Municipal Gardens Celebrates Golden Anniversary

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Tremane Wilhite and Peyton Fallis had the honor of trying for Mayor Ballard's toss to start the game.

Photo by Jay Thompson

(posted Feb 22)

As part of Indy Parks' celebration of Municipal Gardens' 50 years of Junior Basketball program, Mayor Greg Ballard tossed the ball for the opening tip off between the Knicks and Grizzlies during an afternoon game on Feb 21.

Ballard said he played basketball until high school, where he quickly realized that at that level of competition height comes into play in basketball. Ballard, who was only 5 ft 3 in and 80 pounds, moved his athletic talents to the baseball field.

Sharing stories was part of the celebration. Don Stout and Jack Evans, founders of the Junior Basketball League, were honored. Evans said Senator Lugar and wife Charlene enrolled their four boys to play. Evans remembered the time he and some of the other coaches were painting benches and ran low on paint. They decided to add turpentine to thin out the paint to avoid having to stop and buy more paint. "The thing about turpentine is, it won't dry as quickly. Mrs. Lugar came here and sat down for about three games, and we she tried to get up her raincoat stuck to it."

The program offered players international cultural exposure by creating a traveling team to compete in Puerto Rico, a program that lasted for 18 years.

A group of Brazilian coaches and physical education instructors are spending a week in Indiana to learn more about social programs in the form of youth basketball.

"Indiana is the right place to learn about basketball," Daniel Brauner of Brazil said.

Partners of the Americas and the US State Department organized the trip for the Brazilians to visit Pennsylvania and Indiana. Indiana is a sister state to Rio Grande De Sul Brazil.