Loogootee (Current) (4,571) Built 1968
January 16, 2025: Barr-Reeve vs. Loogootee (Boys)
January 16, 2025: Barr-Reeve vs. Loogootee (Boys)
I'm not sure there is anything in sports that can elicit emotion quite like rivalries can. Think about the most iconic rivalries in sports: Yankees vs. Red Sox. Lakers vs. Celtics. Indiana vs. Purdue. High school referees vs. dads trying to live vicariously through their children. Whenever these matchups play out on the field or court, you know you're going to get the best both sides have to offer. Maybe you don't actually hate the people on the other side, but you definitely hate the name on the front of the jersey. Rivalries make people crazy. I remember something the entire student section at Westview did (which I won't repeat here) when I was in middle school when the boys basketball team was playing Lakeland just to throw off their best player. We hated Lakeland. And Fairfield. And Northridge. Those games just felt like life and death. As a young fan I remember just wanting to murder the officials over every single call in those games. As a player I remember walking through school on those game days just shaking with nerves and anticipation. Indiana high school basketball may not have the juice that it used to on a night in and night out basis that it used to, but rivalry games let fans today get a taste of what it was like before the hysteria started waning a bit in the early 90s. Walk into a gym on a Friday night for Westview vs. Fairfield, or South Knox vs. North Knox, or Columbus East or Columbus North, and you're going to find an atmosphere that is second to none, I don't care what sport you're playing or what level you're playing it at. Indiana high school basketball is still the best of the best in those moments. If you want to experience it at its absolute peak, you have to head south for the two best rivalries we have left. One I have not yet experienced, and that's New Albany vs. Jeffersonville. The other one I've heard about for years and finally got to experience firsthand back in January, and that's Barr-Reeve vs. Loogootee.
I've been to the Buggy Bowl between North Daviess and Barr-Reeve twice now, at both venues. That rivalry gets all the notoriety for having the craziest traditions, but Barr-Reeve has another foe that is hated almost if not just as much, Loogootee. Only 8 miles separate the two schools. While Loogootee maybe has a few more kids living in town, the communities are very similar, with kids sharing many of the same values and experiences growing up. When I think of these two communities, three things come to mind: God, basketball, and Mountain Dew (the order of importance may change a bit depending on who you're talking to). The one thing you are guaranteed to find at every Barr-Reeve vs. Loogootee game is a packed crowd and some of the most insane and well-coordinated student sections anywhere in the state. When I walked into Jack Butcher Arena for this game, the first thing I saw was the Barr-Reeve student section filling in an entire corner of the gym. Barr-Reeve only has a couple hundred kids in the entire school! The Loogootee section was just as impressive. It was almost a three drive for us, and we left right after school, so we got there right about 7:00. By that time the gym was 95% full. If our southern Indiana hosts hadn't saved us a spot, we would've been hunting for open seats for awhile. It was so incredibly loud too. The game was close the whole way. Both sides were going nuts. I've heard firsthand from people for years how crazy this rivalry and these games are every single year, and it delivered in every single way.
As if the normal Barr-Reeve vs. Loogootee rivalry wasn't intense enough, the game this year was even a little more charged up than normal. That's because Loogootee coach Josh Thompson, came over this year to serve to as the athletic director as well after being at Barr-Reeve the previous seven years. While it sounds like there isn't much bad blood (coach Thompson is a great guy and it was just a perfect opportunity for him and his family), there's no doubt that Barr-Reeve fans wanted this one a little more than usual, and coach Thompson probably did as well. Barr-Reeve ended up pulling away slightly in the fourth quarter to take the win, but Loogootee is going to get another chance for revenge here in a couple weeks in the sectional. Loogootee has been the annual host for sectional 62 (which is one of the most competitive sectionals in the state every single year) for as long as I can remember, and lately they have been a regular regional host site as well, and for good reason. This gym is just rich with history and tradition. I wrote about a lot of that history HERE when I visited Loogootee's old gym back in September. The gym is named after Jack Butcher who is on the Mount Rushmore of great Indiana high school basketball coaches. You can argue about the other three, but he's undoubtedly on there. There's a really neat display case out in the lobby honoring him and the rest of the Loogootee Lion's basketball history. I've talked before about how small school basketball in southern Indiana is just a little bit different, and it's hard to explain without experiencing it in person. Loogootee, along with all their history, is the epitome of this, and this gym is at the center of it all.
