Timeout for OT

 Liberty Center, In., is a humble little place that like a lot of humble little places used to be less humble and not quite as little, though it was never what you could call a thriving metropolis down there in Wells County. These days it's a four-way stop and a gas station/convenience store and the Methodist church and a weedy railroad crossing, and that's about it, that's all y'all.

Once upon a time, though, a high school stood where the church parking lot is now.

The teams that played in its tiny bandbox gym were called the Lions.

And one weekend in March -- 60 years ago this week, in fact -- the Liberty Center Lions made themselves immortal.

Went down to Marion, the Lions did, to play a regional game against the Swayzee Speedkings, themselves now long vanished. The Speedkings had a kid named Jack Saylor who did a lot of their heavy lifting; the Lions countered with a kid named Dick Harris. And that afternoon they played and played and played some more.

Eventually, Saylor and Swayzee prevailed. 

In nine overtimes.

That's still a record in the freighted history of  the Indiana high school basketball tournament, and it's why Liberty Center (and Swayzee) will forever be remembered though both schools were swallowed by consolidation decades ago. I know about it because I have family down that way; my mom grew up on a farm three miles south of Liberty and went to high school there, and a longtime family friend, Bruce Stanton, actually played in the nine-overtime game.

That's not why I'm bringing this up today, however.

I'm bringing it up because this week the young man who coached the Liberty Center Lions in that epic game passed, and God bless him.  His name was Richard Butt, and he went on to coach high school basketball in Indiana for years and years, including a good stretch of time at Leo High School here in Allen County. 

That he passed during regional week exactly 60 years after that regional week lends a symmetry to his life not often seen, a circularity that takes you from here to that long-ago afternoon in Marion and back again. If the end of a long and fruitful life can ever be described as somehow appropriate, Coach Butt dying at this particular time in this particular year fits the description.

I can't remember if I ever talked to Coach about that singular day -- surely I did, but time does cruel things to the memory -- but I know I talked to Stanton and several others who were there. It's how I know Dick Harris fouled out in the waning seconds of regulation, and after that whoever got the tip in overtime simply held the ball for one shot.

Shot; miss. Shot; miss. That's how it went as every nerve in the place was stretched thin and my granddad (or so family lore goes) kept leaving the gym and coming back because he couldn't stand the tension.

Finally, in the ninth OT, the staredown ended and Swayzee hit a couple of shots and that was it. It's unlikely there will ever be another game like it, especially if the forces pushing for a high school shot clock in Indiana get their way.

In the meantime, there's a wide spot in the road in Wells County that forever will be remembered in Indiana high school basketball history. As will the young coach who was there for it.

Rest well, Coach Butt. May you discover nine overtimes only seemed like eternity, and that the real thing is infinitely better.