Danville (Old) (1,900?) Built 1936
October 15, 2024
October 15, 2024
I tend to be a bit of a purist when it comes to my love for Indiana high school basketball. I love the historical conferences. I don't like that the NCC is a shell of what it was forty years ago. I'm not one of the class basketball crazies who refuses to go to games because of it, but sure I'd like to go back to one true champion. I admittedly have a bias against charter/private schools and their soulless gyms. Getting rid of the one and one free throws last season about gave me aneurysm. If they ever institute a shot clock I'm really going to become an old man yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. I like when a gym has belonged to a school and community for nearly a century. It becomes a part of a town's identity for generation after generation. On this particular visit I found a gym that doesn't quite fit this mold perfectly. Yes, it's been a part of the community for nearly ninety years, but it's been a part of a lot of institutions over that time period and has worn a lot of different hats. Even so, it's still managed to become a staple of local history and tradition.
The old gym I visited in Danville does not currently hold high school basketball games. Its current gig is hosting the semiprofessional Indiana Lyons basketball team. I'm neither sure what a Lyon is or what a professional basketball team is doing in Danville, Indiana, but here we are. It's connected to an old building that is currently used for a multitude of civic offices and even a workout gym. Prior to hosting games for the Lyons, it served as a community venue and home to Danville Middle School games for many years. If you want to trace its history back to actual high school basketball games, you have to travel as far back as 1973. According to Dale Lawrence's Hoosier Hysteria Roadbook, that's when Danville built its current gym and stopped using the old Bosstick Gym as this one is called for their high school games. Working backwards even further, it's even a little murkier as to when high school games actually started being played there. It was built in 1936, but initially it was used as the gym for the long defunct Central Normal College basketball teams. That college went under not long after the gym was built. While I can't say for sure when it started, I do know that a lot of meaningful games were played right here between the Danville Warriors and their opponents in the 50s and 60s at the peak of Hoosier Hysteria.
The Bosstick Gym bleachers form a perfect oval ring around the hardwood court that sits in the center of it. It's reminiscent of Crawfordsville except for the fact that while Crawfordsville has some seating above the short baseline walls, Danville has more of press rows in these areas and the walls reach up a little higher. If you focus on one baseline wall, you'll find some red mats that match the rest of the gym protecting players from slamming into the walls. One side has a huge picture print of old Danville teams from when it was a college and high school. A neat idea, but the mats are a really weird place to put it. You'll also see some Lyons banners hanging up above. The opposite baseline wall isn't actually much of a wall as the majority of it has open spaces in it between padded poles that lead to big double entrance doors. I can only imagine how many players have run right through those openings after coming down on a fast break. The little press perches on each side above the walls have red metal barriers preventing careless journalists from toppling onto the action below.
The rest of the gym is pretty standard for one of this setup, but that doesn't make it uninteresting. There are 10 rows of permanent wooden bleachers along each sideline and in the corners. They're painted red on the top of the bleacher seats and grey everywhere else. The most common high school color scheme, but one that usually works well (even if it does give me flashbacks to my times in the Indiana Wesleyan gym which I have been actively trying to forget about every since I graduated). Above one side are gorgeous rectangular windows that reach all the way down to the top of the bleachers. The opposite wall above is covered with more Lyons banners and advertisers. The one thing I lamented during my visit was the lack of Danville Warrior signage anywhere. I get that it is now home to a super serious semipro team, but they could have left more of the original flavor intact in this old man's opinion. The one saving grace is that the walls are painted white all around but are fading and pretty weathered in many spots which make them feel a little more vintage. The view of and from the corners of the gym are absolutely immaculate as they always are in an old gyms like this. The hardwood has been refinished to a very light, almost pale color. At center court is a very bland Danville Parks and Rec logo. An old camera box sits up near the top of the bleachers above the scorer's table. The all red stairs that travel up in various places in the gym look very sharp.
The Danville Parks and Rec staff were extremely accomodating to me during my visit and let me look around the place without even asking me the burning questions like, "If you're a teacher, why are you here in the middle of a weekday?" "Why exactly are you wanting to take pictures of old photographs, "And everyone's favorite comment, "I expected you to be a lot older." I'm thankful for all the effort they've put into keeping the gym in immaculate shape and finding new uses for it to keep it afloat. I just wish they could have left a little more of the classic local flair to it that really connects it to the Danville Warriors. If you look at pictures of it from only a few years in the unparalleled Hoosier Hardwood Project archives, you'll see more of it in the form of small murals and signage. I guess it's fitting though that the aesthetics of the gym have evolved yet again, as that seems to be what this jewel of a gym has done as a whole since its conception.
