Officials at Clark-Pleasant schools have proposed the district’s newest elementary school, set to open this fall, be named after an alumnus who coached the first all-Black team to win a state basketball title.
The Clark-Pleasant school board will vote on the change later this month. The school was originally supposed to be named Worthsville Elementary School, but given the school doesn’t have a Worthsville Road address, school officials reconsidered, said Patrick Spray, superintendent.
“When we named Grassy Creek (Elementary School) a few years ago, Ray Crowe was one of the names that got brought up, but there was a vote for the favorite one and it wasn’t one of the top choices,” Spray said.
“The board had sense in the past not naming schools after individuals because where do you draw the line, but we’re consciously doing more to recognize diversity, equity and inclusion. We have the opportunity to recognize alums of color. With Ray Crowe, he was a trailblazer in Indiana and graduated our district high school in 1934.”
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The road that runs in front of the school will also be named Ray Crowe Way, Spray said.
Crowe was born and raised in Whiteland. After graduating Whiteland Community High School in 1934, he coached the Crispus Attucks High School boys’ basketball team in Indianapolis to back-to-back state championships. Crowe was the first Black coach to win a state title in Indiana, and the team was the first all-Black team to win a state basketball championship in the country, according to a Clark-Pleasant schools news release.
“Part of the intent at the elementary school is to raise awareness of his contributions to not just basketball, but just with his influence on the young African-American men he worked with, his former players and the influence he had on them as young men,” Spray said.
One of those young men was Oscar Robertson, who had a storied NBA career that landed him in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Crowe himself is part of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
School officials are looking at ways to include biographical information on Crowe inside the school building, Spray said.
Crowe was also a state representative and led the Indianapolis Parks and Recreation Department, according to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
Butch Zike Jr., a Clark-Pleasant school board member, interacted with Crowe on multiple occasions. Crowe, who died in 2003 at the age of 88, was a class act, he said.
“The most important thing about Ray was he stressed academics, character and doing things the right way,” Zike Jr. said. “He was a class individual.”
