God bless the 32 teams representing the four classes in the Boys State Basketball Tournament that starts today and continues through Saturday when champions are determined in Class 4A, 3A, 2A and 1A. The players and others in their inner circles will have memories lasting a lifetime. But even by next year most Minnesota sports fans won’t have a clue who won and lost, nor will they know the heroes and the not so heroic.
It’s hardly news, just a disappointing fact that for years now the Minnesota Sate High School League’s boys tournament has had too many classes and teams. If you’re not a player, coach, and parent or somehow personally involved, the tournament probably isn’t of much interest.
Passion and interest probably peaked 50 years ago when the Flying Dutchmen, from small town Edgerton, won the state championship. Back then there was only one class and seldom, if ever, had there been such a small school versus big school frenzy as in 1960 when Edgerton, a town with a population of less than 1,000, beat Chisholm in the quarterfinals, Richfield in the semifinals and Austin in the championship game.
By 1971 the tournament was a two class show and in the 1990’s changed over to the four class format of today. When decision makers handed down the verdict that teams from small towns couldn’t compete with big city rivals a lot more kids could say they played in the tournament and many more coaches could claim state titles on their resumes, but no one can argue the event is anything like it once was.
In the 1950s and 1960s the tournament was arguably one of the nation’s elite prep sports events. The popularity and reputation of the one class, eight team, three-day tournament is legendary.
Tickets were hoarded by families who passed them from one generation to another. Williams Arena was the tourney site and back then the building’s capacity was over 18,000. Except for a morning consolation game, the tournament was sold-out. I even remember sitting in Williams Arena with about 13,000 fans on a Friday morning watching two teams in a consolation game.
The games were televised live locally. Interest in the tournament was so intense and demand for tickets so great that televising to the masses didn’t harm ticket receipts.
Minnesotans waited all year for the tournament. For some it was the highlight of the sports calendar. Comparable to Gophers football, bigger than college basketball including the 1951 NCAA tournament that didn’t even sellout at Williams Arena. For many the tournament was more anticipated than the Twins and Vikings, both of whom arrived in 1961.
During tournament week Minneapolis newspapers dispatched writers and photographers to preview the tournament including visits to small towns whose high school teams had made local history and glorified the citizenry by earning a trip to the big city. It was such publicity that created anticipation about whether David could beat Goliath in that year’s small schools versus large schools matchups.