Sunday, April 7, 2024
HOPING FOR SUN
Celestia Bennett, Danica Scott and Marcus McCreary set up shop yesterday morning for JB Treats and Bohemiam FarmGirl Market in anticipation of visitors for downtown solar eclipse visitors. The tables on South Harrison Street feature pet supplies and accessories and eclipse souvenirs, among other items. | photo by KRISTIAAN RAWLINGS
Shelbyville’s Reimann Credited as ‘Father of Purdue Basketball’
Editor’s Note: In honor of Purdue University’s Final Four victory last night, we offer the following article, originally published in 1954 in a Shelby County Genealogical Society newsletter, featuring Shelbyville’s Harry “Wally” Reimann, who is credited by the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame as being coach and player on Purdue University’s first basketball team. This article was among the files of the late David Craig, a local historian.
“Basketball as a game today has been spoiled and hurt, compared to the ‘old’ days – but I still love it!”
Those are the words and opinion of a widely-known Shelbyville man and distinguished Purdue alumnus, a man who was one of the very first to play the game in Indiana, who devoted over 26 years of his life to the sport as a player, coach, and official, and who thus is well qualified to speak on the subject.
With the roundball sport at its height in Indiana today and this month, we can think of no more timely or real personality worth mentioning today than this young man of 72, whose “only” hobby is “all sports,” who “follows them all,” and who can be considered the “father” of basketball at Purdue University.
In case you’re one of the few who haven’t identified him up to this point, he’s Harry Wallace “Wally” Reimann, of 40 W. Pennsylvania St. He’s better known to Purdue “oldsters” as “Dutch,” a nickname which he acquired at the university, and he owns many fond memories of this basketball that Hoosiers are so crazy about, so stick around and read on.
“Wally” was coach and captain of Purdue’s first basketball team, in 1900-1901. In 1951, he was honored at the Purdue Fieldhouse on the golden anniversary of Purdue basketball. In 1953, at his 50th class reunion, he was one of five people to receive the “Distinguished Alumni Award,” presented by the Purdue Alumni Association, for his ‘meritorious service to the university in athletics during the past 50 years.”
(There were 185 boys and nine girls in his 1903 senior class at Purdue, and seven of the girls and about 80 of the boys were on hand for the reunion last year.)
Mr. Reimann, on the subject of basketball as played today, feels the game has been hurt because there’s too much running and shouting (“That’s all that most of them do”), too much emphasis on offense, no defense to speak of and “no strategy now like there used to be.”
He says this holds true in high school, college and pro ball, and he feels the present 1-and-1 foul rule is no good.
He believes the same lack of strategy is often true nowadays in other sports, and points to the forward pass in football and “the long ball” in baseball as examples that more emphasis has been put on the spectacular, rather than the strategic, or well-played game.
“Many people would rather see a slugfest than a good 1 to 0 pitcher’s battle these days,” he declared.
“However,” Mr. Reimann said, “someday some smart coach may perfect his defense, and give others a hard time, and then other coaches may fall in line and we may see a return to the strategic, polished brand of ball.”
As an example of strategy, he pointed out how one high school basketball team defeated a highly favored team last year by always passing low, and always bouncing the ball, and keeping it away from the favored team.
(By the time this is read, you may know whether Columbus tried some sort of similar strategy today in its game with Crispus Attucks – or whether the Dogs ran with the Flying Tigers.)
Mr. Reimann began playing basketball when he was 11, at the “birthplace” of the sport in Indiana, the Crawfordsville YMCA. It was in 1893, and the game had started in Crawfordsville only a few months before Dr. Naismith, remember, had just invented the sport in 1891. (Crawfordsville won the first state high school title in 1911.)
When “Wally” started at 11 – he’ll tell you – there were nine men on a team, three forwards, three centers and three guards, and it was a passing game only then, with no dribbling allowed.
Thus the game had 18 players on the floor at the same time. “We had a center line like now,” declares Mr. Reimann, “but only one man from each team could cover the entire floor. The other eight men on each team were ‘zoned’ – they had to stay in a certain area on the floor.”
As an aftermath of Dr. Naismith’s invention of the game, which he used peach baskets for goals, Mr. Reimann says, “Our nets then were all enclosed and the ball couldn’t go on down through the basket – we had to poke it out after each goal was scored.”
