Georgia Tech legend Roger Kaiser was there for the most famous game ever played at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis – the 1954 Indiana state high-school championship game won by tiny Milan High, the game that provided the inspiration for the movie “Hoosiers.”
Kaiser was there for that game, and he and his wife, Beverly, were planning to be at Friday’s NCAA Tournament game between his beloved Yellow Jackets and Loyola Chicago.
“It’s just kind of ironic that I have history there, and I have great feelings about the place,” Kaiser told the AJC.
Kaiser was a freshman at Dale (Ind.) High when his coach took him and his friend and teammate Bob Reinhart, who went on to play for Indiana and serve as basketball coach at Decatur High and as an assistant coach for the Hawks and also to lead Georgia State to its first-ever NCAA appearance, among many other accomplishments.
“That place was packed,” he said. “And it was much bigger than our gym.”
The game is noteworthy because Indiana played a single-classification tournament, as it did until 1997. Milan, with 161 students, became the smallest school to win the tournament and became a part of the lore of Indiana basketball as the “Milan Miracle.”
In his mind’s eye, he can still see Milan aligning four players on the left side of the floor to allow star Bobby Plump to isolate and hit the game-winning jump shot. Plump and Kaiser later became friends through both being members of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
“I can remember that like it was last month,” said Kaiser, 82.
While Hinkle, the home of Butler’s team, is revered as a basketball shrine, Kaiser wasn’t necessarily enamored with the building.
“I wasn’t that impressed,” Kaiser said. “It was like a big old building to me. The floor didn’t look as good as ours.”
Kaiser knows well the passion for basketball in Indiana. As he recalled, his town had about 800 residents, “and our gym had 2,500,” he said. “It was a sellout. To get season tickets, your name had to be drawn (out of a lottery).”
Kaiser had the fortune of playing in the big old building as a member of the Indiana high-school all-star team that has annually played Kentucky in what is arguably the most famed such series in high-school sports, certainly for basketball.
“Everybody wanted to go to play in that fieldhouse because that meant you were in the all-star game and you would play against Kentucky,” Kaiser said. “It was still an honor, even though we didn’t win.”
It was during practices for the event that he actually met the man for whom Hinkle Fieldhouse was later named, longtime Butler coach and athletic director Tony Hinkle.
Or, at least, “I think I remember meeting him,” Kaiser said.
While participating in the game, Kaiser learned another detail about the building besides its appearance.
“That gym was not air-conditioned,” he said. “In Indiana in June, it is very, very hot. But now, of course, it’s big-time. It’s nice now.”
Tech guard Jose Alvarado saw it as a treat to play in Hinkle, opened in 1928. Among other things, the final game in “Hoosiers” (which Alvarado has seen) was shot there.
“It’s a great opportunity, stepping into a gym that’s historic,” he said. “It’s just so much fun. It’s not (just) a regular gym, so that makes it even more special to me to just go out there and try to play my hardest and try to get a win in that building.”
At Tech, Kaiser became the team’s first All-American and led the Yellow Jackets to their first NCAA appearance, in 1960. He left Tech as the school record holder for points, scoring average, field goals made, free throws made and free throws attempted. He still holds the career record for free-throw percentage (85.8%). He is one of only six former players to have his jersey retired.
He enjoyed a highly successful coaching career, winning four NAIA national titles at West Georgia and Life University. Last May, he was inducted into the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame. He and Beverly, married for 60 years, are retired and living in Carrollton.
He and Beverly avidly follow the Jackets and accompanied the team in the summer of 2019 on its tour of Spain. He is unsurprisingly happy with the team’s success, including its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2010.
“I’m just so proud and happy for Josh (Pastner), too,” Kaiser said. “Anybody that loves the game like he does deserves it. He is a basketball person.”
Kaiser is particularly drawn to watching forward Jordan Usher, whom Kaiser said “blows my mind.” He was floored by a particular dunk of Usher’s in traffic in the ACC title-game win against Florida State.
“The others of them, you appreciate, but this guy, you never know what he’s going to do,” Kaiser said. “But he’s a pleasure.”
Should Usher follow Plump and win Friday’s game with a pull-up jump shot from the right side, Kaiser will probably remember that for a while, too.
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