Posted on 12 October 2008 by .
By Mike
McGraw
Executive Director
It is always a feel-good story when an athletic program
that has been struggling suddenly finds success. In the case of Southport High
School, however, the story goes far beyond that point.
This is a story of the revival of the Cardinal spirit.
Southport, Ind., is a unique place. It has managed to
maintain its identity as a community in the midst of the suburban sprawl that
surrounds all major cities like Indianapolis. As a result, Southport High
School stills views itself as a community school.
In many ways, the Cardinals have far more in common with
schools like Richmond and Kokomo than they do with closer neighbors such as
Center Grove or Ben Davis.
Southport has a long and rich athletic heritage. It is the
home of Louie Dampier and Marlon Fleming. It is where legends such as Blackey
Braden and Bill Springer prowled the hardwood sidelines. In the early years of
the girls state basketball tournament, the title always traveled in one way or
another through Southport.
It is home to the storied Southport Fieldhouse, a facility
that, with the exception of Hinkle Fieldhouse, has seen more magical moments in
Indiana high school sports than any other.
It is hard to know exactly why, but in the early 1990s
Southport athletics began to decline. There have been many theories advanced,
but the truth is probably a complicated mixture of factors that will never be
truly understood. By the early years of this decade, Cardinal athletics were in
a state of total despair.
Not since the basketball squads of the late ’80s had
Southport fielded an athletic team of any relevance on the area or state stage.
During the leanest years in the collapse, the school
corporation made an unheralded hiring of a new athletic director. His name was
Pete Hubert. In turn, one of Hubert’s earliest acts was the hiring of a former
Cathedral assistant named Bill Peebles to be the head coach of the Cardinals’
football program.
Shortly after he assumed the job, this reporter had an
opportunity to talk with Peebles. I came away impressed with his work ethic,
enthusiasm, and vision. I hoped the atmosphere of doom surrounding Southport
athletics would not claim him as another victim.
Peebles is now in his fourth year at the helm. After the
first three seasons, many people on the outside wondered if he had taken on
“Mission Impossible.” The Cardinals had won only three games in his first three
seasons, including a 1-9 campaign in 2007. Still, in preseason interviews,
coaches across Conference Indiana would mention, mostly as an afterthought,
that Southport would be a little better this time around.
They had little idea of how prophetic they were being.
Southport began this season with a respectable loss to
long-time Indianapolis parochial power and Indy southside neighbor Roncalli.
The Cardinals rebounded in Week 2 to dismantle a struggling Anderson team.
That set the stage for Week 3. When the score from that
evening began to circulate across Indiana, the gasps of disbelief were nearly
audible from border to border. The Cardinals had not only defeated last year’s
Class 5A state runner-up Pike Red Devils, but they had at one point led the
game 28-0.
That victory was the beginning of what has become a
fairytale season. At the time of this writing, the Cardinals stand 6-1 and have
achieved a No. 8 ranking among Indiana’s 5A football teams. They have
steamrolled through the heart of their Conference Indiana schedule like Sherman
marching through Atlanta.
They currently stand 5-0 in the league and are assured of
at least a tie for the conference championship.
Somewhere along the line, this football team has become
the symbol of something much larger. Throughout the fall, Southport has
announced its return to respectability on athletic fields and courts across
Central Indiana. The boys soccer team, which won two games in 2007, has
currently won 11 this time around. The volleyball team has returned to
competitive status. The girls golf team qualified through to the regional round
of the state tournament for the second year in a row. The boys tennis team
advanced to the sectional championship match, narrowly falling short in an
upset bid of Decatur Central.
The Cardinals are just plain flying high.
Members of the Southport coaching staff will immediately
tell you that the prevailing attitude of Cardinal athletes is better than it
has been for nearly a generation. Nor surprisingly, that change in attitude has
spilled over into the entire school.
“The difference between last year and this year is like
night and day around here,” a member of the Southport faculty recently told me.
“The kids are happier, more enthusiastic, even better behaved.”
Indeed, there is a restored sense of community within the
halls of Southport High School.
I recently sat down with Peebles and Hubert to try to find
an explanation for the renaissance. Those
interviews are in the video players on this page.
The resurgence of Southport athletics is far more than a
feel-good story. It is a living reflection of the importance and value of high
school athletics to Indiana’s youth. It is a testament to a community that has
refused to lose its identity and pride.
Somewhere, Louie Dampier and Blackey Braden are smiling.
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