...where it seems that I can see the gleemingly fleuorescent lights,
still shining bright on the roundball for me...
I spent Friday at the biggest high school gymnasium in the United States - the New Castle Chrysler Fieldhouse, home to the New Castle Spartans and 9,314 seats. Got to see my alma mater win the tourney, taking the victory in the #1 vs #2 matchup in the morning session. Got to hang out with the The Pater Familias and The Sister. Even got to visit the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame for an hour or so.
It was a pretty good day, all in all, in spite of the spitting rain. Heck, the weather was far better than the weather has been during a lot of the other Hall Classics. The only thing missing was a trip to the Hickory Gym to make it an true orgy of Hoosier hysteria.
Indiana high school basketball is something that's legendarily famous, and its history is a pretty amazing thing - in spite of some significant changes that have come along since the move from a single-class system. I have a number of very fond memories of watching basketball in New Albany's gym (seating a then-paltry 4701 Bulldog fans) from the catwalk above the floor or up at the top of the three-story bleachers, supervised by an older family friend.
Basketball in Indiana certainly is something special, the kind of special that most small towns in the midwest are familair with. In Ohio, it might be football that brings the town together, but in Indiana, it's very clearly basketball.
In modern times, it's not quite the world of Hoosiers where the whole town gets together on Friday night, but it's certainly still the case that every varsity basketball game - especially in smaller towns - draws enough of the town that it's usually the big event that night.
Basketball is still king in Indiana, and no matter now many high school basketball games I go to in Ohio, it's just not the same.
During my first year teaching in Ohio, I took The Girl to a boys basketball game at Mount Healthy High School where I was teaching at the time. After my initial interview, the principal commented on how proud of their big gym they were. When we got to the game, The Girl's first side comment to me was a simple "where's the main gym", because Mt Healthy's gym wasn't even half the size of our high school's gym.
I miss Indiana high school ball.
In researching this post, I did stumble on a future road trip idea in the works. Could be kinda cool to see the games in all the Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky gyms. And I don't think it would be all that hard, either.
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