“for the first time in the school’s history, [their] colors fell before Lebanon,” not once, but twice. If that was not enough humiliation, Clinton High School clinched the district invitation to the tournament, and thereby denied Crawfordsville High School the opportunity to defend the state title in 1912, which Lebanon, incidentally won. Furthering the irony, the 1912 tournament was the first Indiana high school basketball tournament that the IHSAA sanctioned. Consequently, Lebanon, for many decades, claimed to be the first IHSAA basketball tournament champion.

In 1957, Crawfordsville High School found their place in Indiana basketball history restored. The IHSAA accepted a resolution from Indiana University, whereby the university transferred its claim to recognition of the first Indiana high school basketball championship to the IHSAA’s Board of Control “for inclusionin the official records of that body.” At halftime of the forty-seventh annual high school basketball championship, played between South Bend Central and Indianapolis’ Crispus Attucks at the Butler University Fieldhouse, the IHSAA recognized Crawfordsville’s 1911 high school basketball team as Indiana’s first state tournament champions.

For that feat, and for being the first state tournament champion, they will be remembered as long as high school basketball is played and celebrated in Indiana.