the recent front page story in the indy story...and his legacy...discussed his time at indiana state.....except they kept talking about...."teachers college".....never indiana state...or isu....after saying indiana state teachers college...the rest of the references were to teachers college....lol....that would be like referring to purdue university...as university....in the rest of the story...lol.....
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was anybody else bothered by the recent feature story on john wooden in the indy star
- Thread starter TJames
- Start date
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Bally #50
The JSW Level
Other than one incorrect reference in one of the articles mentioning "Indiana Teacher's College", I hardly think we can complain about a reference to our college as to what it was called at the time. The TV media said INDIANA STATE in every piece but the paper certainly has the right to call it what the institution was actually named. Does it bother me, yes, but it is wrong, absolutely not. The front page story, not the insert, DID reference us as Indiana State, I might add.
you miss my point.....lol....
the correct reference....would be "indiana state teachers college"....the first time...and then indiana state...the rest of the time......like i said, it woudl be like referring to purdue simply as "university"....it would be factually correct...since purdue is indeed a university....but all references would be about purdue...and would state that fact...lol.....
i just thought that it was strange....that's all...lol....
the correct reference....would be "indiana state teachers college"....the first time...and then indiana state...the rest of the time......like i said, it woudl be like referring to purdue simply as "university"....it would be factually correct...since purdue is indeed a university....but all references would be about purdue...and would state that fact...lol.....
i just thought that it was strange....that's all...lol....
You're Correct TJ...
It didn't surprise me though -- it IS the Star...
Sadly, the National Media kept saying "... at what is known today as Indiana State University..."
Guess if I were the reporter, I'd have said Indiana State University (then called Indiana State Teacher's College)...
but that's just me...
It didn't surprise me though -- it IS the Star...
Sadly, the National Media kept saying "... at what is known today as Indiana State University..."
Guess if I were the reporter, I'd have said Indiana State University (then called Indiana State Teacher's College)...
but that's just me...
Bally #50
The JSW Level
I will have to read them again, but I never saw anything that just read "teacher college" without Indiana State in front of it, never. That would be incorrect for sure. My statement before was in reference to the full name being used.
The problem I have is that by saying, "... at what is known today as Indiana State University..." it implies (at least to me) that ISU has went through a multitudes of names, like this joint:
Southwest Texas State Normal School (1903–1918)
Southwest Texas State Normal College (1918–1923)
Southwest Texas State Teachers College (1923–1959)
Southwest Texas State College (1959–1969)
Southwest Texas State University (1969–2003)
Texas State University - San Marcos (2003-Pres.)
or this place:
West Tennessee State Normal School (1912-1925)
West Tennessee State Teachers College (1925-1941)
Memphis State College (1941-1957)
Memphis State University (1957-1994)
University of Memphis (1994 - Pres.)
though they do admit that a number of minor name changes occurred between 1912 and 1941, with the "West Tennessee State" name remaining at the forefront of each.
or this one:
1855 — New Jersey State Normal School
1908 — New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton
1929 — New Jersey State Teachers College and State Normal School at Trenton
1937 — New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton
1958 — Trenton State College
1996 — The College of New Jersey
We're on our 4th name since 1865 and 'Indiana State' has always been part of it... the way the national media presented it; you are left w/ the impression of something else.
Southwest Texas State Normal School (1903–1918)
Southwest Texas State Normal College (1918–1923)
Southwest Texas State Teachers College (1923–1959)
Southwest Texas State College (1959–1969)
Southwest Texas State University (1969–2003)
Texas State University - San Marcos (2003-Pres.)
or this place:
West Tennessee State Normal School (1912-1925)
West Tennessee State Teachers College (1925-1941)
Memphis State College (1941-1957)
Memphis State University (1957-1994)
University of Memphis (1994 - Pres.)
though they do admit that a number of minor name changes occurred between 1912 and 1941, with the "West Tennessee State" name remaining at the forefront of each.
or this one:
1855 — New Jersey State Normal School
1908 — New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton
1929 — New Jersey State Teachers College and State Normal School at Trenton
1937 — New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton
1958 — Trenton State College
1996 — The College of New Jersey
We're on our 4th name since 1865 and 'Indiana State' has always been part of it... the way the national media presented it; you are left w/ the impression of something else.
