Dave DeJernett leads Washington to historic Indiana state title in 1930

Dave DeJernett put Washington on top of Indiana basketball and, in the process, made history that still deserves a bigger place in the state’s story. Washington beat Muncie Central 32-21 in the 1930 Indiana State Finals at Butler Fieldhouse, and DeJernett became the first Black player to win a state tournament on an integrated team in the United States.

The setting gave the moment even more weight. Butler Fieldhouse, later renamed Hinkle Fieldhouse, had opened in 1928 and was the largest basketball arena in the country until 1950. Later accounts describe the 1929-30 boys tournament as an 800-school competition, which means Washington did not merely win a bracket or a sectional. It won the whole state in front of a crowd of about 15,000 in Indianapolis.

That championship also sits in a part of Indiana basketball history that is easy to overlook. Standard retellings of the sport often jump forward to the better-known integration milestones of the 1950s, but Washington’s 1930 title showed Black excellence and integrated-team success on the state’s biggest stage more than two decades earlier. The Bearcats also brought their own star power to the floor. Muncie Central center Jack Mann was Black as well, making the title game a rare matchup between two of the era’s most prominent Black high school players. Mann later returned to help Muncie Central win the 1931 state championship.

DeJernett, whose full name was Robert David DeJernett, was born Feb. 22, 1912, in Garfield, Kentucky, and died Aug. 4, 1964. He went on to Indiana Central College, then built an all-star semi-pro team before playing professionally for the New York Renaissance and the Harlem Globetrotters. His high school success was not an isolated flash; it was the start of a career that stretched across the integrated game at multiple levels.

Washington coach Burl Friddle brought his own pedigree to the title run. Friddle had been part of Franklin’s Wonder Five, the team that won three straight Indiana state titles from 1920 to 1922 and later the 1923 national collegiate championship. Historical accounts say Friddle spotted DeJernett playing on the playground and developed him into the centerpiece of the Washington team.

The 1930 title traveled far beyond Indiana, too. Later accounts say newspaper headlines about DeJernett and Washington reached places as far away as China. That kind of reach fits the scale of the game itself: a 32-21 championship, played in the state’s grandest basketball building, with one of Indiana’s most important but least remembered milestones unfolding at center court.