FRANKLIN, Ind. – Hoosiers love a good Indiana high school basketball story, and this tale from Johnson County deserves not to be forgotten. A mass, school-day, student walk-out, a homemade casket, a power outage, and a King Arthur Trestor IHSAA team suspension. This 1918 tale had it all...

County seat and early basketball power Franklin had just made its way through a tough 1918 Sectional title only to be disqualified from the next stage of the tourney. ..But not to get ahead of the glorious details..

Shelbyville flew high into 1918 Sectional fresh-off a lopsided win over highly touted Manual Training of Indianapolis. Franklin faithful lay claim to favored status for no less than two victories over Shelby that year, and tiny Hopewell High School was enjoying a flat-out terrific season. The highlight of which included a rare regular season drubbing of that very same county seat and early basketball power, Franklin.

Other teams that cast their lot in the Franklin Sectional that year included Boggstown, Mt. Auburn, Waldron, Trafalgar, Union Township, Whiteland, Nineveh, Morristown, Fairland, and Edinburg.

Early contests were heated, but went fairly according to the dope buckets. Hopewell routed Boggstown, 33-10, Waldron made easy work of Mt. Auburn, 26-9, and Union had little trouble with Trafalgar, downing them, 27-15.

Second round and/or bye games were similarly without drama. Hopewell dispatched Edinburgh, 43-12, Morristown eliminated Nineveh, 24-16, Shelby drubbed Whiteland, 33-8, and Franklin walloped Fairland, 44-18.

In the semi-finals Franklin made it three in a row over Shelbyville for the season having little trouble downing the Bears, 38-17. Meanwhile favorite Hopewell also advanced with a rather pedestrian win over Morristown.

This set-up a rematch for the title game, and the standing-room Sectional crowd of over 1300 was finally going to see the close game they were hoping for. The Franklin Democrat newspaper declared it the largest crowd to ever watch a basketball game in the College Gym. Franklin came out swinging and grabbed a hard fought, 11-8 halftime lead. However, the favorite Hopewell Tigers stormed back in the first ten minutes of the second half to take a 15-14 advantage.

At this, Franklin called a timeout, and things got weird. The lights went out in the Franklin College Gym and would remain so for over 40 minutes. A rare windstorm with gusts reaching a reported 40-50 mph had toppled a large brick smokestack and, in the process, took out power to the gym.

Players from both squads left the floor and had even dressed back into street clothes. The game official had no sooner announced to the crowd that the game would be postponed, then the power was restored.

The Franklin squad seemed re-energized by the long intermission and ran off a string of buckets to put the championship out of reach. Hopewell would toss in a couple near the end to make it seem a bit closer, but the damage was done. Franklin had claimed the prize, 25-18.

The Franklin Evening Star described the final seconds and gun as pandemonium among the Franklin students and fans. The paper went on to mention, “Hopewell played a wonderful game, and scores of persons in the crowd declared that Hopewell would have won had there been no interruption.”

Salt in the wound no doubt, but things became even worse for the blue and gold of Hopewell.

The following Monday, just twenty minutes into the school day, Franklin students declared a holiday and walked-out in mass. Their parade through the streets of Franklin was contrary to a very direct order to return to school by Principal Williams. Upon growing weary of their local avenues, the student mob then made the fateful decision to march the three miles west to recently defeated Hopewell High School.

This would turnout to be their undoing.

In addition to their “venting of joy,” it would appear by reported accounts some of the cheers should’ve been “eliminated by common sense.” Newspaper reports indicate the yells and chants were “justly resented” by the farmers and townspeople they passed.

The nail in the coffin for Franklin might have been an actual coffin. Somehow several students got their hands on a coffin, and after draping it in black crape paper, delivered it to the front lawn of Hopewell High for their “vanquished foe.”

The Franklin Evening Star tried to put the best possible face on this mob-like march to Hopewell, going so far as to state,” The Hopewell students showed that they are good losers with a cordial reception.”

Other accounts differ sharply. One report goes so far as to say fist fights broke out between the two schools as Hopewell students met the visitors on their school lawn. Franklin School administration wasn’t having it either as ringleaders and their parents were summoned to the school to face repercussions.

However, this was nothing compared to the authority that IHSAA Secretary King Arthur L. Trester was about to lay down.

During this era, the winner of each Sectional advanced directly to a 20-team State Finals held in Bloomington on the campus of Indiana University.

The coffin mob was on Monday, and while modern Hoosiers may think things worked slowly in those days, Franklin was notified by telegraph on Tuesday that the IHSAA was banning them from the State Finals that were to take place later that week.

By Wednesday, the Associated Press had picked-up the story with headlines in many state newspapers proclaiming rather dramatically, ”Burning Indignation in Bosom of Franklin!”

In a bit of a surprise, several schools in the Sectional field, when asked to field a replacement for the disqualified Franklin, all voted simply for Franklin. For the record those schools included, Edinburg, Union, Nineveh, Whiteland, and Hopewell.

The Franklin team did indeed travel to Bloomington hoping against hope that their administration delegation could sway King Arthur, but a three-hour Thursday night session proved fruitless.

With all other teams refusing to take Franklin’s place, Columbus was awarded a 2-0 forfeit victory.

Addendum -

Columbus, which had split regular season games with Franklin earlier in the year, would be martyred by small school hope Montmorenci, 16-13 in the State Finals. The tiny Tippecanoe County village of just 200 inhabitants, had advanced by downing Lafayette Jefferson in Sectional. In addition to taking out Columbus, Montmorenci would go on to best Muncie, 42-16, before bowing out in the final eight to Bloomington, 23-11.

Very special thank you to good basketball gentleman, Jim Higdon for pointing me in the right direction. Without his lead, I would’ve never known what date or teams to begin researching for details!