"Season of Upsets: Farm boys, city kids, Hoosier basketball and the dawn of the 1950s" is a new book that chronicles the 1950 Indiana high school basketball season. It is set in LaPorte County. The author, Matthew A. Werner, grew up in Union Mills and has been working on the book for three years.
He was inspired by an old 8x10 photograph of the Union Mills high school basketball team that he found in his parents’ attic thirty years ago. One of the players in the photo was his uncle. “It started as a quest for family history to learn more about my Uncle Dean,” Werner said, “but one amazing fact led to another until I realized that was one very unique season and somebody had to tell the story.”
The book captures the experience of basketball during that era as well as the life and times of the people who lived it. But it’s not just a story about basketball. The students were born into the Depression and grew up in the shadow of World War II. The coaches were veterans of war. Sportswriters sparred on the pages of rival newspapers. One school burned to the ground. Many people struggled to get by, but in the end there were lots of happy memories.
For more information, visit www.seasonofupsets.com and www.facebook.com/seasonofupsets. Copies are now available on www.amazon.com and at
- Dewey’s Auto Supply, Wanatah,
- Les & Pearl’s, Union Mills,
- LaPorte County Museum, LaPorte,
- Scarby’s South Shore Pub, Michigan City
- and from Union Mills Historical Society members.