring a championship to the city. Southside captured a Class 3A title in 2001, setting Muncie’s total at nine state championships. And Jones is one of four players from Muncie to win Mr. Basketball honors. Bud Brown (Burris, 1942); Tom Harold (Central, 1951) and Ron Bonham (Central, 1960) also accomplished that feat.
Volleyball the backbone of high school championships in Muncie
Botts and his teammates came just one game away from winning a state championship in his junior year. Central was the Class 4A state runner-up in the 2005-06 season, matching the accomplishments of its squad from the year before. For the second year in a row, the opponent was Lawrence North, with future NBA No. 1 pick Greg Oden and fellow future NBA player Mike Conley.
“I’ll never forget starting the season, one of our team leaders during that time, Ben Botts, had a little goal sheet that he had come up with,” then-Central coach Matt Fine said. “And I remember somewhere on that it was going back to the State. And at that time, I probably thought, ‘Well, this guy’s crazy.’ But you want your kids to believe that way, and believe in that. And that group did a great job with that.”
List of state champs from city schools
Fine spent 15 years at Central, first as an assistant coach before taking over as the head coach. He now coaches Winchester, his alma mater, where he recently completed his first season.
He remembers how the 2004-05 Central team seemed to particularly capture the attention of Muncie fans, bringing large crowds reminiscent of decades earlier for its postseason games, as the faithful followed the team to Richmond, Marion and Lafayette before making the trip to Indianapolis for the state title game.
“You could sense the excitement the further we went, to have a chance to bring home the ninth state championship to Muncie,” Fine said. “People were craving it. It was a really fun time. And the town kind of just rallied behind us. I remember a few pep rallies we had throughout the tournament in (Muncie Fieldhouse) and we had a great crowd for those as well.”
In 2001, Southside got to experience of the joy of the community support that follows a state basketball championship, returning home from Indianapolis to find plenty of supporters waiting at the school.
“That gym was just, it was rocking,” then-Southside coach Rick Baumgartner said. “There were all kinds of people in that gym. There was a tremendous sense of pride.”
Chandler Thompson was a standout player on the 1988 Central state title team, and he has a special perspective on just how much his team’s championship meant to the Muncie community.
Growing up in a basketball-crazed household in Muncie, he got to experience the joy of the 1978 and 1979 Central championships as a young fan. He got to pass that joy on when he reached the high school level and won a title as a player in 1988.
“For me, to repeat what those teams did, I knew how much it was going to be for the city at the time,” Thompson said. “Because it was a big thing for me, as a little kid, watching Steve Avila, Ray McCallum, Troy Bridges, Jack Moore, (Jerry Shoecraft), those guys, what they went out there and did. Ricky Leavell, those guys I watched growing up. And to win the state championship as a player, it just meant a big thing to us.”
Contact prep sports reporter Sam Wilson at (765) 213-5807. Follow him on Twitter @SamWilsonTSP.