By CHUCK GODBY
Reporter Sports Columnist
I had many nice comments regarding my column where I shared memories of growing up in The Homesteads, the not-so-famous country suburb of Sheridan; however, many questioned why no mention of basketball.
After all, the Godby name was once prominent in Sheridan basketball during the glorious Hobbs Era.
Well, we played a lot of basketball in The Homesteads. Dad set up a nice little gravel surface basketball court in the driveway. Funny how the iron started out the regulation 10 feet high, but as the years passed, more gravel was added and finally asphalt topped the gravel and I believe the iron is about nine feet high now … or maybe less.
I still can’t touch the rim. Of course, I don’t jump as high as I did 40-some years ago either.
Back in the day there were many memorable basketball courts in local barns. Uncle John and Aunt Daisy Bowen had a basketball goal in their barn on the farm in which former Sheridan great and Hamilton County Hall of Famer Bill Bowen honed his skills … when it wasn’t filled with hay. Bob and Marilyn Welch moved from Carmel to Sheridan on a farm west of town with a barn and a basketball goal. We dubbed it The Cow Palace and played some intense ball there.
But some of the most memorable basketball games I recall were played in a two-car garage in a house in The Homesteads: The Godby Forum, we called it. We wrote it on top of the backboard, too.
A young Mike Shelburne cuts the net (actually a shoestring tied to the rim to save the net) after beating Joe Godby in a Godby Forum tournament championship game. (Photo provided by Chuck Godby)
It was either Ben Franklin’s or Pickett’s Five and Dime on Main Street, Sheridan – I don’t remember which – where we purchased a metal Nerf basketball goal and ball set. We secured the goal to a 2-by-3 piece of plywood that had to be lying around somewhere – probably in a house under construction in The Homesteads – and mounted it to the west wall in our garage. Maybe it was six feet high. It couldn’t have been much higher than that. It was originally intended for shooting hoops in an unheated garage during the winter, but it soon became the site of some pretty intense competition.
That goal, as I mentioned, was metal. No dunking was allowed as we probably couldn’t afford a backup goal. Today, all I see are plastic Nerf goals. I’m not sure they would have worked in The Forum. Too much flex.
I don’t recall who all played in the Godby Forum, but I know Mike Shelburne played more games there than anyone, other than me and my brothers Bob and Joe.
A lot of the games were played around the same time as the Indiana high school basketball tourney. It definitely set the mood. We had four-team (player) tournaments with blind draws for first-round pairings.
The basketball was always competitive. Bob Godby, Joe Godby and Mike Shelburne were three of the most competitive people I grew up with. Me? I was less athletic and more interested in other stuff, like game-day preparation.
That’s why we all agree we might have been 40-plus years ahead of our time.
Part of playing in The Godby Forum meant being introduced before the game. With no audience per se, we had to create one.
If you are around my age, you might recall the day when there were four, perhaps five channels to watch on your television set. And those broadcasting stations did not stay on 24 hours. When they would sign off, the television became a sea of static.
I’m not sure how we thought of doing this, but one night when a station we were watching went off the air and the static came on, we turned up the volume and recorded the static sound with a tape recorder for several minutes.
When it was time to announce the starting lineup of one person, the tape recorder was running and when we introduced the player, we’d increase the volume and it sounded just like a crowd of people erupting in applause.
I’m trying to recall if we used the manufactured crowd noise during a game when baskets were scored. I’m thinking we probably tried once or twice.
Mike, Joe and I recently discussed the possibility of sports teams that play in front of zero fans due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, possibly adopting our crowd noise idea for future use. It worked 40-plus years ago, although I’m wondering if any TV stations go off the air anymore, and if they do, is there static?
I can’t stay up late enough these days to find out.
The Godby Forum era ended when Mom and Dad got this mammoth, upright freezer that unfortunately plugged in along the right baseline. If you drove the baseline, you’d better be careful not to knock the plug out. And if you did, you’d better remember to plug it back in.
Well, one night we forgot to put the plug back. And that’s how The Godby Forum era came to an end, along with several pounds of once-frozen meat.