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bent20
The Odum Level
Speaking as a news reporter though, there comes a point at which you just have to do what you can and move on. You can't worry at every turn what someone might think is implied, when it is not. Clearly, no one was trying to imply that Indiana State had multiple names.
agreed -- they should have simply written;
coach john wooden coached at indiana state university from 1946-48; he served as the head basketball and baseball coach as well as the athletic director while also obtaining a Masters in Education.
He left in 1948 to accept the ucla head coaching position.
Bally #50
The JSW Level
Back to what I said before. Any publication that used the term "Teacher's College" alone is, as TJ has said, was incorrect. I personally, never saw anything in those articles that said less than Indiana State Teachers College other than the one time when there was typo that called it Indiana Teachers College. This is way too petty to go back and forth on. Show me where they repeatedly called us just "Teacher's College" and I will gain some sympathy for this discussion. We are getting way to sensitive over the whole issue. The way I look at, the whole tragic loss was the main story and the Indiana State aspect of that story was extremely positive for our alma mater, period. Time to move on.
I think I read more national media stories (though likely it was only one that was then pulled off the wire by every 'paper'...)
the star has been declining since the pulliam sale to gannett
the star has been declining since the pulliam sale to gannett
Sycamore Proud
The Nicks Level
I see your point and don't disagree. But anytime Indiana State is mentioned in a positive way, especially in national media, is nothing but great PR that is deserved and needed.
:sycamores::sycamores::sycamores:
:sycamores::sycamores::sycamores:
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Bally #50
The JSW Level
Sycamore Proud....EXACTLY! Maybe our story was left off some of the bylines nationally but whether it is Indiana State Teacher's College or Indiana State University, our name has been out there. The ESPN stories I saw mentioned Indiana State and so did many of the stories I read from internet media around the country. ALL of the local Indy media coverage was not only well-done, it was a first class promotion for our school. I had two friends call me this week from around the country because they had read some sad comments I had made on Facebook about coach. They knew he was an Indiana State guy even before he died. I just think we are getting to hung up in semantics. Like the commercial say, free Pub for a famous alumni.......priceless! RIP Coach~
just to clear the air...lol...
it was a front page story...a feature written by ted green.....where he said...in the first reference....indiana state teachers college...and then referred to isu in the rest of the story....repeatedly i might add...simply as "teachers college"...and not as indiana state.....like it was a generic teachers college....lol....and like i said...that would be like to referring to purdue university...when talking about wooden's younger days...and then simply as "university" when referring to purdue in the rest of the story...lol.....
it was the story abut how wooden refused to allow his indiana state team to play in the naia national tournament in kansas city...because they wouldn't allow him to use an african-american player....
it was a front page story...a feature written by ted green.....where he said...in the first reference....indiana state teachers college...and then referred to isu in the rest of the story....repeatedly i might add...simply as "teachers college"...and not as indiana state.....like it was a generic teachers college....lol....and like i said...that would be like to referring to purdue university...when talking about wooden's younger days...and then simply as "university" when referring to purdue in the rest of the story...lol.....
it was the story abut how wooden refused to allow his indiana state team to play in the naia national tournament in kansas city...because they wouldn't allow him to use an african-american player....
here you go.....
John Wooden: 1910-2010
Wooden's barrier-breaking moment was more than moral victory
By Ted Green
When John Wooden pointed down the Indiana State bench to Clarence Walker and sent the rarely used substitute onto the court at Kansas City Municipal Auditorium on March 9, 1948, it barely made a ripple.
Zoom 'Johnny' Wooden (left), as the state’s newspapers often called him then, was 35 and fresh off three years of active duty in World War II when he took his first college coaching job in the fall of 1946 at Indiana State Teachers College (now called Indiana State University). That's where he met Clarence Walker, a player who would help him reshape the world of sports.
In that and the Sycamores’ subsequent games at the weeklong National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball championships, “no expressions of disapproval were heard” among the fans about Walker, according to the sports editor of Kansas City’s black newspaper, The Call. His opponents “regarded Walker as just another basketball player.”
He didn’t do much. Walker scored three points in the Sycamores’ first game, and just eight the entire week.
