The Ferdinand Crusader Basketball Team – The Game That Changed History

DATE CHANGE: ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR 9/19, THE DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO 9/12.  REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Randy and Roxanne Mills, recent residents of Ferdinand, have put together the story of the St. Ferdinand Crusader basketball team over the team’s seventeen years’ existence.  Beginning with  their first high school basketball season in 1951, the St. Ferdinand Crusaders would be starting from scratch, playing against other schools that had long and powerful traditions of successful basketball. Remember, this was in Indiana, the king of high school basketball states, and if one were taking bets, it would seem to be a sure thing that the next several years would not be kind to the St. Ferdinand Crusader teams. While the first year was indeed tough, the school quickly fielded competitive squads, sometimes coming so very close to winning a sectional and advancing deeper into the state tournament. This is the story of the seventeen years of Crusaders’ basketball, before the school joined the Dubois County school system as a public school. Special emphasis, however, will be giving to the 1963-1964 team which had a sterling 18-2 record going into sectional play and came within a whisker of winning the sectional, arguably the best team of that era. Furthermore, their heroic game against Springs Valley in the 1964 sectional final would have a prime impact on American basketball history.