Lafayette Jeff (6,690) Built 1969
January 17, 2024: Anderson vs. Lafayette Jeff (Boys)
January 17, 2024: Anderson vs. Lafayette Jeff (Boys)
I started following Anderson basketball really closely about 4 years ago when Donnie Bowling first took over the team. I had been to a handful of games in the years before when we first moved to town out of college, but nothing consistently. For whatever reason that team really gripped me and I started going to almost every game. I saw them at New Castle and Muncie early in the season, and I just remember being dumbstruck by those first NCC gyms. That's when I really started reading in-depth articles that the Indy Star had put out about some of the others and doing my own intensive research about the conference. I got Dennis Edgington's book The North Central Conference about its heyday when it truly was the best high school basketball conference in the entire country from the mid-70s through about 1990. After the holidays I made my first visit to Lafayette Jeff. It was on a Friday night in bad weather and I remember they almost called the game. Thankfully they didn't, and I made the 90 minute drive over to Lafayette. When I tell you the place took my breath away when I first stepped in, I am not exaggerating. I could almost hear "A Whole New World" playing around me when I walked through the lower entrance.
This first visit was back before I was blogging about all my gym adventures. I didn't take the time to walk around and see it from all the different angles. This time I had my son with me and we checked out each different seating section and looked at all the old pictures and memorabilia. Few current schools do as good of a job honoring their past as they do at Jeff, and their is a lot to celebrate. The gym is named after Marion Crawley who comes up prominently in any Indiana high school basketball history book you read, often because whatever great team is being written about met the end of their season when they ran into Crawley's team. He coached at Jeff for 24 years and won 23 straight sectionals during that time to go along with 2 state titles while at the school. He's one of the most imposing figures we have in the history of our game in Indiana. This gym wasn't actually the home of all that winning as it was built soon after he retired (look up pictures of the old Jeff gym, it's a beauty), but they've done pretty darn well in this place as well. The evidence of all this winning is littered all over the facility in some pretty cool displays.
The gym here looks as stunning as it does at first glance because of the sheer swath of seating you initially see when you walk in. The gym holds just under 7,000 people, and there is no seating in the corners and very little along the baselines. This means the vast majority of bleachers are all located along the sidelines. They are massive. The lower sideline sections go up about 15 rows and they run about the length of the playing floor. The upper sideline sections go up about 20 rows and they are wall to wall. Marion is the only gym I can think of with upper sideline sections this wide. At the lower level there are also some small baseline sets of retractable bleachers that only go up 7 rows. Let's now address the elephant in this very large room: all of these sets of retractable bleachers were replaced a few years ago. They're all made of bright red plastic. It's fine now, but you wonder what it'll look like in 15-20 years when they start to fade as plastic bleachers always do. The real issue here is what they replaced. For over 40 years, Jeff had one of the most beautiful and impressive sets of wall to wall, floor to ceiling wooden bleachers. They were just impeccable. The decision to not only just replace them, but to do it with plastic is borderline treasonous. I don't mean to be melodramatic but it's enough to make one weep. The gym definitely looks flashier now, and if that's what you're into than you probably love it. I still struggle to get past it, but thankfully it doesn't ruin the overall awe and wonder the place invokes.
Mercifully, they didn't touch my favorite part of the gym. While there isn't much baseline seating in the upper level, the little they do have is awesome. Right above the lower baseline wall that overlooks the court are three rows of red permanent wood bleachers. They all have seat backs as well which probably make them the most comfortable seats in the house along with having the best views in the building. You have to step down to this section from the concourse which gives it a regal pressbox type feel. I watched the whole first game I attended here from this vantage point and absolutely loved it. You truly feel like you're right on top of the action, which is the opposite of the feeling you normally get when sitting in upper baseline sections in big gyms. A row of Indiana All-Star display jerseys runs across the front of the bannister in this section as well. The concourse behind these sections runs along the entire gym which provides great access to wherever you want to go. The bathrooms up here also feel like they haven't been updated since the gym was opened which adds to the vintage feel. I will say one of the saddest parts of visiting these huge old gyms when they're not full for a big game is seeing all the upstairs concession stands that are closed. I'm not sure why it sticks with me, but it always does. You can just imagine the extra bit of atmosphere it would provide when these big windows are open and people are huddled around them at halftime. I'm guessing they don't get much use outside of when they host regional and semistate games.
Another thing that Lafayette Jeff has going for it is one of the coolest mascot names and logos in the state. They are the "bronchos," not the "broncos." The school is old enough that the word often used to be spelled with an "H," and nobody ever bothered to modernize it. The accompanying logo is a red bucking broncho that you can see at center court and high up on the wall above each baseline. State champion signs surround the logo along with "Jefferson High School" written in black. All of this is in the center of the wall on each end of the gym. Flanking out from the center on each side are more athletic accomplishment displays for all sports. They are more modern looking, but with the black background and rectangle shape instead of the usual pennant designs, they look a little more classy. Boys basketball alone requires three of them. All that is left of the NCC schools are displayed with signage high above one of the sideline bleacher sections. If you are sitting down by the court you really have to squint to see them. I do prefer the old floor design, but the current one is still pretty good. The majority of the court has been stained one of the lightest tans you'll see anywhere. Only the inside of the wings is a different and has an almost grey shade. The NCC logo sits right inside the free throw line. The beautiful broncho logo is loud and proud at center court. "Jefferson Bronchos" is written in red block letters along the baseline against a black background. The years of the state titles are written in thin script inside the sidelines, but they weirdly face the opposite sideline which I've never seen before. I guess they probably think it'll be easier to see from the higher sections which may be true, but it just looks backwards.
The game against Anderson last week had maybe a thousand people at it. Now a days that's not even an awful crowd, but it feels like a drop in a bucket at a place like this. I have no visions of the NCC returning to its former glory. The conference is currently on life support. This didn't prevent two old rivals from putting on a great show on another cold Friday night. The game came right down to the wire. The Jeff cheer block was strong and yelling all night. Towards the end of the game, the Anderson fans formed a makeshift cheer block of their own and started chanting right back at them. Anderson only pulled it out in the final seconds. I could barely hear my son talking right into my ear almost the entire game. It was loud, it was fun. Attendance these days is what it is. These student-athletes aren't fighting any less hard. The fans that still come out still care just as much. They aren't letting what used to be, take away from the excitement that is still here. I'm not going to either.
