By Dave Krider
MaxPreps.com
Tom McKinney fell in love with Indiana high school basketball as a youngster growing up in Columbus, Ind., and he has been collecting memorabilia ever since. Four years ago he turned his life-long hobby into one of the most unique college courses in the nation and one of the most popular ones at Indiana University.
McKinney told MaxPreps, “In high school I went to the state tourney every year, collected programs and studied it (basketball), going to game after game.”
Twenty-five years ago, McKinney, now age 60, began planning for his retirement as a very successful high school basketball coach. The result: in 2004 he started teaching “The History of Indiana High School Basketball,” an elective worth three credit hours, on the Bloomington campus.
Started as an experiment, the course was an instant hit. It reached the capacity of 40 students the first semester, causing IU officials to immediately extend it to a second semester. Students register on-line, so no figures are available, but it is believed many more would take the course should the capacity be expanded. In fact, it now is a requirement for a coaching minor.
“I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was a popular course right away,” McKinney related. “The majority of the kids are from the state of Indiana and it’s a fun course. The kids all have to fill out evaluations and I change the course a little each year. They want to hear some basketball stories instead of just lecture, lecture.”
And no one is more qualified to teach the course. McKinney was inspired by his father, Jim, who played on Columbus’ 1938 state-finalist team. He began playing basketball at age six and was a member of Columbus’ 1964 state finalist. He started at guard for two years under future Indiana Hall of Fame coach Bill Stearman, who prepared him for his coaching career by telling him, “You better have alligator skin.”
After graduating from Indiana University in 1970, McKinney coached under two more future Indiana Hall of Famers – Pat Rady at Winchester and Shelbyville and Dick Harmening at Franklin – before becoming head coach at Franklin in 1979. As a Franklin assistant he helped two teams (led by Trester Award winners Jon and Don McGlocklin) reach the state finals.
He calls Rady “the best motivator I’ve ever been around. He understood that each kid had a different personality and knew what button to push. Without a doubt Dick (Harmening was the best X and O coach I’ve ever been around.”
As a head coach, McKinney compiled a 415-168 record in 25 years (eight years at Franklin and 17 at Bloomington North). In 1997 – with his son David starting at point guard – he coached North (28-1) to the state championship in Indiana’s final year of a one-class tourney. His 2000 team (25-1) was state runner-up to Marion.
It all added up to McKinney’s own induction into the Indiana Hall of Fame in 2006. That was the same year Bloomington North named its basketball floor “Tom McKinney Court.”
He coached Indiana University legend Bobby Knight’s son, Pat, and successor Mike Davis’ son, Mike Jr. He also coached future NBA players Sean May and Jared Jeffries, along with five other Indiana All-Stars. That enabled him to rub elbows with the likes of Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo and Mike Krzyzewski. He watched film occasionally with coach Knight.
That’s why when a student asks him, for example, “Was Damon Bailey really that good?” he can answer from first-hand knowledge. “I’m glad you asked the question,” he replied. “This tells me today where you are (Bailey graduated from high school 18 years ago). He was one of the five best I ever saw.”
McKinney stressed, “When you teach any class, don’t ever assume anything.”
When the students find out he had been a high school coach (he never tells them at the beginning of the course), one asks, “Did you ever get a technical foul?” He replied diplomatically, “There is the person who coaches and there is the person.”
McKinney began collecting Hoosier basketball souvenirs with the state-finals program in 1947. He has one from every year since. He actually picked up one from 1926 since he started teaching his college course. “People hear about the course and give me things,” he pointed out proudly.
His older brother, Jim, has all the Indiana-Kentucky All-Star Game programs since 1955 and each class gets to take a look at them, too.
“When I bring those (old game programs) out to the kids and show them, they say, ‘What the heck is that?’ ’’ he laughed. But the bottom line is they are fascinated by these relics from Indiana’s basketball-crazed past.
Tom and his wife, Judy, also a retired teacher-coach, travel around the state and take pictures (inside and outside) of gyms in towns of former state champions. They put all the pictures on a disc and show them to the class.
(After Tom had played his last high school game, he told Judy – his girlfriend at the time – “I am going to coach and win a state championship. I want you to be along for the ride.” And what a ride it has been!)
The retired coach annually says to his young students, “Michael Jordan was good, but I’m going to tell you who the best player I ever saw was.” He then pulls out a picture of the Indianapolis Attucks team which won the state title in 1955 and 1956 and points to the great Oscar Robertson, explaining that he is the only player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season.
“Kids love to hear those stories,” he says with satisfaction.
Besides photos and videos, he has been known to display – for comparison – a pair of tennis shoes and a piece of a basketball net from state finals in 1938 and in 1997.
He takes his students to IU’s Assembly Hall each semester and gives them a full tour, including the locker rooms. He also has state-tourney rings from different eras. He doesn’t teach Indiana college history, but he does require that all students know which players on IU’s men’s and women’s basketball team are native Hoosiers.
One day last fall, McKinney surprised his students by pointing out that one of their own – Plymouth’s Jason Renz – won the coveted Trester Award for mental attitude the previous year.
Special speakers come from all walks of life. For example, current IU assistant coaches Dan Dakich and Ray McCallum have taken their turns. McCallum, in fact, was able to relive the thrills of winning state championships in 1978 and 1979 at Muncie Central.
David Pillar discussed Hoosier Hysteria from a different standpoint – that of a referee. An assistant principal and athletic director at Bloomington’s Jackson Creek Junior High, Pillar was a student manager at IU and currently keeps the official scorebook at all home games. He discussed rules and offered students an opportunity to take a course he teaches to certify aspiring referees.
One of the very next speakers will be Joe Smith, a longtime Bloomington radio announcer who does IU and high school games and is a member of the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame.
Still on McKinney’s wish list is current IU freshman sensation Eric Gordon. He hopes to bring him in at the end of the current season.
“One thing they enjoy the most,” McKinney noted, “is writing about their own schools. They will mention team championships, players who were Mr. Basketball or won the Trester Award and coaches from their schools who were famous.”
McKinney gives four tests which total 60 percent of a student’s final grade. Projects count 20 percent, while class presentations and attendance each count 10 percent. “Nobody has flunked,” he conceded. “Most everybody gets an A or B. I’ve had a couple C’s.”
He doesn’t sound like anybody who’s going to retire soon. “There’s so much more material,” he says enthusiastically. “I want to add another course (which would give him two courses per semester).”
Lest anyone think girls are excluded, it should be pointed out that female attendance has risen from one the first semester to a current average of six to seven per class.
In fact, a persuasive girl broke McKinney’s rule last fall when she became the 41st member of his class.
Natalie Platt pleaded, “I know your class is full, but I am a big fan.” Then she threw in the clincher: “My grandpa (Hall of Famer Joe Platt from Kokomo) won the state championship.”
Forever a “softie” for people who have helped form Indiana high school basketball history, McKinney quickly replied, “You’re in.”
