Legacy and Legend: The History and Mythology of Basketball in Indiana

Legacy and Legend concisely examines the history of basketball in the Hoosier State from the history of basketball in the Hoosier State from the beginning of high school contests in the 1900's, to the golden age in the 1950's and 1960's, all the way to the end of the one-class system.

Newlin also explores the rise of college basketball to the heady days of March Madness, the early days of professional barnstorming, how the pro game won the hearts and minds of Hoosiers with the success of Reggie Miller-led Indiana Pacers, and how women fought to earn their own place in Indiana's beloved game. 

The book highlights such themes as basketball's origins in Indiana, coinciding with the rise of spectator sports as a leisure-time activity in an industrializing America; how the egalitarian rules of the game (the small team size, all players perform all roles) appeal to the state's self-image of self-sufficient pioneers; how Indiana developed a national reputation as a basketball hotbed based on such measurable realities as the size of the gyms, ticket sales, and the records of such figures of John Wooden, Oscar Robertson, Bob Knight and Larry Bird on a national stage; and how the national media and cultural trends from the past three decades (cable television, the movie Hoosiers, and the rise of the Internet) have made Indiana's love affair with basketball a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Paperback, 184 pages.  2023, The Indiana Historical Society Press.  By J. Ronald Newlin.