Greenfield-Central (4,620) Built 1969
February 28, 2024: Anderson vs. Greenfield-Central (Boys)
February 28, 2024: Anderson vs. Greenfield-Central (Boys)
If you travel to enough high school basketball games across Indiana in a given season, you're probably going to run into one or two that are sold out. A lot of places still have really healthy crowds on a consistent basis, but a true sellout is a rarity. A sectional quarterfinal or semifinal often is the best opportunity to find one as you have four different groups of fans descending on the same gym instead of just two. I found one tonight at Greenfield-Central as Anderson took on the only undefeated team left in the state. By the time I got there for the second game there were truly not any seats available. Looking around the gym, there were clearly at least 50 people in the same predicament as me. Fortunately I found a really nice wall to lean against in the corner with a great view and never left for fear of losing my post. A sellout is just different. It's Hoosier hysteria at its best. Greenfield is no small gym to sellout either. It's deceptively large, while also decidingly boring.
The Greenfield gym feels like it's the world's biggest box. You're probably asking yourself, aren't all gyms essentially just a big box? Yes, but this one really just has that sense to it. I've never noticed it before anywhere else. It's actually a fairly old gym built in the 60's, but they've done a really good job of stripping any historical character from it that it may have had at one point. If you told me it was newer than Fisher's gym, I would believe you. It has a normal, two-level setup along each sideline with no seating on the baselines. Each side has about 30 rows of blue plastic bleachers between the two levels. They're mirror images of each other looking either direction. The retractable bleachers up top don't quite reach the back wall which leaves an 8 foot gap that you can walk through behind the bleachers. It doesn't look like it's used for anything. The only really nice thing I have to say other than the fact that it's just big is that the new floor design is pretty snazzy. I like the multiple wood tones and the darker paw print at center court is unique. I guess the big cougar mural on the one baseline wall looks kind of cool, but murals age like wine. It'll be more impressive 30 years from now if they don't paint over it again for something newer. Also along that baseline wall are the standard, modern version of athletic accomplishment banners which are so blase. The opposite baseline wall is a hodgepodge of a simple "GC" mural, Indiana map athletic accomplishment plaques, 5 small Indiana All-Star displays, and a boring HHC conference team section. The cougar and "GC" murals are both on the baseline ends, but on the jutted-in walls that house the stairs so they feel closer to the stands. I think it's time to talk about what really sinks this gym: the atrocious, plasma, monstrosities that hang on each baseline wall. I hate flatscreen scoreboards in general, but these are extra stupid. They're the size of of a football field and only the bottom third is used for actual scoreboad purposes. The rest is all for advertisements and random messages that have nothing to do with the game. All that space and they don't even have a section that tells you how many points/fouls each player on the floor has. They're ugly and don't even serve their purpose well. If you want to see literally anything cool, walk out in the hallway and check out the two different preserved centercourt pieces from past hardwood floors.
This gym is old. This gym is big. Those are two things that are really hard to screw up, but Greenfield truly has done its best here. I didn't think it was possible to make a 50 year old gym this lifeless, but they've done it! There's no character. There's no soul. It's HSE if they added a lot more seats. The fact that it ever hosts a sectional in a field that includes Richmond and Muncie is unfathomable. Greenfield is going to have a fantastic team in 2024-2025. Catch them on the road if you want to watch them.