His contribution to the sport went much deeper.
Walker became the first black player to compete in the tournament, and the first to compete in any college basketball championship outside New York.
Although the event hasn’t gained the recognition of other sports barrier-breaking moments, consider this: More than 60 years later, those closest to Wooden, who died Friday at 99, regard it as the most important achievement in his unparalleled career.
“What could be bigger?” asked his daughter, Nan.
“Johnny” Wooden, as the state’s newspapers often called him then, was 35 and fresh off three years of active duty in World War II when he arrived in the city in the fall of 1946 to take his first college coaching job. He would stay at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University) just two years before leaving for his famous 27-year stay at UCLA.
Lacking the stars so often associated with him from those championship Bruins teams — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton and many others — Wooden’s Sycamores were a no-name, feisty, fast-breaking bunch, featuring several players who had played for Wooden in his previous job at South Bend Central High School. They also had a black player, Clarence Walker, from East Chicago.
In Wooden’s first season, Teachers College finished 17-8 and was invited to the NAIB tournament, a crowning achievement for small schools. The previous season, the Sycamores — coached by Glenn Curtis, Wooden’s high school coach in Martinsville — had finished runner-up. Wooden refused to take the team to the tournament because of a rule prohibiting black players.
The next season, Teachers College finished 27-7 and again was invited to the NAIB tournament. The rule had been changed: Black players were allowed, but it was understood they still couldn’t otherwise appear publicly with the team.
Wooden declined again, reasoning, as he wrote in his autobiography, “My Personal Best,” that “this humiliation (would be) worse than leaving Clarence behind in Terre Haute.”
But the NAACP contacted Wooden, arguing that Walker simply being able to compete would be a huge step. After getting permission from Walker and his parents, Wooden changed his mind.
The Sycamores traveled by car. Virtually everywhere they stopped, according to Wooden and the surviving team members, they were met with vicious racial hatred. Restaurants refused to serve them. Nasty epithets were common. When they stopped for the night in Columbia, Mo., Walker wasn’t allowed to stay with the team; instead he was given a cot in the hotel basement next to a filthy bathroom.
In a journal Walker kept about the trip and his troubled times in college, he recalled what happened that night:
“During the course of the night, there was a party at the hotel of some college sorority. About 2 a.m. a group of boys came down to the bathroom. They were loud and boisterous, enough to awaken me. About 10 minutes later, they all cleared out, but believe me they did not take everything with them. The aroma coming from the bathroom through a furnace inlet was unbearable. … One can guess how much sleep I got.”
Walker also wasn’t allowed to stay with the team at its hotel in Kansas City, and on the way home he met with the same reaction when the Sycamores, joyous after a second-place finish to Louisville in the tournament, stopped in Effingham, Ill.
“As we walked in the lobby, a lady had a little girl in her arms about three or four years old. When the girl saw me she said, ‘Look Mommy, a nigger’ and the lady said ‘Sh-h-h, a colored boy.’ … I slept downstairs in the basement. Mr. Wooden and I had breakfast together. I felt very relieved when we started to Terre Haute.”
Walker’s feat on the court received scant attention at the time. The Kansas City Star didn’t mention the racial angle the day after he broke the barrier, and there wasn’t much more in the days to come in the mainstream newspapers in Indianapolis and Terre Haute. Yet that moment is now viewed as a decisive step toward equality in the sport.
he following year, 1949, three teams in the NAIB tournament had black players; in 1950, City College of New York had two black starters on the team that won the NCAA Tournament and the National Invitation Tournament; and in many eyes the culminating breakthrough came in 1966, when Texas Western won the NCAA Tournament with an all-black starting five.
Typically, Wooden never spoke much about his role in kick-starting the process. Others have come to appreciate it more and more.
John McCarthy, tournament director for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, calls it “one of the great unknown stories in the country.”
“It’s one of those rare moments that stands out in the history of college sports that transcends sport and moves into society in general,” McCarthy said. “And it’s magnified when someone like coach Wooden is involved.”
Wooden’s daughter, Nan, and his chief biographer, Steve Jamison, agree that it was a momentous event that deserves more publicity.
