Gary West (6,402) Built 1969
March 7, 2026: East Chicago Central vs. Gary West (Boys)
Growing up in small town Indiana, my immediate community was kind of my world. I didn't really think about much beyond the walls of Shipshewana and Westview until I got into high school. The one place I did hear a lot about was Gary, though not through the lens that it is portrayed as today on social media and in the news. The Gary I heard about was told through the lens of my grandparents who lived there in the 1930s-50s. This was the Gary that was a booming steel town. The Gary that had plenty of jobs for the thousands of immigrants that came to find work in the steel mills. The Gary that was a melting pot of people from different countries, races, and cultures. The Gary that had a thriving downtown full of shops, highly regarded schools, and unique neighborhoods. My grandma's family landed in Gary from southern Indiana, while my grandpa's family were first generation immigrants from Sicily. Italian Catholics marrying outside their own community wasn't something that was really socially accepted at the time, but a diverse place like Gary made stories like this possible. My grandparents ended up getting married, making a home in a small town, and were married for six decades. They are a true American success story. Many people who grew up and lived in Gary during that time experienced similar success stories. This side of Gary is one that is remembered by many, though it's not the view most people have of it today. What I've found is that the prevailing view of Gary being the most dangerous place in America and having nothing going for it, is a side that is negative and honestly just untrue.
The journey from the Gary that my grandparents grew up in to the one that is widely portrayed in media today is one that has been well documented. All the steel mill and other manufacturing jobs that employed all those people from different backgrounds dried up. People moved out in droves. Businesses closed. The booming downtown district became boarded up. Those that stayed struggled to find meaningful employment and crime skyrocketed. The Rust Belt story of Gary isn't unique in America, but it seemed to hit harder here than anywhere else. How does this relate to basketball and gyms? Well, this blog is about Gary West Side Leadership Academy. It is the only public high school in Gary. The one and only. For an outsider just looking at the population of the city, that might not seem crazy. When you consider the history though, it seems unfathomable. Gary has almost as many shuttered high schools as Indy, and that's saying something. Last spring I took my grandma on a trip back to Gary to see some of the places she frequented when she was growing up, and to also take some exterior pictures of the fading gyms and schools that are still standing. There aren't many. We saw Emerson, Mann, and Wirt from the outside. Emerson looks completely bombed out and Mann is humongous but crumbling fast. Wirt may be salvageable, but the clock is ticking. We also stopped by Gary Roosevelt which was the most recent Gary high school to close in 2020. It's one of the most historic traditionally black schools we have in the state, and has a rich basketball history. I haven't put it on the fading gyms page because the building and gym are still in good shape and I hope I can still make it in there some day. I haven't even mentioned the schools that are now gone without any physical structure to remember them by: Edison, Froebel, Tolleston, and Lew Wallace (my grandparent's school). After decades of population decline and mismanagement of funds by the school corporation, Gary West is all that is left. The last school to carry on the strong basketball tradition that has existed in this city since the earliest days of the sport.
Gary West got its start in 1969, right as the economic tide was starting to turn in the city. Edison, Froebel, and Tolleston all ceased their operations as high schools right when Gary West opened. I'm not sure if all those students went right to Gary West (it's rarely a direct consolidation like that when it happens in bigger cities), but I'm sure many of them did with three schools closing as a new one was opening. It didn't take long for the basketball team to get rolling. In their first six years the Courgars won 4 sectionals, 2 regionals, and 1 semi state. After a little lull in the 80s, they carried some really good teams into the 90s and early 2000s. They won another single class regional in 1997 and took home the 4A state championship in 2002. All this success led them to having one of the strongest basketball reputations in the city. The one thing they had that almost no other Gary school did was an impressive gymnasium. While almost every Gary high school had a gym, most of them were nothing to write home about. When attendance was at its peak in the early days of Indiana high school basketball, many games in the city were played at the Gary Memorial Auditorium which was torn down a few years ago. Gary West was built right in the middle of the heyday of Hoosier Hysteria, and its gym reflects that. It was built at a time when schools were still trying to outdo one another with seating capacity to ensure the sectional would be played on their home court every year. Gary West went colossal, and to this day it is a sight to behold.
