1979 SHS team members share memories of championship season

The Shelbyville Golden Bears boys basketball team captured sectional and regional championships in 1979.

The 45 years that have passed since March of 1979 do not seem to have dimmed the recall of Golden Bear basketball teammates Rick Moorhead and Tim Bowles.

On Saturday, the two expressed vivid recollections of their senior basketball season that culminated in a dramatic last second 42-40 championship game victory over Columbus East in the Columbus North Regional.

That 1979 Shelbyville team was highlighted during a remote broadcast with Giant FM’s Johnny McCrory from the Golden Bears Boys Basketball/Football Golf Benefit Saturday.

“I was down low but I remember there was a high screen and (junior guard Mark) Craft came off the screen and found himself open,” said Moorhead. “Time was running out and he hit the shot from just left of the key area to win the game.”

Photo of the basketball reaching the rim before going in which turned out to be the game-winning shot from Mark Craft in Shelbyville's 42-20 regional championship game win over Columbus East in 1979.

Shelbyville had finished the regular season 15-5 and defeated New Palestine 54-46 in the Shelbyville Sectional title contest following victories in two preliminary games. The team returned six seniors from a 1978 team that finished 20-7 and lost a narrow regional championship tilt to Columbus East.

“We beat Anderson Madison Heights, a perennial power, the second game of the 1978-79 season. I think that win solidified in our minds that we had the potential to be very good and do some big things,” said Moorhead.

Shelbyville won the semifinal regional game 77-63 over an excellent Bloomington North team that had a record of 20-3. That pitted the Golden Bears at 19-5 against the state’s third ranked Columbus East Olympians; a team that had claimed a two-point verdict over Shelbyville at Garrett Gymnasium earlier in the season.

“East slowed the game down,” stated Moorhead (photo). “We were an up-tempo team that averaged 75 points a game so slowing it down took away one of our strengths and forced us to be a little more patient.”

Columbus East jumped out to an early 8-2 advantage, however the Golden Bears fought back to tie the score at 10 and it was back-and-forth from that point. East missed a scoring opportunity in the final minute of regulation with the score tied and Shelbyville elected to forego a timeout and play for the final shot.

That set the stage for Craft’s decisive field goal with three seconds remaining. The Olympians’ Mark Spinks hoisted a desperation three-quarter court shot that ricocheted off the front of the rim as the buzzer sounded and Shelbyville celebrated its first semistate berth in 26 years.

Shelbyville lost in the opening round of the semistate at Indianapolis’ Hinkle Fieldhouse the following week, 80-61, to Indianapolis North Central.

“The game was tied at 31 at halftime, but things just got away from us in the second half and we never could recover,” said Moorhead.

Moorhead led the 1978-79 Golden Bears in scoring and rebounding and finished as one of only 10 Golden Bear players to reach the 1,000-point career mark. He went on to establish several records as a player at Franklin College. He retired in 2022 after 25 years as a youth professional at the local Boys and Girls Club.

Bowles (photo), whose primary Shelbyville basketball responsibilities were ball-handling, passing and defense, is a businessman who has resided with his family in Texas for many years.

Other members of the Shelbyville 1978-79 regional championship team were seniors Kirk Eads, Keith Limpus, Jim Sprong and Jeff Gundrum; juniors Craft, Mike Blackburn, Laymon Carter; and sophomores Scott Jones and Tim O’Banyon. 

The semistate loss notwithstanding, Bowles recalls the heightened enthusiasm following the team’s magical run.

“We had a caravan that came back from Columbus after the big win in the regional and the police escort led everyone backward around the circle,” remembers Bowles. “That whole basketball experience was such a fantastic example of community spirit.”

Both Moorhead and Bowles cite head coach Pat Rady as being the catalyst behind the successful campaign.

“I could never say enough good things about Coach Rady,” said Bowles. “He created a basketball family for us and we will always remember that.”

Moorhead echoed his teammates’ sentiments: “Coach Rady and his wife Margaret made it very special. He became a second dad to all of us.”

Rady, who had coaching stints at Bainbridge and Winchester prior to coming to Shelbyville, went on to coach at Terre Haute South and Cloverdale after leaving Shelbyville in 1980. He retired from coaching in 2015 as one of the winningest coaches in Indiana basketball history.

“He may not say it, but I will always believe that Shelbyville was Coach Rady’s favorite place to coach,” declared Moorhead. “No one can ever convince me otherwise.”

Saturday, more than 45 years removed from that watershed triumph, the former Golden Bear teammates enjoyed the day at the golf outing with other former SHS athletes and supporters and reflected on their Shelbyville basketball experience with a sense of pride and gratitude.

“My mom died when I was very young and my father was not around so those coaches and teachers at Shelbyville became extremely important in my life,” said Bowles. “Coaches like Rady, Tom Gould, Tom Hession, Dennis Hearne, Steve Drake and Tom McKinney, they were true mentors for me. I can never thank them enough.”

“All of us players had grown up playing together at the Boys Club, then through junior high and high school,” Bowles continued. “We had a lot of basketball success and remain close friends to this day. Obviously, you move on and do other things in life but something like that championship season was special. It stays with you.”