Greencastle (5,280) Built 1968
February 21, 2026: Eastern (Pekin) vs. Parke Heritage (Girls)
The random connections I've been able to make to all the far away towns and gyms I've been visiting since I started this blog have been a big part of what has made it all so enjoyable. Random people reach out to me all the time through Facebook and share memories about the gyms I've written about which is one of my favorite parts of all of this. There are also people I've known for years that see one of my blogs and say "That's crazy I'm from there and remember that gym!" and I'll have had no idea beforehand. There are also people that I already know where they're from, and once I visit their hometown gym it gives us something really neat to talk about. I've come to realize I know people from virtually every single part of the state. I'll never forget the time someone came up to me out of the blue at church and told me how much they appreciated my blog about the old Reelsville gym because it brought back so many memories from when they were in elementary school there. That Reelsville gym is one I've always considered to be one of the most obscure and remote finds I've ever had, and yet someone in my own little orbit was personally connected to it. Those are fun conversations. Towards the end of this basketball season I was able to visit another Putnam County school that I realized a few years ago I have a personal connection to.
My youngest brother met his wife at Huntington University and they got married in 2022. This was a year before I started the blog, but I had already started regularly going to games again and had my eye out for cool gyms. His wife is from Greencastle, and that's where they had the wedding that summer. I had never heard of Greencastle before, or if I had, it had gotten mixed up in my head with Greenwood, Greensburg, and every other "Green" variety our state has to offer. The west central part of the state was also the one portion I had never really traveled through before I started this blog. When we headed out to Greencastle for the wedding, I was first transfixed by how wide open and unbroken the fields were. In LaGrange County we have a lot of farmland, but it's broken up by woods and Amish houses every couple of acres. I also remember looking up the high school gym while we were there and thinking "Holy cow, that place looks awesome." It's stuck in my head ever since. I actually made it to back to Greencastle last fall to take exterior pictures of the old high school building that sits on the edge of DePauw University's campus and is now an apartment building. Back before the old "Downtown Gym" was built across the street in 1926, the Greencastle Tiger Cubs actually played their games in the basement of the old high school for 8 years, technically making it a fading gym (the "Downtown Gym" looked incredible from old pictures I found, it was torn down in 1989). I loved the driving through the town, and it reminded me even more that I had to make it back to see a game at their current gym, which turned out to be just as awesome as I imagined it would be.
Greencastle is a midsized school in an area of the state where there aren't a lot of them. There's a reason they've traveled to Crawfordsville and even all the way to Frankfort to play in their 3A sectional (they just dropped to 2A in the last couple years). Back in the single-class era they were considered the local big school, even though they weren't one of the massive powerhouses that would host sectionals every year in other parts of the state. With that being said, they still had a lot of success in the single-class era. From the 20s-60s, they dominated the local sectional field. The winning ways started to wane a little in the 70s and 80s, but they still had some great teams that drew incredible crowds in the new McAnally Center that was built in 1968. It was a modern marvel at the time, and it still takes your breath away today. It was built as a giant dome, with seating for over 5,000 spectators. There's a reason it's a regular host site for multiple postseason rounds. I went there to watch a girls semistate championship game. The crowd did not disappoint, and the gym facilitated a fantastic environment for what turned out to be a great game.
The first Indiana high school gym I visited that was a true dome was at Southern Wells. The seating capacity there isn't even very big, but man that ceiling makes the whole place feel grand. That's also the case here, only on a much bigger scale. By my count, there are 16 arched wooden beams holding up the curved roof here. They all come together at the center-most point in the ceiling. The beams work down to a concrete wall that surrounds the entire gym. Right below the bottom of those beams on the sideline ends are thin rectangular windows that run right above the top of the bleachers. Right above the windows are the section numbers painted onto the concrete wall. Not sure why, but it's a cool little detail that stuck out to me. There are two levels to the gym as you would expect in a place this size. The upper levels only have seating along the sidelines, and they go up 13 rows. The lower levels also go up 13 rows, but the seating down here is on all four sides of the court. All of the bleachers are either purple or grey plastic. They're a great example of no matter how good plastic bleachers look when they're brand new, eventually they're going to look worn and raggedy. I'm not sure how old the bleachers are here, but they're old enough that when I started climbing up them to take pictures, I almost ate it because I went to take a step and my toe went in a hole. If you're wondering how you can step in a hole while walking on bleachers, I was asking myself the same question. After my pop bottle went flying and I caught my balance, I looked down to see a nice little hole in the plastic of one of the bleacher seats. Only I could be clueless enough to find it on accident and step directly in it. Regardless of the odds of a klutz like me stumbling upon it, it's probably a sign that it's time for new seats, preferably the wooden variety.
The bleachers here are really the only quibble I have with the place (other than the Green Bay Packers "G" you see everywhere, but that's a personal problem I have due to my own football allegiances). The coolest part of the gym for me sits high above the baselines. On both ends are these giant, brown, enclosed sections that jut out from the upper wall. They're covered in strange slatted wood paneling. They must have rooms inside of them because there are access ladders underneath them that reach down to the upper concourse level. They each have a small rectangular window in them that looks down onto the court below. I'm not sure if they were used for broadcasting or filming at some point, but I've never seen anything like them. They're huge! They've hung Monon Conference team plaques on one of them, and big standard purple athletic accomplishment banners on the other. I'm sure someone from the school knows what they are for, please reach out and fill me in! I'd love to know the story behind them. Down on the hardwood the court design is pretty simple. Most of the court has been stained a modern grey hue which I don't always love, but it's fine. There are lighter tan areas inside the three-point arcs. The court is trimmed in a pretty purple color with "Greencastle" written across one baseline in grey lettering and "Tiger Cubs" across the other. The big purple "G" sits at center court against a white oval. "McAnally Center" is written in purple right inside the sidelines. A couple newer-looking state runner-up banners hang above the court recognizing some boys basketball teams from the 30s. There's a smaller jumbotron hanging above center court as well. The last thing I want to point out is that both inside and outside the arena they've installed some neon purple lights in a few particular areas. This admittedly looks cool, but also reminds me of the underglow lights that teenagers would put under their souped up Honda Civics circa 2005. That is all.
Eastern (Pekin) punched their ticket to the 2A state title game with their victory in the game I watched at the McAnally Center. The game was incredible and well worth the two hour drive to come and check it out. It can sometimes be hard to get a sense for the traditions and culture of a basketball program and gym when the home team isn't playing, but the crowd and environment for this one more than made up for it. I'm also sure I'll be back sometime in the future to take in a Tiger Cub home game as well. While they haven't had the same amount of success in recent years as they did in the single class era, they still have a rich tradition that is worth celebrating, and man do they have a sweet gym to honor that legacy in.
