Lakeview Christian (500?) Built 1986
March 5, 2026
March 5, 2026
Back in January I had the chance to connect with Chris Smith, one of the photographers and authors behind the magnificent Hoosier Hardwood Project. His work, alongside Michael Keating, is a big part of what inspired me to start this project and was a very valuable resource for unearthing old gyms in the early days of my blog. Talking with him on the phone about our common interest in all of this and some of our favorite gyms was surreal and just an awesome experience. Over the course of our conversation he asked how I was able to do all of this while having three children who aren't even school aged yet. That answer was pretty simple: my wife is a saint. While I do my best do make sure she's never having to hold down the fort at home with all three kids by herself while I'm out looking for gyms, there's still no way I could do this without her support. She's the one who lets me be gone two nights a week all winter going to games. She's the one who lets me steal her nicer van and drive all over the state on my breaks to hunt down older gyms. She's the one who understands how much all of this means to me, even if she doesn't fully understand why. This winter she also helped me out in a new way, she unearthed a gym that had been sitting right under my nose only 20 minutes from my house that I was completely unaware of.
When I was at college at Indiana Wesleyan in Marion, I never thought I'd end up settling right outside of it. I didn't exactly love my college experience. One neat thing that I got to do was drive a bus to pick up and drop off kids in the community for Wednesday night youth group at Lakeview Wesleyan Church. My Old Testament professor went to church there and offered it as a way to get out of writing a big research paper. It was a good experience since I was getting ready to teach kids from another old Rust Belt town over in Anderson. I don't even think I realized at the time that there was a private Christian school sitting on the other side of the church building. Fast forward a dozen years, and my wife who is an interior designer is working on a project renovating both the church and the old school. Lakeview Wesleyan Church has been a fixture in Marion for decades. In 1977 they opened Lakeview Christian School on their campus. In the mid-80s they built a new school building and gym beside the church. By 1994 the Lakeview Christian Lions were playing in the IHSAA tournament. This lasted until 2010 when the school dropped their high school classes and became an K-8 institution. In just the last year, the church and school have gone through a lot of change. Lakeview Wesleyan has merged with The River church in Marion, and Lakeview Christian School is moving to the other side of town into another old building. With the merger of the two churches, there is a lot of remodeling happening in both buildings. My wife's design company has been heavily involved with all of it. One day she randomly asked if I'd ever been in the Lakeview Christian School gym. I said that I hadn't but also that I didn't think they were an IHSAA school. Then I thought that I should at least check, and what do you know! I was wrong, and I was glad to have been! The demo process for much of the gym was getting ready to start in just a few weeks, and thankfully her connections were able to get us inside right before it did.
Greg Whitton is the man who was kind enough to let my whole family into the gym to take some pictures and look around one night after school. He's been involved with the school for many years, and even coached the girls for awhile. He had a lot of interesting anecdotes about the history of school and the basketball program. Since they started playing sectional games in 1994, they played a few years in the vaunted Marion sectional. There was one year that they even stuck with Marion for most of the game before falling away at the end. With the advent of class basketball came more tournament success for the Lions. While the boys program won one sectional in 2002, it was the girls program that brought home the most hardware. They went on a three year run from 1998-2000 that yielded three straight sectional championships. In two of those years, they won regionals as well. Not bad for a program that only played in IHSAA postseasons for 16 years total. I was admittedly a little surprised and impressed that a school this tiny had this much tournament success, even in 1A. What was even more astounding to me was that Lakeview Christian actually hosted a regional in 2000. Now it's not uncommon for girls sectionals to played in average to even smaller gyms, but this place cannot hold more than 500 or so spectators. The idea that it was ever given a regional blew my mind. What a cool experience that must have been for a small Christian school, and they won the game! The last small detail I want to point out because it's just incredible, is that Lakeview Christian used to be in the same athletic conference as Howe Military. Yes, that's the same Howe Military I wrote about last summer. The one that sits about 5 miles from my childhood home. Talk about covering some mileage when on your way to a game.
The gym itself here is about what you would expect from a small Christian school. It's not going to blow anyone away, but it has a lot of cool little features worth talking about. There are six rows of worn red plastics bleachers along each sideline. That accounts for all of the seating. On one upper sideline wall is a modern Lakeview Christian banner, and on the other side are some classy red basketball sectional and regional championship banners. There are four old school baskets with wooden backboards and fixed rims hanging directly off these walls as well right out over the sidelines. The baseline wall opposite of the main entrance doesn't have much going on other than a big scoreboard. The baseline end right by the entrance though is the focal point of the gym. At one point there used to be a classic stage along this big baseline wall. Eventually part of that stage was walled off and turned into the concession stand which gives it a unique look. On the wall above it are some retired jersey plaques laid out in a neat row which were really cool to see. Off to the right of the stage hang a couple of pictures of the sectional and regional championship teams. The court here isn't your standard hardwood variety, but the rubber composite kind you typically find in elementary schools built in 70s and 80s. It's a pale tanish-grey color. There's red inside the foul lanes and in the outer circle at center court. A small white "L" sits inside the inner circle there. "Lions" is written in pretty cursive script inside the sidelines directly at halfcourt, which is a little different than most places you go. Again, I want to point out that an Indiana high school basketball regional game was played on a rubber floor. Hoosier Hysteria never fails to amaze me!
I'll admit that I haven't researched the small Christian schools that have come and gone across the Indiana landscape over the years with the same fervor that I have the public schools. A lot of times they only stuck around the postseason tournament for a couple decades, much like Lakeview Christian. I've marked them down on my list of places I need to go see, but I haven't asked enough questions or spent enough time on the old Google machine to learn more about their history and traditions. I'm realizing more and more that I need to rectify that. In the last year I've visited two schools in Marion with rich basketball cultures that I never would have known about if I hadn't taken the time to look into them: Lakeview Christian and Bennett Catholic. Their stories may not be well-known across Indiana, but they still mean just as much to the people who lived them. It's important that those stories get told. When you drive by 5318 S Western Avenue in Marion, you're not going to see signs for Lakeview Wesleyan Church or Lakeview Christian School anymore. If you walk inside this gym, it's not even going to look the same way it does in the pictures here. That doesn't the mean the memories are gone, or that they're any less important. They just exist in the recollections of those who value them the most.
