Staff Reports
One of the members of the 1954 “Milan Miracle” Indiana high school boys basketball state championship team died Saturday.
Glen Butte was surrounded by family in Batesville when he passed away. He was 81.
In 1954, Butte was a sophomore and played forward on Milan’s boys basketball team that defied all odds by winning the 1954 single-class Indiana boys basketball tournament on a last-second shot, beating Muncie Central, a school 10 times Milan’s size. This event became known as the “Milan Miracle” and inspired the 1986 movie “Hoosiers.”
Butte grew up in Pierceville next door to Milan. He was a member of the “Pierceville Allycats,” a group of boys who learned to play basketball in a barnyard. They are immortalized in the famous Indy Star photograph that graced the cover of the 100th anniversary program for Indiana’s high school boys basketball tournament.
After high school, Butte went on to Indiana University to study education and play basketball for coach Branch McCracken.
Upon graduation, Butte returned to southeastern Indiana, married his high school sweetheart, Dixie, and was a teacher, basketball coach and later an administrator in Moores Hill, Dillsboro, Orleans and Batesville.
Butte is survived by his wife of 59 years, son Jon and daughter-in-law Nicole, daughter Lesa and son-in-law Michael and two grandchildren.
A GoFundMe page at gofundme.com/glen-butte has been set up in Butte’s memory benefiting the Milan ’54 Hoosiers Museum operations in Milan. The page contains additional information on Butte’s life.
For more on Butte and the “Milan Miracle,” you also can visit the museum in person at 201 W. Carr St., Milan, or visit the museum’s website at milan54.org.