Jack Butcher Arena was the last of Ralph Legeman's sunken gyms that dot southern Indiana's landscape. Built in 1968, it does feel a bit newer than some of the others, but it still has that classic look that is so identifiable in this part of the state. Counting rows is extremely difficult when every seat is occupied, but I came up with 11 rows of permanent bleachers working their way down to the floor level all the way around the court. The only break in the seating is a little tunnel entrance in the middle of one of the baseline sections. The gym underwent a big revamp right before COVID which we'll get to a little more later, but one of the things they did was cover the original wooden bench seats with a black rubber covering. I don't know what kind of shape the old seats were in before this, and the coverings match the overall color scheme of the place so they don't look bad, but it's a little bit of a bummer. One thing that makes Loogootee a little different from other sunken gyms in Indiana is that it has two big sections of retractable bleachers up above the bowl along one sideline. Carmel and New Castle have a couple sets of small extra bleachers they pull out for big games, but they're nothing like this. When pulled out, these also go up 11 rows. They're a mustard/beige color that doesn't really match the yellow found elsewhere in the gym. It looks a little off, but the setup is really unique and it adds a little more character to the gym overall.
We should probably talk a little bit about the color scheme here. There is a ton of very bright, fluorescent yellow. It definitely pops, but I'm not sure if it's in a good way or not. I came across some pictures of the gym from before the remodel on Marc Viquez's awesome site Stadium Journey, and all the walls were just white. It made everything look much more subdued. You could argue it was more classy, or more boring. I'm on the fence, and that's rare for me. I don't hate the current look, but man it's a lot of yellow. On the bright side, there is a lot of stuff on those yellow walls to talk about. There are some unique Indiana Hall of Fame banners honoring the four inductees Loogootee has had over the years. You always see Indiana All-Star's recognized, but not often Hall of Famers. This is a nice touch. In one corner of the gym are some small pennant style banners recognizing all the Blue Chip Conference teams. In theory I like pennant style banners, but these are really small and kind of hidden up in the corner. Looking back at the old pictures, it also looked like there used to be a sweet map display to honor the teams which is now gone unfortunately. One thing they've done extremely well here is honor teams from the past who have had a lot of success. Along a couple of the walls are old team pictures laid out in perfect rows in between the best state title and runner up displays I've ever seen. Each display is actually painted on the wall itself. It's a black silhouette of the state of Indiana. In big gold letters it tells the specific accomplishment along with the year. Then it has stars on the map indicating where the teams involved in that year's state finals were from. They're just perfect. It's also worth pointing out that there's a neat little press box up in a crow's nest of sorts in one corner of the gym, high above the crowd with what I assume is a great view of the action.
The court itself got a modern revamp as well when everything else was done. Originally it was pretty plain, but had one of the best center court logos I've even seen with what looked like a cartoonish lion with a crown and dribbling a ball hand-painted on the court. It's been replaced with a generic "L" that has three different shades of cream, yellow, and black in it. It's fine. The rest of the court is a classic light-tan color with a more brown shade inside the three-point arcs and black inside the foul lanes. "Loogootee" is written along one sideline and "Lions" across the other against a black background that goes all the way around the perimeter of the court. "Jack Butcher Arena" is written inside each sideline in pretty script. For a sunken gym there's not an obscene amount of space between the out of bounds lines and the first row of stands which was a pleasant surprise for once. Right behind the scorer's table it looks like there's almost a little VIP seating section with a single row of seats in front of a metal barrier. I don't know what a person has to do to secure one of those spots, but they seem important.
Right outside the gym is one of the cooler display cases I've ever seen. "Butcher Ball: It's not just a game" is written in big letters above it. It's basically a shrine to Jack Butcher himself along with the rest of the Loogootee program. You can find newspaper articles, old balls, letter jackets, pictures, and all other kinds of odds and ends. There's even a copy of Butcher's book which I didn't know existed (but now is on my reading list). One of the coolest things I saw was a trophy from when I assumed Butcher retired. When he finally hung it up in 2002, he was the winningest coach in Indiana high school basketball history. He's since been passed by a couple of other luminaries, but his legacy here hasn't changed a bit. It's rare that one man deserves his own display case, but if anyone does, it's Jack Butcher.
Our family trip to southern Indiana has become one of my favorite traditions the last few years. I've written about my ties to Daviess County before, and going down to see these people once a year is always a treat. Whether it's catching up with Barr-Reeve legend Micah Bullock at the game or talking about it the next day with Rick Lengacher (thanks for reading Rick!), it's always something I look forward to. I've been around Loogootee a lot these last few months, and the people I've run into have been just as kind to me as well, including coach Thompson who let me into the old Loogootee gyms a couple months back. It's a new era of Loogootee basketball, which means it's a new chapter in the Barr-Reeve vs. Loogootee rivalry. I have no doubt the future will bring more Vikings and Lions that love to beat each other on the court, even if they're not that different off of it. As long as there are, Indiana high school basketball will be in good hands.
