MUNCIE, Ind. — When John Hochstetler took the Muncie Central football head coaching job in 1999, he went over to Northside Middle School and met with the eighth-grade football players in the gym.
He laid out his vision for the program, and set the tone for how we would approach the position. There were about 30 kids there, according to Bryan Spisak, but only eight would play until their senior season.
Those eight seniors who stuck around, who became known as the "eight blocks of granite" helped make history. They saw the lopsided losses the Bearcats' varsity team had when they were in middle school and even as freshmen, and helped turn what was known as a basketball school into a football powerhouse in the 2000s.