Gary West sits 7 miles away from East Chicago Central. Two schools with gyms in the top ten of seating capacity across the whole state, but also the two gyms on that list that probably get the least amount of attention. Basketball fans from The Region will tell you this is nothing new, they've always felt that they get overlooked by the rest of the state when it comes to recognizing their programs' accomplishments. I can't say they're wrong, from an outsider's perspective it kind of feels that way. These two gyms deserve all of the attention though. Gary West could fit 7,216 spectators when it was built in 1969. Originally it had two levels of gargantuan wooden bleachers along each sideline to accommodate all those people. Eventually all those wooden bleachers were replaced with blue plastic, and the seating capacity has dropped to 6,402. That's still a staggering figure. Looking at recent pictures, I knew the upper level bleachers were rarely needed or used, so I made sure to pick a game where they would all be pulled out. Sectional Saturday was the perfect occasion. Walking into the school and gym is a bit of juxtaposition. The hallways, bathrooms, and certain parts of the gym feel like they have not been touched since 1969. Everything feels just a little bit chipped and fading. At the same time, other parts of the gym have been recently updated and give it a more modern feel. The bleachers are one of those updates. The bottom level bleachers were the last to be replaced. They now feature 16 row of seats. That's massive for a lower section, but it doesn't hold a candle to what's above. The upper deck here has 25 rows of bleachers. That is 41 rows of bleachers in total along each sideline. I walked to the top to get a picture, and I can't even describe what it was like to look down. The Sears Tower across the border in Chicago has nothing on this place. Only in Indiana.
One way you can tell these upper bleachers aren't pulled out very much is by how much random debris and dust there is at the top of them. It looked like a construction zone in spots along the very top few rows. The view from up here isn't exactly amazing, but it's something every Indiana high school basketball fan should experience at least once (the view was even worse on one side that inexplicably had the partition extended halfway down blocking the view from the upper rows). While the bleachers steal the show, there's still plenty more to take in. Both of the baseline walls jut out a few feet in the center above the entrances. One side was repainted in recent years, and it really pops. Orange and blue isn't a super common color combo, but I really like it here. On the new orange wall, a blue outlined Cougar is pouncing across the center while "West Side Leadership Academy" is scrawled above it. To the right is a big blue outline of Indiana, and various state championship teams in different sports are painted on and recognized inside of it. This is a really cool alternative to the normal boring plaques that are hung in most gyms. Running across the bottom are a couple of blue stripes and the school's motto in a nice font. In the center of it all towards the bottom are a couple windows overlooking the court that serve as pressboxes or broadcasting booths of some sort. It would be a great vantage point to watch the game.
The opposite baseline wall feels a lot more classic, adding to the juxtaposition I mentioned earlier. It's still all white. On the right is a big picture of the 2004 state runner-up girls team, and below that are some nice Indiana All-Star jersey plaques. On the left is something that seems to only be a northwest Indiana thing, but I love it every time I see it. There are life-size cutouts of the 1972 and 2002 state runner-up and championship teams laid across the wall in neat rows. I hope they never take those down. At the bottom of the wall in the center is a nice, simple West Side Cougars sign with a roaring Cougar head in the middle. The only problem is that it's partially covered up by the giant screen that was recently installed. It takes up a good portion of the wall and seems to only be used to run ads. It puts a bit of a damper on the overall aesthetic. Down on the floor, the design is simple but it really works. Most of the floor is a really light tan, but inside the three-point lines is a much darker brown. It's one of the sharpest contrasts you'll find. The pouncing orange Cougar is a center court. A very thin band of orange makes up the perimeter of the court, and "West Side" is written on one baseline with "Cougars" along the other in very small font. There is a ton of space behind each basket and the baseline walls.
Walking in and out of the gym revealed a few more little odds and ends that were pretty cool. The old school directions and signage hanging in the windows above the entrances to the gym caught my eye. The old murals out in the hallways that are decades old and the ancient ticket booths outside the building that haven't been used in who knows how long were also neat to see. There's a lot here that keeps the gym and school rooted in the same place it was 60 years ago, but they've also done a good job of adding some vibrant features like that big orange baseline wall that make it feel modern without being sterile. It's honestly a microcosm of Gary as a whole. Yes there are parts that are fading or worn, but efforts are being made to bring them back to life. And at the same time, those parts that may look antiquated or even broken on the surface allow the proud heritage of the past to live on. When I stopped by and saw what's left of the Emerson, Mann, Roosevelt, and Wirt high schools, it was easy to imagine what they would have looked like when they were teeming with life. That was hard to do when I parked in front of the empty lot where Lew Wallace one stood, trying to imagine what it must have been like when my grandparents walked inside to class there each day. There's nothing there to provide that visual, it's just gone. I'm not sure what the future holds for the Gary Community School Corporation. They seem to be in the most stable position they've been in for decades. The West Side basketball program seems to be in good hands and is on the upswing. The same seems to be true for the schools and community as a whole. I hope it continues that way. Gary is too proud of a city to stay down forever. They're slowly clawing back against the public perception that has haunted them since the time this gym opened, and I for one will be cheering them on in that fight.
