Loogootee St. John's (1,800) Built 1951
September 26, 2025
September 26, 2025
Fire is a funny thing. It's one of the most useful chemical reactions we have in the natural world. It's been used since the dawn of time to help people cook, find warmth, and a multitude of other purposes. It has saved countless lives over the course of human history. At the same time, it's one of the most destructive forces we have on our planet. It can destroy an entire community in the blink of an eye. Its power is great, and has to be harnessed and controlled in order to be used for good. When it's left to its own devices, nothing but ruin lies in its wake. This overly philosophical opening to a blog about a basketball gym is related to the fact that fire is the reason so many old gyms and schools are no longer standing today. Schools and gyms burning down was once an epidemic, especially before 1950. It feels like every other history I read about a school has a mention of a school burning to the ground at some point. These occurrences have lessened over the years as building materials have changed and building codes have gotten better about preventing these sorts of fires, but they still happen. Mecca and Hope are both currently waiting to be razed at some point after being ravaged by flames in the last decade. I went out to see the ruins of Spartanburg this summer which turned out to be one eeriest scenes I've ever come upon in my travels. Fire is not the friend of old gyms and schools. This was very evident in Loogootee circa 1969 when fire brought about one of the strangest school consolidations our state has ever seen.
For the better part of the 1900s, Loogootee was home to two high schools. There was the traditional small public school in town, and there was the St. John's Catholic school. The school sat right next to the church that still stands tall today. They played their high school games in a gym that was also built nearby in 1951. The St. John's Eagles didn't have a lot of postseason success, but they at least had a nice gym to call home. That was the case until tragedy struck in 1969 when a fire burned down the old high school. While the gym was thankfully spared from the flames, St. John's High School was not as lucky. The decision was made for the school to be absorbed into the public school rather than rebuild. It's the only instance I know of where a private school essentially consolidated with a public school. Maybe there have been other cases like this, but it's the only one I'm aware of. Eventually another more modern school building was attached to the gym, and it has continued to serve the Loogootee community as a junior high and elementary school gym over the years until just recently. Now it is primarily used for youth games and practices. It received a facelift a few years ago, and now has new Loogootee Lions signage all over it. Most of it looks pretty sharp, though I do wonder what it looked like back when it was home to the Eagles.
Another 50s gym, another arched roof. While this one doesn't have the same fancy crosshatch design on the inside of it like its neighbor over in Elnora, it does have the pretty bowed metal beams transversing from sideline to sideline. It's always neat to look up and see these. The dark finish of the curved wood at the very top of the ceiling is also gorgeous. The top of the gym wall has been painted a Loogootee shade of yellow with a black stripe running across the middle. Underneath that along one sideline are 10 rows of beautiful permanent bleachers. The bench seats have been left their original wood color while everything else underneath has been painted black. The look works pretty well here. While I'm sure the opposing sideline had a matching set of bleachers originally, they were removed at some point, so now there's a giant swath of open hardwood space. There are modern Loogootee Lion folding chairs that are used for team benches and a very fancy scorer's table pushed back against the wall over here. High up above on this sideline wall is one short section of rectangular windows. The rest of the wall at this height around the gym has been covered in yellow metal paneling for some reason. Two old wooden practice hoops hang up on this wall as well. The baseline wall from where you enter the gym is almost completely barren except for a door with the Loogootee "L" on it. The far baseline end at one time featured a decent-sized stage that has since been covered with a big Loogotee Lions branded padded wall of sorts. I'm not really sure how else to describe it. The gym floor looks like it was probably redone when the rest of the gym was. They did a great job honoring an old floor with a classy design. The fantastic old school Loogootee Lion logo sits at center court dribbling a basketball. "Loogootee Lions" is written right inside each sideline in perfect cursive golden script. It looks marvelous.
In one corner of the gym is a small set of stairs that leads to the stage and the old locker rooms. While the locker rooms were nice to see, what I found up on the old stage was what really piqued my interest. I came across a bunch of wooden plaques that at one point would have sat below pictures of teams that won various tournaments over the years. I have no clue where the pictures are. It was weird to see just the plaques, but it was a neat link back to the earlier days of the gym. They would have most likely been junior high championship teams from the days after St. Johns consolidated with Loogootee, but they were still neat to see. This gym was actually named after Lee Kavanaugh who coached and taught at the school for many years when it was a junior high. He's a brother to the equally famous Albert Kavanaugh over at arch rival Barr-Reeve who also has court named after him. It's just another example of how closely connected the schools and communities are down here where basketball still means everything to people. I'm going to be making one more trip down to Loogootee this winter to watch the current Lions take on the Vikings in Coach Thompson's first game against his old team. You think that game might have some juice to it? It's going to be electric, just like I'm sure games were here back when the St. John's Eagles took on their own rivals. A fire may have taken their school, but the fire that burns within for the love of basketball in this town will seemingly never go out.