As for Walker, he was a starter in 1950 when Teachers College won the NAIB championship. He later married, had children and enjoyed a highly successful career as a teacher, high school administrator and tennis coach mostly in Gary and East Chicago. He died in 1989.
Walker’s son Kevin, now an insurance salesman in Gary, said his father rarely talked to him and his siblings about his basketball days. Kevin didn’t know about the journal until he was a senior at East Chicago Washington and was despondent about losing his final basketball game.
The nine-page, typed document his father handed him the next morning was titled “Mr. J.C.” — Jim Crow.
“And I read it,” Kevin said, “and I was like, ‘Wow. What did I just read?’ ”
In addition to the graphic descriptions of the trip to Kansas City and other racial slights Clarence Walker encountered in college, the journal contained praise for several teammates who helped him through the ordeals.
The greatest praise was reserved for his coach.
“If all people were in mind as he is in character,” Walker wrote of Wooden, “I think Mr. J.C. would be trivial.”
John Wooden: 1910-2010
Wooden's barrier-breaking moment was more than moral victory
By Ted Green
When John Wooden pointed down the Indiana State bench to Clarence Walker and sent the rarely used substitute onto the court at Kansas City Municipal Auditorium on March 9, 1948, it barely made a ripple.
Zoom 'Johnny' Wooden (left), as the state’s newspapers often called him then, was 35 and fresh off three years of active duty in World War II when he took his first college coaching job in the fall of 1946 at Indiana State Teachers College (now called Indiana State University). That's where he met Clarence Walker, a player who would help him reshape the world of sports.
In that and the Sycamores’ subsequent games at the weeklong National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball championships, “no expressions of disapproval were heard” among the fans about Walker, according to the sports editor of Kansas City’s black newspaper, The Call. His opponents “regarded Walker as just another basketball player.”
He didn’t do much. Walker scored three points in the Sycamores’ first game, and just eight the entire week.
His contribution to the sport went much deeper.
Walker became the first black player to compete in the tournament, and the first to compete in any college basketball championship outside New York.
Although the event hasn’t gained the recognition of other sports barrier-breaking moments, consider this: More than 60 years later, those closest to Wooden, who died Friday at 99, regard it as the most important achievement in his unparalleled career.
“What could be bigger?” asked his daughter, Nan.
“Johnny” Wooden, as the state’s newspapers often called him then, was 35 and fresh off three years of active duty in World War II when he arrived in the city in the fall of 1946 to take his first college coaching job. He would stay at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University) just two years before leaving for his famous 27-year stay at UCLA.
Lacking the stars so often associated with him from those championship Bruins teams — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton and many others — Wooden’s Sycamores were a no-name, feisty, fast-breaking bunch, featuring several players who had played for Wooden in his previous job at South Bend Central High School. They also had a black player, Clarence Walker, from East Chicago.
In Wooden’s first season, Teachers College finished 17-8 and was invited to the NAIB tournament, a crowning achievement for small schools. The previous season, the Sycamores — coached by Glenn Curtis, Wooden’s high school coach in Martinsville — had finished runner-up. Wooden refused to take the team to the tournament because of a rule prohibiting black players.
The next season, Teachers College finished 27-7 and again was invited to the NAIB tournament. The rule had been changed: Black players were allowed, but it was understood they still couldn’t otherwise appear publicly with the team.
Wooden declined again, reasoning, as he wrote in his autobiography, “My Personal Best,” that “this humiliation (would be) worse than leaving Clarence behind in Terre Haute.”
But the NAACP contacted Wooden, arguing that Walker simply being able to compete would be a huge step. After getting permission from Walker and his parents, Wooden changed his mind.
The Sycamores traveled by car. Virtually everywhere they stopped, according to Wooden and the surviving team members, they were met with vicious racial hatred. Restaurants refused to serve them. Nasty epithets were common. When they stopped for the night in Columbia, Mo., Walker wasn’t allowed to stay with the team; instead he was given a cot in the hotel basement next to a filthy bathroom.
In a journal Walker kept about the trip and his troubled times in college, he recalled what happened that night:
“During the course of the night, there was a party at the hotel of some college sorority. About 2 a.m. a group of boys came down to the bathroom. They were loud and boisterous, enough to awaken me. About 10 minutes later, they all cleared out, but believe me they did not take everything with them. The aroma coming from the bathroom through a furnace inlet was unbearable. … One can guess how much sleep I got.”
