GREENFIELD — As Mike Edwards drove through his hometown, he remembered Greenfield as it was when he left in 1969. If there were a golden age for Indiana high school basketball, Edwards lived in its time and place.
The Hoosier hometown hero remembers the courts at Riley Park, where he’d spend hours with his friends every summer honing his shooting and dribbling skills. He remembers the building across the street from the courthouse that used to be Thomas’ Drug Store, where he and his classmates could be found after school, sipping sodas and chowing on burgers. He remembers playing tournament games in his former teammates’ backyards on a school night; sometimes, they lasted till 1 in the morning.
Perhaps most of all, Edwards remembers playing for the Greenfield Tigers in 1969, wearing his Converse sneakers and wool warmups, psyching himself up for the next big game. The whole town crowded into the bleachers to watch the Tigers play and witness Edwards set school records that still haven’t been broken to this day.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryFast-forward 49 years, and a fellow Greenfield native helped the Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer reunite with a token from his past. And all those memories came flooding back, Edwards said.
‘A special place’
Edwards, known by his fans as the “Greenfield Gunner,” was shocked to receive a message from Greenfield local Randall Wells, saying he wished to return something that rightfully belonged to the former basketball champion: a road sign honoring Edwards’ accomplishments, put up by the city shortly after his graduation.
The sign, in shining white capital letters: “HOME OF MIKE EDWARDS, 1969 INDIANA BASKETBALL SCORING CHAMPION” was one of three displayed in town shortly after Edwards’ graduation, Wells said. The signs were up for only a few weeks in 1969 before county officials were forced to take them down because of vandalism. It wasn’t long after the signs came down, Wells stumbled upon one — relatively undamaged — lying in a junk yard.
But he didn’t know where the athlete who’d inspired him had ended up to return it.
Wells, also a Greenfield High School grad, had followed Edwards’ entire basketball career. He didn’t want the piece of history to go to waste.
“On some days, as I’m daydreaming of the past, as all of us do at times, I will see a young teenager standing in front of the trophy case at the old high school, looking at a picture of the greatest Tiger Team of them all, and then, as quickly as the vision appeared, it is gone.”
From Edwards’ book, “The Last Tiger”
And so, the sign found a home in Wells’ garage, a memory from his own high school days.
Forty-nine years later, Wells happened upon Mike Edwards’ profile on Facebook. There he was, the Greenfield Gunner, just a little more gray these days.
He didn’t hesitate to send him a friend request.
Edwards — who now lives in Tennessee — loaded up the car after getting Wells’ message. He thought the signs were long gone, discarded to the dump after vandals had their fun.
Flabbergasted, Edwards made the trek back to Greenfield, bringing his wife and a few friends along for the nostalgic ride.
Edwards, who coached high school and college basketball long after he left the court, doesn’t often get the chance to return to the setting of his youth, said Debbie Edwards, his wife. But whenever he gets the chance to visit home, she sees his face light up as he recalls all of the great stories from his childhood.
“He talks about this place all the time,” she said with a smile. “It holds a special place in his heart.”
A hometown hero
From 1965-1969, the 6-feet-2-inch 180-pound shooting guard put 2,343 points on the board throughout his career at the former Greenfield High School.
That record remains unbroken, despite Edwards having played as a strong outside shooter in an era before the 3-point line existed. He led the state in an average of 34.4 points per game his junior and senior years and was named a high school All-American. Edwards led the Indiana All-Star team to victory against Kentucky twice in the 1969 postseason classic.
Edwards didn’t turn in his Chuck Taylors after high school. Edwards grew up in a time when NCAA freshmen weren’t allowed to play varsity ball, but in his sophomore year, the Greenfield Gunner helped lead Tennessee to a 14-4 conference record and a Southeastern Conference regular season co-championship. Edwards was named the co-SEC Men’s Basketball Player of the Year in 1972.
Edwards was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.
Older fans of the sport remember the power of Hoosier Mania of that time, Edwards said. Basketball was the center of community activity; to some fans, the state’s best high school players were as well-known as collegiate athletes, he said.
Just as important as the athlete was his hometown; every great player came to represent the place where they grew up, Edwards added.
After meeting up with Wells in downtown Greenfield, he looked down at that sign and remembered his own roots.
“Communities were really proud of the players,” Edwards said. “Richmond, Scottsburg, East Chicago, Anderson; it made no difference. You would associate a player with the town. That’s why the memories are so fond for me, because my name was always associated with Greenfield.”
As a little kid growing up in a town that was swept up by Hoosier Hysteria, Wells remembers the roar of the fans as Edwards sank shot after shot every Friday night.
Going to a Greenfield game always made for a memorable night, Wells said.
The old cliché that all Hoosiers love basketball rings true, but in Edwards’ day, the energy was something altogether different, Wells said. While modern fans can relate to the setting — the smell of the popcorn, the shouts from the cheering section — attending a game back then was an experience you had to have lived to fully understand.
“Whenever you went to that old gym, and it was always full to the point of overflowing,” Wells said. “You couldn’t hear anybody,” he added. “You couldn’t hear anything.”
Wells had wanted to return the sign celebrating Edwards’ successes back to its rightful owner for decades.
Now, the sign is back where it belongs, Wells said. He’s glad the memento from Edwards’ prime is back in the family.
For Edwards, trinkets like the sign are more than souvenirs; they’re pieces of basketball heritage. And heritage is important in the world of Indiana basketball; more so than any other state in America, Edwards said. With heritage comes inspiration, which inspires even the smallest of teams to break records and win state championships, Edwards said.
For every great player, there is a community behind him, their support, their anchor, Edwards said. For Indiana’s 1969 scoring champ, that community is Greenfield.
Sitting alongside Wells on a recent afternoon, Edwards said he owes his entire career to the small city that raised him.
“It’s all right here,” Edwards said, pointing out the window toward the park where he hit the court for the first time. “I would have gone nowhere; I would have been nothing if it hadn’t been for this right here.”