Dribbling was not allowed until a long time later, and when it came in, it started with “free dribbling”, in which as long as the player stayed in motion he could double dribble, triple dribble, etc., for as long as he wanted.
“Wally” recalls that about the only way for a guard to stop a man with the ball in those early days, due to the ‘free dribble’, was to “tackle him or spill him.”
As a sophomore at Purdue, Mr. Reimann coached and captained the school’s first team, starting in the fall of 1900. Football, track and baseball were the only sports at Purdue when basketball began, and the hardwood team was on its own financially since the university hadn’t recognized the sport yet – and didn’t officially until 1904.
“Wally” played as a sophomore, junior and senior on the Purdue team. His biggest thrill as a plyer? There were at least three, he says.
One was a seven-game southern trip which the Purdue boys (nine players and a manager) made “on their own” in 1901-02. They went to Nashville and Chattanooga, Tenn., Birmingham, Ala., and Cincinnati, and playing against teams composed of older boys won four and lost three games. The Purdue team defeated IU and Butler that same season by something like 74-24 and 74-25.
Another thrill for Mr. Reimann came the season before, in 1900-01, when the Purdue team played a tough Yale team, which had been getting national press raves, and beat the easterners by a “close” score – 68-10. The game was played in the old armory at Lafayette, which later burned down.
And field goals counted three points and free throws one in those days.
The third big thrill was a game that “Wally” personally won for Purdue in 1901. It was played at Logansport against the Logansport Athletic Club, and in those days, one player would shoot all the free throws for his team. (“Whoever looked hot in practice before the game got the nod for that night,” says Mr. Reimann.) The local man hit the free toss that beat the strong host team, 16-15.
After playing three years at Purdue, “Wally” played in a league at Crawfordsville for two years, coached at Wabash Preparatory School, and then started officiating. He jumped quickly from high school work to the Big Ten (Big Nine then) – and in those days there was only one official, that’s right, ONE, in a basketball game.
Each team had five players by that time, the length of the college game was about the same as now, and there were no quarters but a halftime rest about like now.
Even so, says Mr. Reimann, “They just about ran your legs off, with just one official, and you had to be in shape. I’d start training long before the season began, and get so I could run up to five miles without stopping.”
Wally’s first Big Ten game was at Champaign in 1907, between Illinois and Chicago, and he went on to officiate games all over the Midwest, conference and non-conference, for 12 years through 1919.
He also helped train younger men for Big Ten officiating, and his son “Bill” later followed in his dad’s footsteps and also became one of Indiana’s top-flight basketball referees. Mr. Reimann was born on Feb. 17, 1882, in Shelbyville on E. Broadway where the Sunlit Garage formerly was located (now location of Sandman Brothers). His parents had come to the U.S. and this city from Germany, and his father was a baker there.
The Reimann family moved to Crawfordsville when he was nine and his father started a bakery and confectionary there. “Wally” attended the Crawfordsville school, the Wabash Preparatory School, and then entered Purdue in the fall of 1899. (It was while at the preparatory school that “Wally” played basketball for Wabash College – and won a letter there.)
After four years at Purdue, the local man received his mechanical engineering degree in 1903, and then went to Nogales, Ariz., as an engineer for a year. While there he served in the National Guard of the Territory of Arizona, which did not become a state until 1912.
Returning to Crawfordsville in 1905, he attended business college for a year, then went to Indianapolis and for two years headed the supply department for the International Typographical Union at its international headquarters.
In June 1907, Mr. Reimann married the late Emma Nading in Shelbyville, and they lived in Indianapolis until moving here in 1909 when Mr. Reimann became associated with the William Nading Grain Co. here. He remained with the firm from 1909 to 1932, serving as its manager for a number of years.
Mr. and Mrs. Reimann became the parents of three well-known children, William N., now head of the plastics department at the Kennedy Car Liner & Bag Co. here, Charles, a 1938 graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis who was killed in a 1942 accident, and Mary Ann, now of Tucson, Ariz.
Injured in a fall in 1932, Mr. Reimann left the Nading Co. and became state purchasing agent in 1933 under the administration of Gov. Harry Leslie. After a year, “Wally” joined the Republic Coal and Coke Co., of Chicago, at its Indianapolis office as a traveling salesman in the southern half of Indiana. He remained with this large firm for about 19 years until retiring in 1952.
