Loogootee Recalls 40th Anniversary of Great Season
LOOGOOTEE, Ind. -- Loogootee Lions recall their historic run to the 1975 State Championship game as the 40th anniversary nears.
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"Of course countless others watched or listened
around the state cheering unquestionably for Little Loogootee and their unique brand of basketball that had taken men of smaller stature and talent, and made them so equal to the competition that it was hard to really tell who was David and who was Goliath. That equality is what is known as Butcher Ball."
-Larry D. Hembree
"Forty years ago the well-coached and disciplined team of the 1974-75 Loogootee Lions took the state basketball aficionados and fans by storm, as they tore through the IHSAA State Tournament with a shot at basketball history not seen since the Milan Indians' pinnacle of 1954. The Lions' prowess as a basketball school, under the leadership of their hometown Coach Jack Butcher, had been well established prior to 1975 in the southwestern part of the state, especially since their State Finals appearance in 1970.
However, it was the manner in which the 1974-75 Lions mastered the tournament that season that won the hearts and minds of Hoosiers all across the State of Indiana and became undoubtedly the people's choice to win the state's highest honor."
