Barr-Reeve (New) (2,900) Built 2020
February 17, 2024: Southridge vs. Barr-Reeve (Boys)
February 17, 2024: Southridge vs. Barr-Reeve (Boys)
A lot has been made of the declining attendance and fervor over Indiana high school basketball over the last two decades. A lot of it is widely overstated, but there’s no denying that gyms are not consistently full across the state on any given night. There are pockets of the Hoosier State that have not just managed to stave off this gradual decline, but continue to thrive as the pages of time have turned into the 21st century. Go to one of these places on a wintery Friday night and you’ll be transported back in time to when basketball in this state meant the most. There are a lot more of these schools left than critics of Indiana high school basketball would care to admit, but I haven’t encountered one community that has preserved the heart of Hoosier hysteria more than Barr-Reeve in Montgomery.
The schools that have sustained unrivaled support for their basketball teams usually have two things in common: a tight-knit community where people have roots and stick around for generations, and a lot of winning. Barr-Reeve has both in abundance. It’s one of the smallest public high schools in the state with 200-300 students in the heart of Amish/Mennonite country. (They have one of the greatest rivalry traditions in the state when they play North Daviess each year called the Buggy Bowl. I’m not going to spoil it for you, come out and see for yourself.) Most of those students end up settling back in Daviess county and continue to support the Vikings. Now to the winning: 17 sectional championships (5 before class basketball), 8 regionals, 7 semi-states, and 2 1A titles. And that’s just the boy’s program. The girls have had plenty of success of their own. Mind you, all of these victories are coming in what is one of the consistently toughest small school sectionals in Indiana which usually includes Loogootee and North Daviess. When they opened their new gym, they went over two years without losing a game there. They once went almost a decade without losing a Blue Chip Conference game. In the last 39 years, they have won 75% of their games. That’s good enough for 2nd in the entire state to only Bloomington South. Look up longest losing streaks on John Harrell’s website, and many of them are at the expense of other teams at the hands of the Vikings. The coaching is first class all the way down to the middle school level. They just win, and the people just keep coming out.
The first trip I ever made down to Barr-Reeve was in around 2010 for the Buggy Bowl. The game was in the old gym. Coming from Westview, I knew what it meant to grow up in a small school with a rich tradition and unrivaled community support. I had heard from all my Daviess County friends that I had met at Bible Memory Camp that this rivalry was somehow different. My expectations were high, and they were somehow exceeded. Man alive that crowd was nuts. The gym was so cool. It stuck with me forever. As beloved as that gym was, with all the memories and tradition it held for the community, it wasn’t exactly spacious. I’m sure there were more than a few times when people were turned away at the door, and dollars were lost for the programs because there simply wasn’t any more room. The decision to build a new gym was made and it opened in 2021. Nobody hates losing old gyms more than me, and I’m sure that sentiment was echoed deeply by many people in Montgomery. The fate of the old gym is another topic for another day. A new palace to continue the Viking tradition has been erected, and time marches on. So do the victories.
Building a brand new high school gym that isn’t completely lifeless and devoid of any unique traits is honestly a difficult task. There are only a couple really good examples (Noblesville), some okay ones (Fishers), and a ton of awful ones (Lapel). Barr-Reeve lands somewhere in the middle here with their new gym. The most unique thing about it is the set up. It’s a bowl of sorts, but the kind that goes up when you walk in, not a sunken gym. There are some corner seating sections that give it the feel of a bowl, but they don’t connect all the way around. There are other versions of bowls around the state, but I haven’t seen anything quite like this. The seats go up about 15 rows all the way around. They have your standard, gray plastic seats (If you’re building a new gym, the easiest way to add some character is to just put in wooden bleachers. PSA: When it comes to plastic kids, listen to your mom, JUST SAY NO!). They aren’t awful. It is what it is.
The court has a really nice two-tone design with different shades of brown. The hardwood outside of the playing surface is even ever so slightly different which looks kind of cool. The Viking logo at center court is simple and well done. It isn’t too cartoonish which is the downfall of many these days. The whole arena feels airy and grand. The only other minor complaint I have is the general color scheme. When I was introduced to Barr-Reeve, everything was an extremely clean black and white with maybe just a hint of red trim here and there. The new gym is draped in red and gray everywhere. There’s so much gray. I could be wrong, but it just doesn’t feel like classic Barr-Reeve. There also isn’t anything on the walls or draped from the ceiling. It’s almost completely bare. It’s only two years old though, so as one diehard fan (Rachel Lengacher Raber) kept reminding me, there’s still time!
When Barr-Reeve was making a state run in 2010, I admittedly was kind of rooting against them a little bit inside. All I had heard was about how special their program and traditions were. I didn’t want to think anyone else had what we had at Westview. We were supposed to be the special ones. That’s just how my petty high school brain worked. Over the next few years I got to know many people from Montgomery a lot more closely. One of my best friends married one. As an adult I can appreciate so much more what they have. It’s everything I love about Indiana high school basketball. It’s everything I’m so thankful that I had growing up at Westview. It’s the gym, it’s the winning, and most importantly it’s the people. The people who will continue to show up game after game, year after year, because they care about the kids and the community in which they live. The way it’s supposed to be.