Mrs. Reimann died in February 1937. In 1939, Mr. Reimann was married to Bess A. (Trout) Jones of this city and they have resided at their present home at 40 W. Pennsylvania ever since. Mr. Reimann earlier had resided at 35 E. Pennsylvania in a house he built, 34 E. Mechanic and 315 S. West St.
His daughter, Mary Ann, Monday will become the first woman assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona. A former women’s army service ferry pilot, she will join Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Roylston in the Tucson office. She received her law degree from the University of Arizona and has been deputy county attorney at Tucson.
NOTEBOOK:
NATIONAL NEWS: Botswana is home to 130,000 elephants, and would prefer otherwise. The country has a massive elephant population and has been very keen to offload them to countries where their populations of elephants have been depleted, such as Angola, which was sent 8,000 elephants, as well as Mozambique, which has been offered hundreds. It’s a bit of a sore spot for Botswana, and leaders don’t tend to react well to European leaders calling for more conservation action and limits on hunting. Just this week, the president of Botswana has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany following the country’s environmental minister proposing additional limits on trophy hunting. (BBC/Numlock)
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This Day in Shelby County History
2014: Despite a downpour of rain, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new Shelby County Fairgrounds grandstand, which had been destroyed by fire in May 2012. County Commissioner Kevin Nigh said the project was on schedule to be completed by the time of the county fair in late June. Helping fund the grandstand project was Centaur Gaming, owners of Indiana Grand Racing & Casino, which donated $250,000 to the project and had committed up to another $250,000 in matching funds.
2004: A quaint, old Victorian house in the 300 block of West Washington Street was the scene of a meth bust by Shelbyville police, The Shelbyville News reported. Details of the bust were listed in an article titled, “Victorian’s Secret.”
1994: The Shelbyville Holiday Inn reopened its lounge under a new name. TNT opened in the area of the hotel once occupied by the Thorn and Thistle.
VTI, 1406 S. Meridian St., announced plans for Runnebohm Construction to build a 9,400-square-foot shipping area addition to the 60,000-square-foot plant. VTI would add 15 jobs, bringing its employee total to 75.
1984: Julius Denton, a second-year starter and sophomore for the Shelbyville High School basketball team, was named honorable mention All-State. Denton had scored 18 points in the regional championship game against Columbus North.
1974: Several Boy Scouts worked to clean up the Fountaintown area following tornado destruction. Scoutmasters working with the groups were Ray Sears, Herb McClain, Jim Coulston, Bill Shane, Dimp Jarvis, Ed Shipp and Larry Woods.
1964: Ron Chambers, 16, was named Shelby County Youth Center Teen of the Month. His 15-year-old sister Mickey had recently been named REC Sweetheart for 1964. Ron had been a member of the high school football team and planned to enter the Navy.
1954: Shelbyville’s new No. 2 fire engine, which had been badly damaged in a collision at Broadway and Vine Streets, was returned to service. Complete new paneling on both sides of the truck, new fenders and a new water storage and running boards were installed. A gravel truck had struck the fire truck, pushing the fire truck into a utility pole. During the new truck’s absence, the old Ahrens-Fox pumper was kept at Station No. 2.
1944: A huge B-24 plane circled the city. It was learned that the plane was piloted by James VanPelt, N. Tompkins St., who was flying it from Massachusetts to Chicago. He had notified his parents he would be making a “flying call” over Shelbyville.
1934: One hundred and twenty children and 55 adults were confirmed into the St. Joseph Catholic Church at a 10 a.m. mass.
1924: Plans for remodeling and repairing the Gordon Children’s Home were discussed at the County Commissioners meeting.
1914: The frame building at the corner of East Washington Street and Public Square, owned by William DePrez and Mrs. S.P. Stroup, was ordered torn down by the state fire marshal. The building was occupied by the Rapp & Chenowith Barbershop, the Bierck Harness Shop and The Beanery, owned by Thomas Leonard. The city opera house had also been ordered closed due to fire concerns. “It is no secret that the buildings that have been condemned are and have been for some time an eye sore as well as a source of danger from fire,” The Republican said.
OBITUARIES
None today