Enjoying the game

Photo by Patrick Jones. Two for two on free throws. 16 Feb 2019.

The youth basketball season is coming to a close for our son. Saturday will mark the end of the season, with a chance to even their record. It has been fun to watch the scrappy group. Our #5 in the photo above has played pretty well, often serving as the ball handler up the floor and is showing signs of being quick to attack the basket on a breakaway.

I'd like to think he inherited this skill from me, or more likely from his Uncle Brian and my great-grandfather Edgar Lawrence Jones. Edgar was part of the Indiana State Champion Thorntown basketball team in 1915. I have covered this before on the blog, but looking back at my earlier postings reminds me to remind our son of this heritage when he is older.

My great-grandfather was not a starter, and he likely played the role of pressuring the starters in practice more often than helping Thorntown win games against other schools. Their team came from a town with only 1600 people and 120 boys in the school. Thorntown won their title after bouncing back from a slow 2-3 start. Along the way to the State Championship they had to beat several teams that had taken them down earlier in the year. One of those schools, Rochester, had beaten Thorntown in January 1915 by a score of 40-26. The next game the coach used mostly subs, and Thorntown won 42-16. I'd like to think Edgar had a hand in that victory. They later got revenge on Rochester, winning a close contest 17-14 in the second round of the State Tournament. Thorntown won the championship on the court at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Muncie Star-Press, 14 Mar 1915.

Brazil Daily Times, 16 Mar 1915.

The championship victory meant quite a lot in the town, as one can see from the clipping above. Stores, banks, the public library and schools were closed on the afternoon of 15 March 1915 in celebration. This was also Edgar's 19th birthday.