Springfield, Massachusetts is the place that basketball was invented. It's where James Naismith nailed a couple of peach baskets up on the wall and came up with a set of rules so his YMCA students would have a game to play indoors to get them through the brutal New England winter months. It's where the first games of basketball were technically played. Notice I didn't say that Springfield is the home of basketball, because frankly, it's not. That would be Indiana. Mr. Naismith even said so himself when he attended the state finals in 1925 in front of 15,000 crazed fans. Basketball may have been born in the northeast, but it put its roots down in Indiana and never left. Nowhere on earth does the sport have a richer history. That heritage started 30 miles south of Lafayette in the small town of Crawfordsville. Not only did the very first basketball game ever played in the state occur here, but Crawfordsville also took home the first ever high school state championship in 1911. Hoosier Hysteria does not exist without Crawfordsville. The old gym here wasn't yet built during the genesis of it all, but it was pretty close. The high school itself was, and unlike many reclaimed gyms from this era, they're still standing together. A monument representing why all of this means so much to me and countless others. 

The old high school in Crawfordsville was built in 1910 and the gym was added 30 years later. Both of them were active all the way until 1993. It is so cool to see from the outside as you walk up to it. Almost every single town in Indiana had a grand brick/stone school like this at one point in time, and so few of them are still with us today. It makes you mourn for what could have been if local leaders in all these towns could have had the vision to repurpose them in the way they have here. The school surrounding the gym has been turned into apartments and workout areas. I visited this gym on the same day that I went to the old one in Lebanon, and there are a slew of similarities between the two in terms of how the schools have been given new life while the gyms have been immaculately preserved. The gyms are even very similar in structure and layout. The only big difference between the two is that Crawfordsville's permanent seating wraps all the way around, whereas Lebanon has a stage along one baseline. They're both iconic, filled with history, and shining examples of why historical preservation in all civic areas is so valuable. 

The other small difference between the gyms is that Crawfordsville only has windows along one side to let in natural light. I also couldn't find whatever light switch illuminated the ancient place, so I got to explore in kind of an eerie, lowlight atmosphere. Walking to center court to take some pictures, I noticed right away the two 6 foot light-brick walls behind each baseline. They sit about 8 feet behind the out of bounds lines with permanent seating above them. This isn't the first old gym I've seen with walls like this, but usually they're along the baselines like at Cowan and Daleville. They always stand out to me. There is permanent wood seating all the way around the gym working its way up, the classic upside-down sunken gym configuration. The wood is medium-brown and about as weathered as they come. The seats go up 11 rows on the sidelines, 6 rows on the baselines above the walls, and 4 rows in the corners above the entrances. All the way along the top row of seats is a little 4 foot section of brick that matches the baseline walls. The walls are classic plaster the rest of the way up. There isn't anything special adorning the walls above either, you have to imagine what banners or signs may have been hanging back in its heyday. 

The floor of the gym is a lighter tan color, it almost looks yellow. Most of the lines on the hardwood are actually red instead of black which is a unique touch. There's a modern "Crawfordsville Athenians" logo at center court in yellow and blue that looks a little out of place with the rest of the original gym, but I think they did it because previously there was a completely random logo from when the facility used to be a fitness center in the late 90s. I actually give them kudos for bringing back some school branding when they didn't have to (which is the complete opposite of what they did to the original scorer's table where they slapped their current corporate logo on it). An additional thing that caught my eye were the stairs at the end of each baseline wall that lead up to the seats on those ends. They go up sharply on both sides to form a sort of trapezoid shape with the lower wall. The upper windows are also very stately rectangles with smaller quadrilaterals within them. The two exterior sets of doors both date the gym to the era it was erected. The only other time doors drew my attention like this was at Winchester. The upper seating sections in the corners provide exquisite views of the gym, if not the action itself on the court. 

I didn't encounter any people whatsoever at this visit. The manager said she wouldn't be there when I arrived, but I was free to look around. It was dead silent throughout the whole place. I had the overwhelming urge to get some shots up while I was there. That's not something I usually get to do when I visit any gym, new or old. It took me back to one of my favorite summer games growing up of seeing how many free throws I could make in a row while the sun started to set outside. I was always a head case when it came to sports so I never made it as far as I should have. The gym is just inviting to actually play in. There are no frills, no unbelievable centerpiece. It's just a great place to watch and play basketball.  It's symbolic of everything the home of basketball should be.