One of the best parts of this business I’ve been involved in for a few decades is the people I get to meet and the stories I get to tell. Once in a while, I discover some people I did not get to meet but wish I had. Such as …
Ken Ellenberger called last week and asked if I could walk down to his real estate office and look over a letter to the editor he wanted to submit. It’s always interesting to stop by that office to see what new old stuff he has on display. He has quite a collection of hyper-local antiques and memorabilia.
It seems that a memorial service was held at the old Tiger Den in late March (now the home of Life Community Church) for a fellow Bluffton High School grad from his era. The family had not chosen to have the funeral home send his obituary to the News-Banner. He nor any of his family had lived here since Mike Milholland left Bluffton to play basketball and attend Tulane University in 1960.
“The service was conducted by loving family, loyal friends and classmates and others,” Ken, a 1963 grad, wrote. “Many friends remembered his enthusiasm, abundance of talent and his strong will to succeed and win.”
I had heard this name before, but couldn’t quite place it. So I did a little research.
Ken shared that the Tigers advanced to the “Elite 8” in 1960. I knew this was during what was still the single-class state basketball tournament which had produced the “Milan Miracle” only a few years earlier. Were the small-town Tigers dreaming of such things, I wonder, after winning the regional and then after winning their morning game at the semi-state held at the “beautiful Allen County War Memorial Coliseum”? (A description made famous by legendary Fort Wayne broadcaster Hilliard Gates who surely called those games.)
It was not to be; they fell to Fort Wayne Central that night.
Ken had mentioned a picture that ran in the News-Banner the following Monday, which I found looking through the old microfilms along with another picture of the team celebrating their regional championship the week prior. There was Mike Milholland in the back row; a few people to his left was “student manager Joe Smekens.” Seeing that connected to my first inclination that Milholland’s name sounded familiar — a story was included in the book Joe put together after his retirement from the N-B: “Window of Wells County. A Reporter’s Favorite Stories.”
milholland-photoJoe’s column was written in 1985 on the 25th anniversary of the 1959-60 Tiger team’s run. He described Mike as a “stupendous rebounder” who, at the time, set a record for the number of varsity games in a Tiger uniform. He was named to several all-state teams his senior year. Joe interviewed Mike for that story, who shared that the Kokomo game was “the ultimate game” for that team, a game that left them all emotionally drained after what Joe described as a classic overtime thriller. “We just didn’t have anything left for the Central game,” he told Joe.
Milholland, who died the day after this past Christmas, was heavily recruited and chose to go to Tulane. He later transferred to Middle Tennessee State, graduating in 1965. While there, he set new single-game rebounding and scoring records in the same game — 44 points and 32 rebounds. After a career of teaching and coaching in Tennessee and North Carolina — “and mentor to troubled youth,” according to his obituary — Mike retired in 2008; he and his wife moved to Savannah, Ga., to be close to family.
Ken suggested I talk to Ann Flaningham, another BHS grad of the era. She shared that her brother John was a close friend of Mike’s in high school, a friendship that continued as their careers took them both away from their hometown. When Mike was diagnosed with cancer last year, the two spoke nearly daily by phone, right up until Christmas Day.
If Joe were still with us, there’s no doubt he would have been at that service and most likely would have spoken. He felt that team may have been the best Bluffton ever put on the court. In that 1985 conversation, Mike related how all five starters went on to play Division 1 basketball, adding that three others were also good players and “we had other guys on the bench who could start nowadays, maybe even the student managers.”
Joe added parenthetically: “I like to think he was referring to me…”
Back to the memorial service: “A former teammate of Mike’s said,’He was a coach’s dream,’” Ken Ellenberger wrote in what would have been a brief tribute to one of Bluffton’s products. “As a former member of the board of school trustees, it is my opinion that Mike was the best athlete (basketball) in the history of BHS.”
It was obvious that Ken has a high regard for Mike beyond his skill on the court. And this story fits well into an idea of a project I’ve toyed with the past few years — to do a series on people born and/or raised here who went on to make their mark in the world beyond our county’s borders.
While I may not have had the privilege of meeting them, I could still write about them. That’d be better than not meeting them at all.
miller@news-banner.com
