When you walk in to Memorial Gym in Kokomo you feel it:

Indiana High School basketball.

Memorial Gym is my home. Any time I walk in my spirits are instantly lifted because of the decades of success of the program. It is a success that even I have a very small part of, as I see my younger self in a few pictures on the walls of championship teams. I have been going there since before I have any waking memories and I have spent thousands of hours inside its walls, both on cold winter nights when the Wildkats were playing and on hot summer afternoons going through drills at Basil Mawbey’s summer basketball camps. Kokomo is one of the state’s most accomplished programs with a state record 75 sectional titles, 35 regional titles, eight semi-state titles, and five state runner-up finishes. The girls program also has its due with three state championships, including an undefeated crown in 2003.

But four years stick out as special when you look up in the rafters. State finals team appearances get their banner hanging from the ceiling, but if you win a state title, your name goes on the wall forever. For all the great teams that have come through Kokomo there are only four large plaques shaped like the state of Indiana with the full roster of players, name by name, on the wall: The 1992, 1993, and 2003 girls state champions and the 1961 boys state champions.