Hamilton Heights (3,106) Built 1993
November 5, 2024: Danville vs. Hamilton Heights (Girls)
November 5, 2024: Danville vs. Hamilton Heights (Girls)
The smell of popcorn. The squeaking of shoes. The referee in his 70s who can't make it up and down the court but refuses to retire. The one psychotic parent losing it over every perceived travel. The student section filled with teenagers unironically wearing pajama pants to a sporting event for no apparent reason. These are all tell-tale signs that high school basketball is in full swing again, and you could find them all tonight at Hamilton Heights as the home team got obliterated by Danville. I picked this game as both girls teams were ranked in the preseason top 10 in 3A, but the game was out of hand from the jump. With it though the 2024 season is underway and we are off to the races. This gym was never going to knock my socks off, but for one of the newer gyms in the state (yes, 31 in gym years is still considered new), it's well put together aesthetically and is a perfectly fine place to watch a game.
Whenever you hear "heights" in a school name, it's almost guaranteed to be a product of consolidation. The story of Hamilton Heights is a little unique in that the area schools already went through a fairly big consolidation in the 40s when Arcadia, Atlanta, and Cicero came together to create Jackson Central before that school merged with Walnut Grove to form Hamilton Heights in the 60s. The true tragedy in all of this is that the old Arcadia "Dragon" mascot was lost forever. Now the current school is represented by the hopelessly generic "Huskies." The Husky logo is plastered all over the hallways and gym to ensure you don't forget about it. While the Husky may be everywhere, they at least do a good job of making it a part of the overall design scheme. Make no mistake about it, this gym is very boring. There's almost nothing unique about it. With that said, they did do a few things well. The grey and orange is very vibrant everywhere and it looks pretty good. It looks even better when sitting high in the bleachers and observing from a zoomed out view. Behind each sideline upper level of retractable bleachers are regulation size practice courts which I've only seen at a couple places, and I don't think any of those were full size. The athletic accomplishment displays are done on colored glass boards which is unique. The font is small, but the white letters really pop against the background which makes it fairly easy to read from a distance. Right beside them are 1,000 point scorer displays which I always appreciate. There are displays for both the girls and boys on opposite ends of one baseline wall.
Everything else in the gym is pretty much copy and pasted from the How To Build A Lifeless Multipurpose Gym manual that was passed around to athletic directors starting in the early 80s. Both sidelines have two levels of gray plastic bleachers. Both levels have about 11-12 rows each. There are upper walkways behind each baseline so you can meander all the way around the top if you wish. The baseline wall above the entrance to the gym has the two athletic accomplishment displays on either end with the giant Husky logo in the middle. The opposing baseline wall has screen printed Husky eyes staring out at you and the Hoosier Conference team display running underneath it. Each team has a simple square plaque (seeing the Logansport sign in this conference definitely hurt a little). It's worth noting that both baseline walls have a traditional scoreboard along with a big digital screen. While I typically don't love the big screens on their own, when they're used in tandem with a traditional scoreboard to add something to the experience instead of just replacing them I don't mind it as much. They were used in a cool way to show pictures of the starters as they were announced and throughout the game they showed the current points and fouls for each player who was on the floor which is always nice. The court design is modern and fine. Most of the court is a very light wood color, but is dark brown inside the three point arc and orange in the foul lane. I really like the font used to spell out "Huskies" across the baselines. Center court features the same Husky logo one more time.
Hamilton Heights is technically a part of Hamiton County which I typically try to avoid at all costs. There's a hint of the stuffiness here that infects this particular square of the state (especially in their gyms), but it's definitely not as prevalent as the other schools I've been to. Hamilton Heights is stuck between being a rural school and a suburban school, and while everything here is trimmed in a contemporary aura, there is still a little sense of small town basketball. I can't really describe it, you just know it when you've been around it enough. For example, the community and gym at Delta is very compareable to this one, and I didn't get that feeling at all when I visited there last year. As the sterile suburbia of the rest of the county continues to creep outwards, I hope this community can withstand it awhile longer.
