Will lightning ever strike twice? Can David beat Goliath a second time? These questions haunt everyone in the small town of Milan, Indiana, whose basketball team inspired Hoosiers, the greatest underdog sports movie ever made. From a town of just 1,816 residents, the team remains forever an underdog, but one with a storied past that has them eternally frozen in their 1954 moment of glory. Every ten years or so, Milan has a winning season, but for the most part, they only manage a win or two each year. And still, perhaps because it's the only option for Milan, the town believes that the Indians can rise again. Bill Riley follows the modern day Indians for a season and explores how the Milan myth still permeates the town, the residents, and their high level of expectations of the team. Riley deftly captures the camaraderie between the players and their coach and their school pride in being Indians. In the end, there are few wins or causes for celebration-there is only the little town where basketball is king and nearly the whole town shows up to watch each game. The legend of Milan and Hoosiers is both a blessing and a curse.
"Bill Riley's carefully observed and often lyrical book makes us feel what's at stake for the players, coaches, and families of 21st century Milan. We're given access to the sounds and sights of the small town gym: those strangely beautiful and often struggling cathedrals of Indiana's state religion... This book is an important addition to the literature of basketball."
Susan Neville, author of Butler's Big Dance
"The accomplishments of a group of young men in 1953-1954 forever put Milan on both the Hoosier and national basketball maps. Numerous authors have revisited Milan to contrast its' current condition with those of the 1950's, but none have quite honestly captured the full view of what Bill Riley relays in The Milan Miracle."
Chris May, Executive Director, Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame
"In mellifluous prose, Riley shows us that it takes as much humility as grit and determination to live under the shadow of a nearly sixty-year-old sports legend. Riley shows us that the real drama of sports less often lies in the last-minute shot than in the long run of acceptance of circumstances that are usually beyond our control."
