Bluffton (New) (3,231) Built 2000
March 3, 2026: Adams Central vs. Whitko (Boys)
My family moved into a new house right after the pandemic. Our previous home was in a nice little neighborhood on the edge of Anderson. It had quiet streets and a couple of neat little parks. We honestly loved it, but my farm kid roots kept pulling my heart back to the country. We found a great a little spot we could afford right before the housing market went bonkers and interest rates soared, we lucked out. An old farmhouse that had been fixed up on two acres seemed about perfect. We've loved almost everything about it (other than the squirrels we fought for two years to finally get rid of that had taken up residence in the walls). One of the only qualms we've had is that almost the entire downstairs is painted a grey so dark that it almost feels black. It makes everything feel dreary. Maybe it's because I grew up in a home with really bright colors or just clean white walls, but I like things to be lighter. I don't need my home to feel like it's shrouded in darkness. Honestly, I feel the same way about gyms. When gym walls are lighter, they seem to accentuate everything else. When they're all painted dark, it just feels heavy and depressing. The recent gym trend of painting everything a dark grey is not something I can get behind. When I decided to head over to Bluffton to watch the first round of sectionals, I checked out the great Greg Alexander's pictures of their current gym to remind myself of what it looked like, and I was excited! For a modern gym, it looked clean, tasteful, and had a nice floor design. Then I got there in person and saw another example of what's happened at Blackford, Cowan, and other places in recent years. I rolled my eyes and found a seat.
I could spend a lot of time here talking about the decision in 2000 to build this gym and jettison the old one, but I'm going to be writing about the old gym in a couple weeks so I'll save that diatribe for another blog. I want to focus on what is happening in this one. Grey paint, screenprinted designs (animal stripes and claw marks are all the rage especially), and logos taken from professional or college sports teams are the new norm these days. While Bluffton doesn't have the latter, they have the first two in spades. If you like these modern design schemes, then I think you'll like this one. I think they executed the vision well. I don't like the overall philosophy of it, but that's subjective and I get it if people disagree with me. This gym has been in the rotation as a sectional host since it was built at the turn of the century. The boys have had a little bit of success since moving into the gym: five sectionals and a regional and semistate title in 2002. The girls' success has been similar. It's certainly not a bad place to watch a game, and has a couple quirks and displays that make it interesting and worth checking out whether you like the color scheme or not.
On a surface level the gym looks like every other multipurpose facility built in the last 60 years. There are two levels of sideline bleachers and a concourse that connects the upper levels. There are 9 rows of less than attractive beige plastic bleachers on the bottom sideline sections, and 16 rows on the top. There are also 5 rows sitting behind the baskets on the lower baseline ends. These sections sit under overhangs with the concourse running above. As I've already mentioned, the upper walls have all been painted a dark grey. The lower walls have as well, but there are also silhouettes of tiger stripes, claws, and sinister faces appearing at various places across the lower levels. "Bluffton" and "Home of the Tigers" are written in red letters above the lower sideline bleachers, while "Tiger Pride" is written in big block letters above one set of baseline bleachers and "The Tiger Den" is written across the other. I will say that I really like the look of the scorer's table. It's nothing crazy, but I appreciate that it is all Bluffton focused with a cool Tiger head on it instead of just rolling advertisements like you see in other gyms.
Plastered across one of the upper baseline walls are some modern athletic accomplishment banners that are kind of hard to read because the backgrounds have so much going on (again, athletic directors, less is almost always more). Beside them hang a couple of state runner-up banners that have a little more pizzaz to them. On the opposite side of the gym hang some small and simple Allen County Conference team banners. Behind those banners along the concourse is probably my favorite feature of the gym, and something that shows modern doesn't always have to be a bad thing. Along that upper concourse wall are curved windows looking down into the atrium below on the other side of the wall. It's a cool vantage point and something you would never find in the early years of the multipurpose gyms. Back down at the ground level, we can talk about the floor design. I'll start by saying that while I don't love it, it does work well with the overall aesthetic of the place. Most of the floor is stained really light tan with some greyish hues mixed in. Inside the three-point arcs, the wood turns to a light grey color, and inside the foul lanes a very dark and heathered grey color. Again, I don't get the fascination with all this freaking grey. It is what it is I guess. At center court is a big red "B" outlined in white and black. "Bluffton" is written across each baseline in red block letters set against a black background. That part looks sharp at least.
In the atrium outside the gym is a really nice display case featuring old Bluffton basketball memorabilia, and there is a lot to display! Bluffton has a rich hoops heritage. They participated in the first ever state tournament in 1911 where they fell to the eventual champion Crawfordsville in the third round. They've been putting on shows for Tiger fans on cold winter nights ever since. There is a neat little plaque displaying drawings of the three historic high school buildings that have housed Bluffton students since 1890. It's a cool way to connect the past to the present. If the Bluffton faithful feel that I've been to harsh in my critique of the recent remodel, I understand. I would tell them to stay tuned for my forthcoming blog about the old gym. All of the mystique and tradition of the Bluffton Tigers is still alive and well over there, and I can't wait to break it all down. Fans should still come out and support their squad here in the "new" gym though. It's still a fine place to watch a good game of basketball, and at the end of the day that's all you really need. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go buy some paint.
