When Ray Howard arrived in Jasper in 1976, he was a stranger in a strange land.

“A complete foreigner,” Howard said. “Not German, don’t drink and not Catholic.”

Yet it was a perfect fit. Howard, now 76, was in his third season coaching baseball at Decatur Central. He had no reason to leave, really. Howard had graduated from Ben Davis and Indiana Central (now University of Indianapolis). This was home.

Howard happened to be on his way back from a coaching clinic in Jeffersonville in the summer of 1976 and made a stop in Jasper to visit with athletic director Don Noblitt about the school’s opening for a baseball coach. Howard was struck immediately that Jasper’s baseball field had lights, a commodity only Bush Stadium featured among the fields in Indianapolis.

Howard didn’t think much more about it until then-Decatur Central athletic director Devere Fair cornered him at school on Monday.

“He asked me if I was taking the Jasper job,” Howard said. “I said, ‘What in the world? How did you know about that?’ It was a week before school started and I didn’t want to put them out. But (Fair) said I had to take that job. He said he’d fire me if I didn’t take it.”

With that, Howard accepted the job and never looked back. And neither has Jasper’s baseball program, which will play for its sixth state championship in the Class 3A title game at Victory Field on Friday against Andrean.

Jasper is making a record 15th state finals appearance, dating back to the first year of the modern state tournament in 1967. Why Jasper? What makes this community of 15,000 in Dubois County such a strong baseball community, year after year, decade after decade?

“Baseball is important here,” said Jasper athletic director Andy Noblitt, son of the man who hired Howard nearly 40 years ago. “From a generational standpoint, you have grandfathers who played, their sons played and now they are dads with sons playing. Baseball is popular in Jasper.”

There aren’t many places, if any, with a radio station that broadcasts home and away games. Walt Ferber, the program director for WITZ-AM (990) and WITZ-FM (98.5) in Jasper and with the station since 1980, admits that it is “extremely unusual” for a station to broadcast every baseball game for a high school team.

“The following has been extraordinary and the advertising support has always been good to allow us to continue broadcasting the games,” Ferber said. “Our fans travel extremely well, but if you can’t get there, they know they can listen on the radio.”

A local television station also shows the games on tape delay.

“A lot of Saturdays are spent here watching or listening to baseball,” said Noblitt, who played for Jasper in the early 1990s, graduating a year before former Jasper star and big leaguer Scott Rolen.

Howard took Jasper to the state finals in 1981 and ’86 before assistant Terry Gobert took over in 1988. The program has flourished under Gobert’s guidance, winning five state championships (single class in 1996 and ’97 and 3A in 1998, 2000 and 2006) and runner-up in Class 3A in 2010 and ’13. Gobert’s five titles rank third in state history and his 708 wins are tied for eighth.

“He has a little bit more of an offensive philosophy where I leaned more to pitching and defense,” Howard said of Gobert. “We do a lot of the same things, though. I think when you have two coaches over a span of 40 years, it helps. Kids and families know what to expect year after year.”

Howard, who still serves as the primary batting practice pitcher for the high school team and is the manager for the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in Jasper, was one of the first coaches to take advantage of offseason practices. His first season at Jasper, a .500 team improved to 27-4.

In his first three seasons, Jasper lost just seven games.

“It probably would have been a different story had we gone 4-27 that first year,” Howard said. “Some of those things we were doing in the offseason probably wouldn’t have gone over so well. Coach Gobert is probably better with the kids than I was. I was pretty hard to play for. But both of us believe that we aren’t going to get outworked by any team.”

Jasper’s facilities have always been ahead the curve, allowing it host various levels of tournament play. In addition to state-of-the-art Ruxer Field, Jasper has had an indoor facility for more than a decade. The addition of the Jasper Youth Sports Complex in 2006 not only allows the community to host national-level baseball and softball events, but also has helped to keep local players in the system rather than defect to travel teams.

Howard also points to the contributions of people such as Roger Seger, who led the youth program for several years, even long after his own kids had moved through the system.

“The feeder system here is as good as you’ll find anywhere,” Ferber said. “Success brings more success. Expectations here are pretty high and kids grow up with those expectations.”

This year’s Jasper team is no exception. The Wildcats are 30-1 going into Friday’s championship game and knocked off first-round pick Ashe Russell and Cathedral earlier this season. Ferber, Howard and more than 3,000 Jasper supporters will be in attendance at Victory Field in support of the Wildcats.

Many more will surely be tuning in back in Jasper.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

BASEBALL STATE FINALS

at Victory Field

Friday

Class 3A: No. 1 Jasper (30-1) vs. No. 3 Andrean (29-6), 7:30 p.m.

Saturday

Class A: No. 8 Shakamak (21-6) vs. No. 2 Rockville (27-6), 1 p.m.

Class 2A: No. 1 South Spencer (24-2) vs. Lafayette Central Catholic (29-5), 4 p.m.

Class 4A: Terre Haute North (21-11) vs. Penn (25-9), 7 p.m.