The senior running back group for the Trojans during the 2008 season (left to right): Luke Swift, Kyle Jones, coach Ryan Spoonmore, Tanner Riley and Matt Adams.
Submitted photo
A total of 238 state championship football games have been played in Indiana, a very small percentage attaining legendary status.
Luke Swift, who scored the final eight points in what might be the classic of all classics, remembers.
“That game still comes up,” said Swift, recalling the frenzied specifics of the 2008 Class 5A final between Center Grove and Carmel, one of the first games played inside Lucas Oil Stadium.
“I feel there are only certain moments where it’s like you’re having an out-of-body experience.”
Swift says he’s had such experiences three times in his 32 years.
The other two are the time he proposed to Michigan native Emily Kozlowski, and the couple’s marriage this past Feb. 18.
Swift’s first, however, was being Center Grove’s halfback as a senior, helping the program notch its first state title. Trailing 33-14 midway through the fourth quarter, the Trojans scored 22 unanswered points in the last 6 minutes and 4 seconds to pull out a 36-33 thriller.
All five championship contests that year were closely contested, keeping fans on the edge of their seats until the final play. Three games were decided by three points, and the overall point differential was 30.
Saving the best for last were coach Eric Moore’s Trojans.
Seemingly doomed against its then-conference rival Greyhounds, Center Grove crept closer on a 5-yard touchdown run by senior quarterback Jordan Luallen.
A pair of successful onside kicks later, Luallen threw a 2-yard TD pass to Michael Wood, and the 6-foot-1, 175-pound Swift capped things with his own 5-yard scoring run and a diving two-point conversion catch in the back of the end zone inside the final minute.
To many of those present, a fitting adjective to describe what they witnessed that night still hasn’t been unearthed nearly 15 years later.
As fourth-graders, Swift, his classmates and numerous other community members filed into the RCA Dome to watch Moore’s second Center Grove squad square off against mighty Penn.
The Trojans fell short in the 5A finale, 21-0, but the flames of football interest had been fanned with tremendous gusto.
“Really, it just comes down to us setting a goal back in fifth grade,” said Swift, who finished that season as his team’s leading rusher (1,919 yards), receiver (21 catches for 387 yards) and point scorer (176). “We always had that mindset that we were going to win state our senior year.
“It was pretty indescribable. A pretty unbelievable moment.”
Swift’s magical day wasn’t done.
Owner of a 3.5 grade-point average at Center Grove, Swift was named the recipient of the Phil N. Eskew Mental Attitude Award, making him his school’s fifth mental attitude winner overall and first in football.
Also a standout during track season, Swift placed sixth at state in the 110-meter hurdles as a junior and third as a senior. He took home a fifth-place medal in the 300 hurdles his final season, and was part of the Trojans’ 4×100 and 4×400 relay efforts.
“Luke was powerful, athletic with elite speed. One of the most uniquely gifted players in the history of Center Grove football,” Moore said. “His combination of power and speed leave him as one of the top three guys ever at Center Grove.”
After graduating from Center Grove in 2009, Swift played football at Miami of Ohio, majoring in kinesiology and health. His freshman and sophomore seasons on the gridiron were more statistically productive than the back half of his Redhawks career, largely due to factors (injury, coaching change) beyond his control.
Swift currently is a business development manager for Midwest Cash Offer and Mainstay Property Group in Indianapolis.
All four of Mike and Lin Swift’s children went go on to graduate from Center Grove, starting with Jake, then Megan, followed by Nick, and finally Luke.
The surname will, in time, again become commonplace as Jake Swift has four children in the Center Grove school system. The oldest, Avery, soon to enter the sixth grade, and younger brother Joe, a fourth-grader, are both multi-sport athletes.
Luke Swift knows firsthand the opportunities that await them.
“Probably the big things about being at Center Grove were installing a very strong work ethic, and never giving up,” he said. “The perseverance and just the dedication to what you’re doing.”
