Lebanon (New) (4,099) Built 1968
March 1, 2024: Tri-West vs. Lebanon (Boys)
March 1, 2024: Tri-West vs. Lebanon (Boys)
Building a Mount Rushmore of Indiana high school basketball players is an almost impossible exercise. Depending on what era and part of the state you're from, you're going to gravitate to different legends of the game. You ask almost any Hoosier with a pulse who the greatest pure shooter of all time is though, and you're going to hear one name: Rick Mount. The sweetest stroke to ever grace the hardwood in Hoosierland. He put on a clinic every Friday night in central Indiana. He was so good that he continues to put on actual shooting clinics for young hoopers all over the state each summer in Lebanon at age 77. One of my own teammates in middle school who was a solid player went to his camp one summer and came back in the fall the best player on the team. There is no one more synonymous with the hard work and absolute drive needed to become a great player in Indiana more than Rick Mount.
The lesser known fact about Rick Mount is that he is in the middle slot of a three-generation run of greatness in Lebanon basketball history. His father Pete Mount was an Indiana All-Star in the mid-40s, and his son Richie is second only to himself in career scoring at the school. An unprecedented 40 year stretch at a school that is already steeped in the earliest history of the game in Indiana. Crawfordsville won the first state championship in 1911, and then Lebanon took 3 of the next 7. Look at the boys basketball section of the athletic accomplishment banners in the gym, and it reads like an encyclopedia. Pictures of those 3 state championship teams hang above the 100 year old trophy plaques out in the lobby. It doesn't get any cooler than that. The Tigers moved out of the beautiful downtown gym that Rick Mount made famous in the 60s (It still stands and can be visited today. It's owned by the apartments it's now connected to), but you can still feel the weight of the history in the new facility as they've done a really good job of honoring the past throughout the lobby and gym. It shouldn't be forgotten that Richie Mount brought a lot of success and history to the current gym itself as well.
There are reasons to visit the "new" Lebanon gym other than to see the tributes to the Mount family. Walking in, there are two striking things you notice right away. The first is the gorgeous black and gold color scheme (The whole place feels like Noblesville lite). The second is how absurd the stairs look on all the sections of bleachers. Each sideline has two levels of bleachers, each about 13 rows high. The ratio of seat/stair square footage may be the closest to 50/50 that I've ever seen. There are so many rows of stairs, and they're all about twice as wide as even other modern gym remodels. You can comfortably walk three wide up and down the stairs. There's TWO rows of handrails and essentially a passing lane in the middle. One of a kind and it looks ridiculous. The capacity is still listed at over 4,000 even after the wooden bleachers were replaced and I find that almost impossible to believe. The bleachers themselves are gold plastic which isn't awful even though I would've gone with black which is hands down the least offensive color when it comes to plastic. There are also small pull-out sections of bleachers behind each baseline.
I like the court design overall. The tiger head at center court and surrounding slash marks look cool. The contrast between the two tones of brown that are so common on courts today is much sharper than most. The one weird thing is that the tone for the semicircle inside the key is the same color as the interior wing areas. The "Lebanon Tigers" lettering on each baseline looks a lot older than the modern design of the rest of the court. Each baseline essentially has two huge, black accent walls that house a lot of hardware. The dark background is a really nice contrast to all the gold elsewhere in the gym. Both walls have standard, newer athletic accomplishment banners for all sports. One side has golden Indiana map state championship plaques for the early basketball teams along with smaller ones for semistate victories and state runner-up appearances. The other wall has the same but for a couple of different sports. At the top of the baseline wall above the entrance are a few giant box fans that look like they're older than Pete Mount himself. The baseline bleachers on the opposite wall actually set in front of an open hallway instead of a wall which is interesting. On a side wall above the first level of bleachers is a really nice circular Sagamore conference team display. The logos are great and it looks really nice in that configuration. The scoreboards also only hang in two corners of the gym which is definitely different.
Out in the hallway you can find a large section of the old hardwood center court. I'm becoming more and more fond of these old displays. If I had a wall big enough in my house, I would probably try and find a few to hang. They really can transport you to a different time. I'm extremely appreciative when schools like Lebanon take the time and attention to detail to honor their past. This kind of heritage and tradition is what got me hooked on high school basketball as a kid and keeps me coming back as an adult. There's a lot to celebrate from 1911 to now. I hope we continue to pay respect to the past while appreciating what we still have in Indiana today.
