EFFINGHAM — Rod Wiethop finished his final season as head coach of the Effingham Junior High eighth-grade boys basketball team this season.
It was his 33rd year coaching the Mustangs and 37th year coaching overall. Wiethop has coached two games in his career at The Hickory Gym in Knightstown, Ind., with the second of those two coming this past November.
The famed gymnasium is featured in the movie “Hoosiers” and remains a venue for basketball teams to play at during their respective seasons.
“Hoosiers” was released in 1986. It is one of Wiethop’s favorite films.
“Best basketball move ever made, in my opinion,” he said.
Wiethop came across an article online before the season started that mentioned the gym was still being rented out to basketball teams for games.
“My wife and I were talking and I said, ‘I don’t want you to buy me anything for Christmas. If you want to do something for me, here’s what I want you to do,’” Wiethop said. “They’ve done such a wonderful job of keeping it looking like it is.”
The last time Wiethop took his Effingham team there, Mattoon went with them.
This time around, it was Robinson.
“Vince (Rohr) did most of the legwork, but I helped him a lot,” Wiethop said.
Both the seventh- and eighth-grade teams played the Raiders.
Wiethop said it is a “must” for his players to watch “Hoosiers.”
“I used to show my teams (the movie) every year,” he said. “If you played for me, you watched ‘Hoosiers.’ That was a must.
“We asked probably half of them (this year) and they either hadn’t seen it or known anything about it.”
The seventh-grade team won, 18-4.
EJHS led 10-2 at the end of the first quarter and 18-4 at halftime. Neither team scored in the second half.
Hunter Yager led the Mustangs with eight points.
Colby Field had four points and Will Schuler, Logan Shoemaker and Trenton Partlow each had two points.
The eighth-grade team then competed, losing in overtime, 46-42.
EJHS led 12-6 at the end of the first quarter. Robinson led 20-18 at halftime and 32-25 at the end of the third. The Mustangs outscored the Raiders 12-5 in the fourth. Robinson outscored EJHS 9-5 in overtime.
Justus Bridges led the Mustangs with 14 points.
Deek Thompson had eight points. Peyton O’Dell had seven points. Calvin Beck and Jared Klingler each had five points and Yager had three points.
The scoreboard must have been the issue, though.
Wiethop said that he won both games the first time he was there with his team as “Hickory” on the scoreboard. This year, EJHS went 1-1 as “Terhune,” one of the rival schools to “Hickory” in the movie.
Wiethop added that both teams did get to use the home locker room, which was shown numerous times during the film.
“We exchanged locker rooms at halftime, so that both teams got to experience being in the ‘Normal Dale’ locker room,” he said.