Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Just like David Lee Roth was… sort of… welcomed back into Van Halen, Carmel and Center Grove are now welcomed to rejoin the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference (MIC).
The conference was founded in the 1996-1997 scholastic athletic year, and the gang will be back together again for the 2026-2027 scholastic athletic year, exactly 30 years from its official launch.
How did we get here?
If you’ve ever seen the 1982 classic movie based on a novel by wunderkind book and screenwriter Cameron Crowe, Fast Times at Ridgemont High offers us the best comparative explanation.
The movie featured an ensemble cast of mostly little-known and unknown actors whose life stories sometimes waffled together in suburban, shopping-mall obsessed Los Angeles California.
The exception among the lesser-known actors was Sean Penn, whose acting chips were already gaining producers’ and directors’ collective attention. Penn is the most memorable character in the film playing surfer-stoner-procurer-of-classroom-delivered-pizza, Jeff Spicoli.
As classic and still well-loved as this character is today, it’s another character who illustrates what happened among Carmel and Center Grove, and the rest of the MIC schools: Ben Davis, Lawrence North, Lawrence Central, North Central, Pike, and Warren Central.
Brad Hamilton - a young man setting his sites on a senior year with an impressive set of wheels, disposable income, and the dilemma of enjoying his final high school year with or without his girlfriend. He is seen after the movie starts washing a bathroom mirror while figuring out how to tell his girlfriend he wanted his freedom.
Carmel and Center Grove, similarly, sought membership in an athletic conference in the Indiana suburbs in late fall 2021 that included the likes of schools who formed the Hoosier Crossroads Conference (HCC). These were schools located among prosperous, large (sometimes both) suburbs with explosive enrollment growth, including Westfield, Brownsburg, Hamilton Southeast, Fishers to name a few.
Just like Brad, who sought greener pastures before encountering a series of unfortunate events before his girlfriend ironically broke up with him, Carmel and Center Grove were voted out by each of the other MIC schools for this pursuit of HCC membership.
Even worse, the other MIC schools – like Brad’s girlfriend – broke up with our two recently re-welcomed members before the HCC tabled their vote on their addition in December 2021. It turns out Brad was granted half of his wish.
In the meantime, Brad continues – in the film – a downward spiral many boomers and Gen-X-ers are remarkably familiar with.
Carmel and Center Grove were suddenly IHSAA independents.
Were the strengths among numerous athletic and academic competitions and evaluations weakened?
Certainly not.
Carmel continued its decades-long swimming dominance while Center Grove garnered a few more IHSAA state football titles in Class 6A.
Their independence, however, burdened its coordination among all sports including those played at middle school levels.
Center Grove, for example, scheduled five out-of-state football opponents for its 2023 campaign. Athletic directors from each district maintained some non-conference competition among remaining MIC schools, but scheduling and travel to farther locations was a heavy lift since other area schools had little or no interest in being fed to these two lions.
Things worked out for Brad Hamilton thanks to a distraction by Spicoli so Hamilton could scald a gun-wielding cash drawer robber with hot coffee to avoid being shot while on the job.
It seems the MIC will be one big happy family.
It’s said the HCC’s burgeoning, and in some cases already formidable athletic programs were the draw for the shunned IHSAA super powers, and each school came to realize they comprised the MIC principles of blanketing competition among academics, the arts, and athletics for the want of some un-found/never-attained hot girl in Brad’s senior year: the attraction drawn to the HCC’s athletics.
Furthermore, several HCC schools were simply fine getting better at their collective athletic craft without Carmel or Center Grove as part of their love lives.
Carmel and Center Grove were rejected even though they were single. However, in the 2026-2027 scholastic athletic year, are closer to home appreciating the breadth of the MIC.
