John Jordan (Photo provided)

By Darrel Radford
Contributing Writer

“Be a good sport, so we’ll have good sports.” – John Jordan

The 1981 New Castle boys sectional basketball tournament will always stand out in this writer’s mind, not because of what happened or who was there. Rather, because of who was not there.

That was the first sectional tournament I had ever experienced without seeing the man in the wheel chair along press row, the small man whose smile – and impact on the community – was larger than life.

John Jordan, beloved newspaper columnist, tireless civic servant and one of the best friends high school sports ever had, was gone. He died Feb. 24 of that year.

The late Tom Mayhill, long-time publisher of The Knightstown Banner, said it best in an eloquent tribute to John a few days later.

“The New Castle Sectional and Regional Tournament will not be the same this year,” Mayhill wrote. “They will never be the same again. A smiling young man will not be in his wheelchair on press row.

“The Henry County Historical Society, The New Castle Courier-Times sports page and WCTW also will never be quite the same again, because this highly motivated handicapped individual, who was so deeply loved by so many thousands in this county, has died,” Mayhill continued.

“Of all the individuals we have ever known, no one has inspired us so much in his achievements as this person,” Mayhill concluded. “It seemed so incredible that he could do so much with so little – except his unequaled determination to excel with a couple of fingers, his eyes, his ears, his smile and his talent to communicate.”

I was sports editor of The Courier-Times when John died. His Sports Party Line columns were always neatly typed, never late and ever so interesting. His radio programs on what was then known as WCTW were always compelling.

This in spite of the fact that he suffered from polio most of his life and had use of only a few fingers on one hand.

Retired Tri High School teacher and former Courier-Times sports correspondent Tom Woodward wrote about Jordan in 1991 and crafted some memorable words about a truly inspiring life.

“Willard and Esther Jordan had to remain positive when they learned that their six-year-old had been stricken by polio in 1937. They retained teachers for tutoring services and eventually John was not only able to attend New Castle High School but graduated in the top five of his 1949 senior class,” Woodward wrote.

Herb Bunch remembers John well and said, in retrospect, it was amazing how well he got around during a time decades before the American Disabilities Act.

“His handicap didn’t stop him from doing a lot of things,” Bunch said. “He was a year ahead of me in school and that was at the old Walnut Street Building during a time when there weren’t any requirements to accommodate people with disabilities. I know he got around. I think the family had hired someone to help him. He was well-liked and everyone tried to help him as much as they could.”

“He became the voice for sports in Henry County, primarily New Castle. John really was fantastic in all that he could do and participate in with those obstacles,” Bunch concluded.

But Jordan’s passion for community went way beyond the basketball court. Jordan served as president of the Henry County Historical Society from 1973 to 1978. He was also very active in the Boy Scouts of America, instructional football programs and New Castle youth baseball.

Everett Cole served on the Breakfast Optimist board with John Jordan and marveled at how his abilities put the disabilities in the shadows. Jordan was the 1962 Optimist of the Year.

“He was just every place,” Cole said. “He found ways to do things when the rest of us would have given up. If you didn’t see him in person, you would have never known he had any kind of a setback at all. When you saw him, you wondered how in the world he was able to do all the things he did.”

Cole remembers the annual John M. Jordan Sectional Luncheon that was held each year for local teams the Saturday before the tournament. “It was John’s idea. Neil Thornhill and I were chairmen. It brought together all of the Henry County teams in a spirit of sportsmanship.”

This columnist remembers that luncheon well. I was a student manager for Blue River Valley and had a chance to attend the luncheon in the mid-1970s. Just a few years later, I counted it as a real privilege to sit next to John on press row at the Fieldhouse and get his take on a game as it was happening.

When class basketball arrived in 1997, the luncheon was discontinued because county teams no longer played in the same sectional.

But Jordan’s name – and spirit – lives on today, thanks to the New Castle Breakfast Optimist Club, which raised $25,000 after his death to make a library in his name possible at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame Museum. Interested readers can find much of John’s written work at that library.

Occasionally, it’s hard, even today, for me to look at press row in our magnificent Fieldhouse and not see him. John Jordan never scored a point for any Henry County high school team, yet he was as much a part of high school basketball here as any of the top player who became the topics for his Sports Party Line columns.

He was, indeed, a good sport.

Darrel Radford is a board member of the Henry County Historical Society and a contributing writer for The Courier-Times.