By Mike McGraw
Executive Director
MARION – They say that sports are cathartic, and also that young people are resilient. Both of those theories were put to the test Feb. 11 when the Mississinewa girls basketball team took the court in the Eastbrook Sectional.
A few short hours earlier, the girls had attended a public viewing to say goodbye to Titus Justus. Justus was a senior member of Mississinewa’s highly successful boys team who was killed in an automobile accident earlier this week.
The young Indians faced a stiff challenge. They were heavy underdogs in their girls game against defending sectional champion Blackford. In the end, they fell quietly, 46-29.
There are those who would say this game should not have been played. They would argue the girls were under too heavy an emotional burden. Playing the game, they would claim, was a slight to the memory of Justus.
Those people are wrong.
This game wasn’t about winning and losing. It was about leaning on each other to lighten the emotional burden. It was about a group of young ladies pulling on a jersey and understanding fully, perhaps for the first time, that it represented more than an arbitrary color scheme someone determined a half century ago.
On this night, it represented their unity with each other and the community they call home. This game was about standing up to an often cruel world and declaring they were stronger than any senseless arrow it could shoot their way.
Ten or 20 years from now, the folks in Gas City will not remember the score of this relatively insignificant tournament game. What they will remember is that this was one of those rare nights when a parent can see their child grow up right before their eyes.
They will remember it as evidence that those lessons about responsibility, commitment, and purpose really had sunk in, even if their daughter’s bedroom was still a mess and she didn’t do her homework immediately upon getting home every day.
More importantly, the youth in this game will grow to adulthood and bear another generation who will be instilled with the same values and character.
We at Hoosier Authority bow our heads in sorrow for the family and friends of Titus Justus. We also salute the students of Mississinewa for exhibiting the same traits that made them love him …
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