Walker also wasn’t allowed to stay with the team at its hotel in Kansas City, and on the way home he met with the same reaction when the Sycamores, joyous after a second-place finish to Louisville in the tournament, stopped in Effingham, Ill.
“As we walked in the lobby, a lady had a little girl in her arms about three or four years old. When the girl saw me she said, ‘Look Mommy, a nigger’ and the lady said ‘Sh-h-h, a colored boy.’ … I slept downstairs in the basement. Mr. Wooden and I had breakfast together. I felt very relieved when we started to Terre Haute.”
Walker’s feat on the court received scant attention at the time. The Kansas City Star didn’t mention the racial angle the day after he broke the barrier, and there wasn’t much more in the days to come in the mainstream newspapers in Indianapolis and Terre Haute. Yet that moment is now viewed as a decisive step toward equality in the sport.
he following year, 1949, three teams in the NAIB tournament had black players; in 1950, City College of New York had two black starters on the team that won the NCAA Tournament and the National Invitation Tournament; and in many eyes the culminating breakthrough came in 1966, when Texas Western won the NCAA Tournament with an all-black starting five.
Typically, Wooden never spoke much about his role in kick-starting the process. Others have come to appreciate it more and more.
John McCarthy, tournament director for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, calls it “one of the great unknown stories in the country.”
“It’s one of those rare moments that stands out in the history of college sports that transcends sport and moves into society in general,” McCarthy said. “And it’s magnified when someone like coach Wooden is involved.”
Wooden’s daughter, Nan, and his chief biographer, Steve Jamison, agree that it was a momentous event that deserves more publicity.
As for Walker, he was a starter in 1950 when Teachers College won the NAIB championship. He later married, had children and enjoyed a highly successful career as a teacher, high school administrator and tennis coach mostly in Gary and East Chicago. He died in 1989.
Walker’s son Kevin, now an insurance salesman in Gary, said his father rarely talked to him and his siblings about his basketball days. Kevin didn’t know about the journal until he was a senior at East Chicago Washington and was despondent about losing his final basketball game.
The nine-page, typed document his father handed him the next morning was titled “Mr. J.C.” — Jim Crow.
“And I read it,” Kevin said, “and I was like, ‘Wow. What did I just read?’ ”
In addition to the graphic descriptions of the trip to Kansas City and other racial slights Clarence Walker encountered in college, the journal contained praise for several teammates who helped him through the ordeals.
The greatest praise was reserved for his coach.
“If all people were in mind as he is in character,” Walker wrote of Wooden, “I think Mr. J.C. would be trivial.”
Bally #50
The JSW Level
TJ, I certainly believe you now but where did that come from? The Star? That is bush league writing. As I said earlier, it would very poor writing if he continued to use the WRONG name of our institution-- which it IS! My initial comment was referring to our university if they called it Indiana State Teachers College, which is acceptable. Obviously Teacher's College was not. If that was in the Star, tell me where it was and I'll write something to Lefko. That would have pissed me off if I had read it as well.
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Bally #50
The JSW Level
I finally found that article in the Star. I did not read it originally because although a wonderful story, I was very familiar with it over the years. I have no idea why he felt he had to call us Teachers College and where that came from but maybe it was the lingo of the time and I doubt anyone on here is old enough to be able to tell us if it was. Ted Green would have to be a pretty old dude to get away with that excuse but I am guessing that is where it came from. It is tacky at the very least and in my opinion, an error. Not a gredious one, but an error nonethelss. If I did write Lefko (and he knows me well enough from other Indiana State compalints), he'd be sure to point out the line where he used the full name of the school and then even it's current name. I think I will forego the complaint and save it for something a bit more important. It is a faux pas but he isn't going to win any Pullitzer awards for the article anyway.
Bally #50
The JSW Level
To me, it is like complaining to Ron Prettyman about the music being played in Hulman Center. Don't bother him with the petty stuff. I always want to wait till I am REALLY pissed and we REALLY have something to complain about. Then let her rip~