BY JEFF HOLSINGER, Times-Union Sports Writer

Walt Kindy coached three years at Beaver Dam, but what a three years those were.

He guided Beaver Dam to winning records and sectional titles every season.

He led Beaver Dam to two regional championships and two trips to the state finals, the 1932-33 and 1933-34 seasons.

He introduced the 3-2 zone defense to the area.

Kindy died of cancer in 1984, but he will be inducted in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame posthumously this evening. The ceremony will be held at the Westin Hotel in Indianapolis. Fourteen people will be inducted.

"He'd like this pretty good," says Gene Marshall, a forward who played on both teams that went to the state finals. "It's just too bad he couldn't make it."

He won't, but widow Dorthea and their two boys will, along with former players Marshall and Charles "Chick" Kern.

Work on Kindy's 1997 induction began in 1988, spearheaded by Kern. Kern spoke to two people, Jim Powers and Marvin Wood.

Powers coached successful basketball teams at several places, including Rochester and Elkhart Memorial. Wood coached Milan - the small school the movie "Hoosiers" is based on - to its state championship.

The two labored on Kern's behalf, bringing Kindy up to the committee. Finally, this day came.

"I always felt he deserved it," Kern, a guard on Kindy's teams, says.

The way Kern recalls, when Kindy arrived, success arrived. The year before Kindy was named coach he remembers Beaver Dam winning one or two basketball games.

Beaver Dam went 12-8 and won the sectional to advance to the regional in Kindy's first year.

Beaver Dam beat Columbia City 33-22 in the 1933 regional to advance to the Sweet 16 - the state finals back then - in Kindy's second year. Semistate didn't exist. The Beavers, 27-2 that year, lost to Fort Wayne North Side 37-25.

The Beavers beat Ligonier 34-33 in the 1934 regional. They again went to the Sweet 16, where they lost to Richmond 41-12.

Before Kindy, this school never went to the state finals. Beaver Dam had 51 students in the four high school grades, Kern says. Smaller than, yep, even Milan. A small school like Beaver Dam in the state finals was unheard of, so the Beavers made headlines.

Before Kindy, people made cracks about Beaver Dam's size. Kindy helped put Beaver Dam basketball on the map.

The school did other things under Kindy, like beat Warsaw. Beaver Dam upset Warsaw 13-9 in 1932. Former player Bill McFarland believes this was Beaver Dam's first win ever over Warsaw.

Beaver Dam was the smallest school in the county, and Warsaw was heavily favored. One newspaper story described the Beaver Dam win as "one of the greatest contests ever staged in the county."

The Beavers used Kindy's specialty - zone defense - to win. The same newspaper story noted "Warsaw couldn't break through Beaver Dam's defense."

Kindy was an innovator. He preached a 3-2 zone that other teams had never seen back then. Three men stood out front, while the two others were underneath the basket.

Kindy concentrated on shooting, running different plays and the 3-2 zone defense in his practices. Conditioning wasn't stressed then as it is now.

Most, if not all, of the boys did farmwork. That made them strong. Practices weren't held right after school. The boys would go to school, come home to do chores, eat and then go to practice at 7 p.m. or so.

Kindy's team stuck with the 3-2 zone. The Beavers, Kern says, never played a 2-3 or 1-3-1 or any other zone. Just a 3-2 zone.

"That was the big difference with our team, the zone defense," Kermit "Bus" Leininger, a guard, says. "Other teams didn't understand how to handle it. It was new. I know in Kosciusko County, they didn't understand how it worked."

One team on Beaver Dam's schedule was Leiters Ford. One time the Beavers' defense kept Leiters Ford scoreless until the third quarter.

"The gym at Leiters Ford was narrow," Leininger recalls. "When the three men in front extended their hands, they covered clear across the width of the floor.

"Leiters Ford didn't know how to get through the zone defense."

Besides Kern, Leininger, McFarland and Marshall, two other players from the two teams that went to the Sweet 16 are still alive. They are Claude Swick and Devon Tucker.

Marshall, Swick and Tucker still live in the area. Leininger lives in Fort Wayne and Kern in the South Bend area. McFarland, the leading scorer on the team, lives in California.

If Kindy's zone defense is the first thing the players remember about his coaching, his halftime adjustments are the second thing.

"He could see the weaknesses and point them out to you," Kern says. "Then you had to follow his instructions. That's all there was to it."

"He could look and tell what was working and what wasn't," Marshall says.

Most important than Kindy the coach, these men say, was Kindy the man. Kindy taught math and physical education. He was in his late 20s when he coached Beaver Dam, and he related to his players.

Kindy, who came from Middlebury, graduated from Manchester College in 1929. Kern wanted to attend there. Kindy knew people at the college, so he went out of his way to help Kern. Kindy told the college Kern would need some help financially.

The school accepted Kern. Kern got his education.

That's the way Kindy was.

"We all thought a lot of him," Swick says. "We listened to him. Whatever he had to say, we listened."

"He got us to believe in ourselves," Kern says.

After the 1933-1934 season, Kindy left Beaver Dam for South Bend Central High School. There he served as athletic director and became friends with John Wooden. When Wooden coached at UCLA, Kindy scouted for him up until 1971, when he retired.

Kindy stood only 5-foot-7 or so. But Coach Kindy packed boundless energy and a motivational fire in that frame.

"He had a personality that captivated people," Leininger says. "Not only his ballplayers, but patrons, fans and everybody. His personality was something. He had drive." [[In-content Ad]]