Run to state brought pride to community

There are places in the world where it is believed the Buffalo Bills won four consecutive Super Bowls.
There are those who think the Atlanta Braves won four World Series in the 1990s instead of just one.
Somewhere, someone is of the understanding that LeBron James succeeded in bringing an NBA title to Cleveland last year.
Or, at least, their apparel leads them to those ideas.
For decades now, clothing companies have been prepared for both outcomes of the big games. Championship T-shirts, sweatshirts and hats are made for both championship finalists. That way, the second a team wins, that gear is available for sale.
But what of the team that loses?
Clothing companies don’t throw their merchandise in the trash and cut their losses anymore. That gear goes overseas to those in need. In recent years, the NFL has sent shirts to Haiti, Azerbaijan, Zambia, Armenia, Nicaragua and Romania, to name a few.
And so, somewhere out there, there are championship shirts for the Buffalo Bills from their Super Bowl appearances from 1990 through ’93, the Atlanta Braves from their World Series losses in 1991, ’92, ’96 and ’99 and the Cleveland Cavaliers from their NBA Finals berth last season.
Leaders of the professional leagues aren’t the only ones who plan ahead.
The Jay County Chamber of Commerce’s Business Expo was scheduled for semi-state weekend during the Jay County High School boys basketball team’s tournament run 10 years ago. The Commercial Review created a poster commemorating their win to pass out to those in attendance.
Then several of The CR’s staffers began talking about plans for coverage for the coming week. What if, we dreamed, they win the state championship? How could we add something to make it just a little bit more special.
We thought about other championship games, professional championship games. When a team wins the Super Bowl, the players instantly have championship hats and T-shirts. They also have newspaper pages celebrating their victory.
We decided we wanted to provide the same.
We picked a celebration photo from the semi-state game, one that hadn’t been used in the newspaper, and created a celebratory front page. We printed 100 or so, to be passed out to the players, coaches and student section if the state championship came to fruition.
When I boarded the bus to ride to Indianapolis with the team, they were with me. And a day later I carried them into Conseco Fieldhouse, now Bankers Life Fieldhouse, in a duffle bag.
Of the thousands in the arena that day, then-managing editor Mike Snyder was the only one other than myself who knew the celebratory pages existed.
For about two and a half quarters, it seemed we would get to use them. The Patriots were playing well, leading by seven after Tyler Rigby hit his fourth 3-pointer of the game.
But then Zach Hahn happened.
The New Castle junior, who went on to play at Butler University, caught fire. An offensive rebound for a three-point play sparked the Trojans, who erased their deficit in just over a minute.
Hahn scored 14 of his game-high 29 points in the final five minutes of the third quarter, and by the time the buzzer sounded Jay County was on the wrong end of a 51-43 final.
The championship newspaper pages stayed in the bag.
I thought about giving out a few of the posters as commemorative pieces. The featured player could get one, and maybe the coaches, the school and local basketball fanatic Dean Monroe as well. But time passed, and, if memory serves me correctly, none of them got distributed.
To the best of my knowledge, only one is on display.
Hanging on the wall above my desk in The CR’s office is the celebratory front page — Rigby with his arms raised and index fingers pointing toward the sky in victory, the words “STATE CHAMPS” above him.
Yes, the team fell short in that final game. But that poster still brings a smile.
It commemorates everything that 2005-06 team accomplished, and the great pride it brought to this community.
Those Patriots didn’t end up being Indiana’s state champs, but they were most certainly ours.