I was visiting a co-worker in the hospital down at Jasper this past Tuesday night. On the way back home, as I drove past Jasper High School, I noticed a lot of cars in the parking lot so I stopped and attended the Jasper girls game. They were playing host to North Harrison. Lo and behold, as I stand in the tunnel trying to decide where I was going to sit, I run across one of the all time great coaches to ever grace the sidelines of Indiana High School Basketball. None other than Joe Hinton, most notably of Floyd Central fame. Joe was the coach at Floyd Central when they downed the Lions in the final game of the 1971 Evansville semi-state by the score of 83-74. He was also the coach at Floyd Central when they defeated Damon Bailey and Bedford in the 1989 Seymour regional. When Joe found out that I was actually from the Loogootee area the stories started. He was telling me about that final game in 1971. He mentioned how Floyd Central had about a 12 point lead at one point in time but Butcher stuck to his game plan and shortly thereafter it was a tie game. He said he was amazed they were able to score 83 points because you just didnt score that many against them, the Lions just didnt let you. He wondered how many times a team ever scored 80 or more points against Jacks teams and we both thought it couldnt be more than a handful at the most. Anyway, it was a very good conversation with Joe last Tuesday night down in Jasper. He is assisting the North Harrison girls teams as he has a daughter that is an asst coach and a granddaughter that plays. Just thought I would pass this conversation along, and let everyone know that Joe had a lot of good things to say about Loogootee basketball.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 15:41:27 +0000