Game night in Franklin, and the entire community it seemed had gathered to support their hometown heroes, the famed “Wonder Five.”
The basketball team representing first Franklin High School, then Franklin College, was one of the first powerhouse squads in the state. They won championships in high school, then more at the college level.
Whenever they played in tournaments around the state, people would come together around an electronic scoreboard that would be updated with the score. When tickets went on sale for games, lines wrapped around the block. Victory parades for the team were momentous.
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“The Franklin community was obsessed with them,” said David Pfeiffer, director of the Johnson County Museum of History. “It was a huge, huge source of civic pride.”
In the 1920s, and for generations since, the Wonder Five has captured the imagination and adoration of the Franklin community. Now, on top of championships, individual awards and hall of fame inductions, the team will be honored once again.
The Wonder Five has been deemed worthy of an official state historical marker from the Indiana Historical Bureau. A group of Franklin College students led the campaign to have the marker installed, and it becomes just the fourth official marker in the county.
“It’s amazing to see student work that can get transformed like this,” said Meredith Clark-Wiltz, history professor at Franklin College. “It’s always fun with projects like this to see how they keep giving back and grow connections in the community. This will be a spot where students can come back and see the imprint that they made.”
The Wonder Five refers to the teams that played at Franklin High School from 1918 to 1922, then at Franklin College from 1922 to 1926. The team started playing together in elementary school, then took the high school basketball world in Indiana by storm.
Led by coach Ernest “Griz” Wagner and star player Robert “Fuzzy” Vandivier, the team was state champion from 1920 to 1922.
“That was kind of the kick-off of the whole ‘Hoosier Hysteria’ period,” Pfeiffer said. “Winning three straight championships, that wasn’t done again until the 1980s. For all of the years of Indiana high school basketball, the Franklin Wonder Five was the bar.”
After graduation, and when Wagner took the head coaching job at Franklin College, they all continued on as a team in college. In 1923, they went undefeated, and were considered the national champions.
Their undefeated streak eventually reached 50 games over two years, and the college notched victories over storied programs such as Notre Dame, Illinois, Wisconsin and Purdue. There was no NCAA tournament at the time, but the team won five straight college state championships in a row.
“To have a team go from high school to college together, and have that same kind of success, it’s mind-boggling,” Pfeiffer said. “That got their name all around the Midwest.”
The impact of the Wonder Five on the community is still felt today. Franklin College’s mascot is the Grizzlies, named after Wagner. The high school is the Grizzly Cubs for the same reason.
Books have been written about the teams. The recreational space at what is now the Boys and Girls Club of Franklin, which sits on the site of the burned-down gymnasium of the old high school, is known as the Wonder Five Center.
Wagner and Vandivier, plus team members Burt Fiddle, John Gant and Paul Underwood, were all inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Vandivier is in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The idea to have the Wonder Five honored with a historical marker was born from a class at Franklin College. Co-taught by Clark-Wiltz and Pfeiffer, the course focused on public history.
When teaching the class, the two try to think of an appropriate semester-long project, one that combines the type of research needed for history majors while also getting at the heart of public history.
“Public history is different than a lot of the other courses that history majors take on campus, because it’s not necessarily focused on a particular geographical space or time period,” Clark-Wiltz said. “Rather, it’s about how historians can use the skills and reasoning and knowledge they have to engage in different communities and audiences.”
Pfeiffer knew that the county had fewer historical markers than the Indiana Historical Bureau recommends, which is five. The only three currently standing in Johnson County are markers for Gov. Paul Vories McNutt and Gov. Roger D. Branigin, both erected in Franklin at their birthsites.
A third, recognizing prolific artist William Merritt Chase, is in Nineveh.
The county has had two other markers approved, one commemorating the Whetzel Trace pioneer road and another recognizing an Underground Railroad station in Franklin. Neither are still standing.
“We thought about what an appropriate topic would be, and knew that the Wonder Five has a wonderful connection to Franklin College, to Franklin. It’s a topic a lot of people seem to like and enjoy,” Pfeiffer said. “Plus, as we were doing some research, we learned the centennial of the first championship is coming in 2020. We love anniversaries in history.”
Clark-Wiltz and Pfeiffer broke the 10-person class into groups, giving them different assignments to work on towards applying for a marker.
In order to be considered for a marker, applicants have to demonstrate statewide significance, as well as be substantiated with primary sources and documentation. They had to work on the text that would included on the plaque, find an appropriate site for it and ensure they have permission to place that marker.
Students also had to plan an unveiling event to get the community involved and interested in the new marker.
“It all opened their eyes a little bit that history is more than just an exhibit, that there’s a long-term planning process to these things,” Pfeiffer said.
The application was formally submitted in June, and in August, Franklin College was notified that it had been accepted in August.
“The students were very excited to learn that we had been accepted. They all want to be involved, and at the dedication, they’ll be there front and center, since they got the ball rolling on the process,” Pfeiffer said.
Local organizers are working with the Indiana Historical Bureau on final wording for the marker, and then it will be fabricated. The plaque will then be installed outside the Franklin College fitness center, the former gymnasium and building where the Wonder Five wowed crowds for years.
The marker will be revealed to the public in March, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Wonder Five’s first championship. Planning is still in the process for that, Pfeiffer said. At the same time, the history museum plans to do an exhibit based around the Wonder Five to coincide with the unveiling.
“It’s a great sense of accomplishment. For the students, I’m really excited for them that there’s literally going to be a concrete endpoint of their work,” Pfeiffer said. “And it’s really cool for Johnson County in general.”
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Johnson County state historical markers
The Indiana Historical Bureau recently approved a historical marker to be placed in Franklin honoring the Wonder Five basketball teams.
Here are the existing official historical markers in the county:
- Birthplace of Paul Vories McNutt, governor of Indiana from 1933 to 1937; 200 N. Walnut St., Franklin
- Birthplace of Roger D. Branigin, governor of Indiana from 1965 to 1969; 250 N. Yandes St., Franklin
- William Merritt Chase, prolific artist in the mid-1800s; 7784 S. Georgetown Rd., Nineveh
Two additional markers have been approved in the county, but are no longer standing:
- Whetzel Trace, the pioneer roadway that was crucial in the settling of Indiana; State Road 37 and State Road 144,
- Underground Railroad station at the site of Dr. Theodore A. Pinkney’s home; 750 E. Jefferson St., Franklin
— Information from the Indiana Historical Bureau
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