Nearly 50 years after Virgil Sweet coached his last Valparaiso boys basketball game, his long shadow is still firmly embedded in the program.

Sweet was a household name in basketball circles for inventing the Valparaiso free throw, a method of free throw shooting that helped make the Vikings one of the best free throw shooting teams in the country.

For the Viking faithful, though, Sweet was much more than a free-throw guru.

He was the architect of modern-day Valpo basketball, which was rundown and moribund when he arrived in 1954. The Vikings had finished 74-148 in their previous 10 seasons with just one sectional title.

Sweet, who came from Westville, Illinois, was hired to clean up the program.

He did that and more, winning 14 sectionals and two regional titles in 20 years.

Sweet led the Vikings to 11 straight sectional titles. Seven coaches have followed Sweet since he retired after the 1974 season and not one of them left with a losing record. Only one, Matt Thomas, who was there for two seasons, didn’t win a sectional. It’s an unprecedented run of long term success. His principles turned Valparaiso basketball into one of the premier programs in the area and arguably one of the top 20 in Indiana.

Sweet, 96, died on June 7 in Florida.

Former Valparaiso basketball coach Skip Collins, who played for Sweet and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, said Sweet’s legacy is the blueprint he created for his successors. Collins said there is “no question that Virgil Sweet is Valpo basketball.”

“Not only did he do a good job of coaching,” Collins said, “but he did a good job of building the fundamentals of a good program. A lot of times, a coach comes in and turns the program around but when the coach leaves, he has not created enough building blocks for it to continue.”

Sweet’s formula for success zeroed in on basketball fundamentals, organization, and discipline. He also created a paper trail for future Viking coaches.

Always dressed impeccably on the sidelines, with a bow tie and jacket, Sweet was measured and soft talking in person. He had a basket of one-liners at his disposal for any situation.

But he was a fierce competitor and a natural salesman who had total program control.

Joe Otis, who graduated from Valparaiso in 1970 and played for Sweet, said some kids wouldn’t play for him.

He was too strict.

No detail was too small for Sweet, who taught his players the right way to put on their socks. Players couldn’t drink soda or eat chocolate or ketchup. They had 9 p.m. curfews during the week and they couldn’t drive in-season unless they had a parent in the car.

Why ketchup?

“I still don’t understand it,” Otis said of the ketchup thing. “It would reduce your stamina, I guess.”

To prepare for regionals, where his team would have to play two games in a day if it won, Sweet had his team do speed practices. It was 45 minutes of nonstop movement.

It was brutal.

“Players would throw up,” Otis said.

The free throw story went national when Mike Copper, a 1965 VHS graduate, made 409 straight free throws. Players practiced free throw shooting at lunch. Copper’s streak caused him to miss most of his next class.

Sweet had 20 student witnesses sign an affidavit verifying the streak, according to the Indianapolis Star. It was one of the first documented cases of a free throw shooting streak from a high school player.

Sweet’s method centered on eliminating unnecessary movement and creating a rigid structure for shooters to follow. Shot properly, the only way to miss a Valpo free throw was short or long, according to Sweet.

If a player is bouncing it off the left or right side of the rim, they were doing something wrong and it could be corrected by following the method.

Valparaiso coach Ben Lieske still uses the method for any player that shoots under 80%. Kids still practice free throws but they arrive before school now.

Last year, Jack Smiley, a sophomore guard, was second in the state in free throw shooting at 92%.

In 1986-87 and 1989-90, the Vikings led the nation in free throw shooting, making more than 82% and 80% respectively in those years. Valpo teams regularly finish in the 10 in free throw percentage in Indiana while still using Sweet’s method.

Lieske said it’s purposely uncomfortable to shoot a Valpo free throw, calling it “robotic.”

It’s the psychology, more than the mechanics, that matters.

Focusing on the mechanics during a game takes their mind off the pressure, Lieske said.

Sweet invented his free throw shooting method on a lark.

The school board asked him to demonstrate a basketball concept for his interview.

Before his presentation, Sweet went to the gym, shot a free throw and wrote down 10 steps.

They were impressed enough to hire him.

Sweet created a lasting program culture by implementing all his concepts from offense to defense to free throw shooting in the middle and grade school feeder programs.

He wrote at least two books — “Specifics of Shooting a Free Throw” and “Specifics of Basketball Fundamentals.”

Otis said he wrote another book that meticulously detailed building a basketball program.

Sweet wrote in a Facebook post that without the 1958-59 team, he would’ve been just another forgotten coach.

It was his big break.

That team had four Division I players on it.

“He always told us we turned it around,” Cecil White, who played on the team, said.

Sweet, who was also credited with helping to start the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association, was active until the very end. He retired to Florida in the mid-1980s and worked as a real estate agent. He was still playing tennis.

Sweet’s devotion to his principles was the key.

“I don’t think he invented 55 new ideas. He was narrow-minded. He just stuck with what was important — the fundamentals and he wouldn’t let go of that,” Collins said.

Mike Hutton is a freelance columnist for the Post-Tribune.