Indianapolis Shortridge (3,200) Built 2013
February 18, 2025: Anderson vs. Indianapolis Shortridge (Boys)
February 18, 2025: Anderson vs. Indianapolis Shortridge (Boys)
I've spent a lot of time talking about the most historic gyms in Indiana over the course of the last two years on this blog. I have so much fun reading about the communities and stories that make each place unique. Some have a longer history than others, but each one is worth learning about (except the fly-by-night, pop up charter schools that close up before you even know they are there). There may be no school in the entire state with as deep and rich of a history as Indianapolis Shortridge. The Hoosier Hardwood Project did a great writeup about it a couple of years ago. It opened in 1865 and is the oldest free public high school in all of Indiana, New Albany opened a few years earlier, but it wasn't free to attend at first. Shortridge has been playing basketball since the turn of the 19th century and participating in the IHSAA tournament since 1913. The school isn't just old, they're connected to some of the more interesting stories from the earliest years of the sport, particularly when it comes to team names and mascots.
When I first visited Logansport in 2022, I was surprised and confused by their mascot Felix the Cat, considering it seemed to have nothing to do with their team nickname which is the "Berries." They share a story on their school website about how they adopted the name in the 1920s due to a doll one of their players had that was from a popular comic strip at the time. The player placed it along the floor to inspire his team, and the mascot just stuck. They've since plastered its likeness all over their gym. You can imagine my surprise then when I was reading Emerson's Houck's wonderful Hoosiers All which covers the mascots from from every single school ever in existence in Indiana, and I find out that Shortridge also has Felix the Cat as their mascot! Their story is that also in the 1920s, a dog ran from the stands onto the court, so a little girl brought her cat onto the court and sat it next to the dog, and the school adopted the cat and the moniker Felix as their own mascot. This begs the question of why were there so many pets at basketball games in the 20s? And also, we really need to go back to letting random and natural events help provide us with team mascots and names so we don't end up with so many dang Eagles and Wildcats. The best part of this story is that once again, the mascot seems to bear no connection to the team's nickname! The Shortridge basketball team started out as the Battling Burtonian's, named after their coach at the time. This was short-lived as they soon became known as the Blue Devils. While many conservative Hoosiers often balked at such team names that seemed to pay homage to the prince of the air, it was a actually a pretty common occurrence in the early days of Indiana basketball. What was not normal was flatly naming your team "The Satans" which is what Shortridge briefly went by in the 60s for some reason before switching back to the Blue Devils. That feels much more sinister. I can only imagine the field day the local sportwriters had coming up with headlines during that period of time when covering Shortridge games.
This is a lot of historical talk without mentioning the gym or success on the actual court. Considering the school has been playing basketball for over a century in a big city, they don't have the long line of postseason success you would expect. They've nabbed 10 sectionals and a couple regional titles over that span, but not much else. There was a 30 year hiatus when the school was turned into a middle school from 1981-2011 which is partially to blame for that. The gym situation is shrouded in a bit of mystery as well. There is a beautiful old 1928 gym that sits right on campus, but hasn't been used for varsity basketball games in quite some time. A newer gym was built sometime in the last 30 years, but I cannot find the exact date anywhere. It's obvious that it's a fairly modern addition though. Not only is it modern, but it is one of the flatly weirdest gyms I have ever been to. I watched Anderson play there last week, I've had a full 5 days to digest and think about it, and I still can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Usually quirky is good, here it just feels strange. The new gym at Shortridge is connected to the old high school by a skywalk. If you enter from the outside at ground level you find yourself in a tight cement hallway right by a small concession stand and bathrooms. The first thing that came to mind was that it felt like one of those big AAU basketball or volleyball complexes that you find in Hamilton County and Fort Wayne. You enter through the corners of the gym, or by walking through a tunnel that exits right in the middle of one of the sideline sections of bleachers. Once you're in the gym, you can look around and take the absurdity of it all in. It features a two level gym with an upper concourse that connects to the two sides. At the surface that's about as normal as it gets. A closer look reveals what has me feeling confusticated.
Let's start with the seating where you enter the gym. As I mentioned, there's a tunnel in the middle of the lower sideline section. The wooden bleachers here go up 18 rows. The lower section on the opposite is a mirror image except it doesn't have the tunnel. The scorer's table is on this side as well (they block off the two middle stairs here at the bottom, so the only access is at the very ends of the bleachers which makes navigating the entire section very difficult if there's a decent crowd). The upper sections are anything but mirror images. Above the side with the tunnel, there is a narrow but tall section of retractable bleachers that go up about 25 rows. That is very high for an upper level section of bleachers. They only span about half the length of the court, and they're off centered slightly which bothered me more than it should have when I looked from across the way. The bleachers were pushed back up against the back wall for this game which left a big cement area open in front of them. It was littered with school desks and chairs all over the place in a haphazard manner. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside a giant study hall room. Clearly this section of bleachers is hardly if ever used, which is a real shame considering how unique they are. I would love to see the court from that vantage point, the bleachers extend well up into the rafters. An elevator to the upper level also sits right beside them which I've never seen inside a gym itself. If you walk around the concourse to the upper level on the other side, you'll find something very different. There are more wooden retractable bleachers, but they're much more conventional. They span the whole length of the floor, and only go up 11 rows. Indoor batting cages were out in front of them, so I'm guessing they don't get used much either. There are also stairs in the corners here leading even higher to what I'm guessing is just the HVAC system. I've never seen two upper levels of a gym so diametrically opposed. Again, it's just peculiar.
With the bleachers rising so high here, the ceiling obviously has to be very tall. This means the baseline walls are vast and seem to go on for ages. They're made of different materials though on the top and bottom, and aren't very flat due to different beams, posts, and wiring running across them. It doesn't really lend itself well to murals or wall displays. They're pretty much bare and white except for some very basic scoreboards and a couple advertisements (as a player, I would hate these scoreboards. They're way too high and out of your normal line of sight if you're playing on the floor). The concourse along the baseline sits almost on top of the playing floor, so you're looking straight down and feel like you're standing right on top of the action. As long as you don't have anything in your hands to drop, it's a cool place to watch the game. Pioneer Conference team banners hang vertically along the railing here which looks nice. Very basic blue athletic accomplishment banners hang on the lower wall next to blue jersey displays in the corners honoring past Blue Devil greats. I really like the floor design. It's mostly a medium tan color, but it seems to fade to a lighter shade at center court and darker by the baselines ever so slightly. It might just be the light or my eyes playing tricks on me, but it's a cool effect. Center court has what looks like just a big blue "S," but they've hidden a devil's pitchfork inside it which is clever. "Shortridge" is written in big white block letters against a blue background along one sideline, and "Blue Devils" along the other.
I walked out of the Shortridge gym in search of my car that I parked a couple of blocks away. Shortridge has one of the oldest and grandest looking high schools we have, and it's right in the heart of Indianapolis. This makes parking quite the challenge. On my way I passed what I could tell was the old 1928 gym as it had "Gymnasium" carved into the stone above a beautiful set of old doors. Hopefully I'll be able to find a way into that old gym in the near future, but for the time being I was trying to process what I had just witnessed in the new gym. I'm not surprised the odd sections of upper bleachers are rarely used, Indianapolis crowds would barely ever require them. I guess I'm glad they are there though. They bring some zest to what would otherwise be a perfectly fine and functional, but slightly boring gym. With them added into the equation, the gym definitely stands out amongst a sea of Indy gym mediocrity. Shortridge has many interesting bulletpoints in its annals, and this gym is another worthy chapter.
