Muncie Burris (1,500) Built 1925
January 14, 2025: Muncie Central vs. Muncie Burris (Boys)
January 14, 2025: Muncie Central vs. Muncie Burris (Boys)
My wife and I have our third child on the way later this spring. This means there is a lot of reorganizing and shuffling things around the house in preparation. My wife is a purger, and I am a hoarder. It makes times like these a lot of fun! Along the way we realized we were going to need another dresser. One way we thankfully are alike is that we both agree vintage is usually better than brand new, so we set off across Anderson and Muncie looking for antique dressers (well my wife was looking at least, she's the designer so she was always ultimately going to make the selection). I love antique stores, but attack them differently than most people. I'm not a browser. I walk through booths like the Flash, quickly scanning for only a couple specific items: vinyl records or anything that ties to the local history of the area. If that tie in happens to be related to the local high school basketball team, well then I've really hit the jackpot. The first few stores were a bust for both dressers and local history, but at the final one we hit paydirt. My wife found a gorgeous little dark wooden dresser, and I found a booth entirely dedicated to local Muncie and Indiana history. If I could've bought the entire contents of the booth, I would have. I settled for some Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame memorabilia and some Muncie Central state championship license plates. There were a few Muncie Burris decals that I almost bought too, but I didn't know what I would do with them. It did remind me though that I needed to make it over to Ball Gymnasium where the Burris Owls still play their home games. I managed to only a week later, and my visit made me as giddy as the moment I first laid eyes on that antique booth.
Ball Gymnasium has sat on the campus of Ball State since 1925. This makes it the second oldest active high school gymnasium in the entire state, only one year behind Mishawaka. I'm not sure it technically counts though, because as far as I can tell, Muncie Burris didn't have an active basketball team that played there until 1933. The gym was originally built as the home to the Ball State Teachers College Cardinals according to the college's website. Muncie Burris was established a fews years after as a part of the Teachers College so prospective teachers would have a place to learn the craft. From what I can tell, both the high school and college team used it as their home gym in those early days. Sitting in the shadow of the school with the most state titles ever over at Muncie Central, you would think that the much smaller Burris would have a hard time making a name for itself. While the program has struggled mightily over the last 70 years, it actually got off to an extremely hot start. In the programs first 15 years, they claimed 7 sectional titles, 5 regionals, and 2 semistates: all won at their much larger crosstown rival's historic gym. The first time I read that in one of my Indiana basketball history books it blew my mind. That kind of extended run of dominance over a big school rival simply did not happen in that time period. Sure maybe you stole a sectional once a decade if you were lucky, but nothing like that. The Burris Owls were a force to be reckoned with, and their home gym was a fitting venue to host such spectacular squads.
The exterior of Ball Gymnasium is as impressive as any gym you'll find. Part of that is due to the fact that the building has been added on to a few times with classrooms and other athletic spaces, so it just looks huge, but also very regal and grand. I actually came in the back and walked through some winding hallways to find the gym, but I walked out the front entrance afterwards so I could see what it looked like. The interior of the gym is unlike anything you'll find anywhere else. It has an old 20s-30s vibe to it that matches the era in which it was built, but it also has a small indoor track running around the top of it which definitely does not. I guess it would actually be more reminiscent of the gyms from this era that had a balcony all the way around the court where spectators would stand along a rail or a sit in a few rows of seats to watch the action from above. There weren't any fans watching from the track during the game, in fact the only person up there was a lone cameraman. I'm not sure if I was supposed to, but I snuck up during the second quarter and did one lap around it so I could check out the vantage point and take a few pictures. Banners hanging from the ceiling obstructed a lot of the view in different spots, but it was a definitely a cool way to take in the game. Old classic gym windows sit directly at floor level with the track. The placement looks a bit odd which makes me wonder if the track is not original to the gym.
I spend the majority of my time watching the game from actual the stands below. The gym has seating along all four sides of the court. Each sideline has 6 rows of dark blue plastic bleachers. The baseline bleachers go up 10 rows in the rare instance of baseline seating actually reaching higher than sideline seating. All the bleachers are dark blue plastic and are very beat up. They're the only thing that really takes away from the historical element of the gym. If they ever get replaced, putting wooden ones in would be a no-brainer. They weirdly don't allow anyone to sit in the stands directly behind the scorer's table due to a elaborate camera set up. It takes out some of the best seats in the house (I have never seen more video cameras at a high school basketball game. I'm sure it's for a class or program at the high school, but it darn near felt like an NBA game). Looking up towards the track you'll see a multitude of state title and runner up banners in different sports interspersed with some national champion volleyball banners. They look pretty vintage and have nice alternating blue and yellow color schemes. There's no conference team display from what I could see. The court looks like it hasn't been redone in a long time, and that's okay! The whole thing has been stained a classic golden color and has a decorative Burris Owl logo at half court. The perimeter is trimmed in dark blue with "Burris Owls" written in a classic 90s white font along the baselines. The only other thing to point out is how much space there is behind those baselines and the bleachers. You could fit another 6 rows of folding chairs in there if you ever needed more seating.
Much like its Rust Belt neighbor in Anderson, Muncie is a city that went from 1 main public high school, to 3 high schools, back to 1 high school. Muncie Burris is actually the one constant that has always tagged along beside its giant next door neighbor. It has one of the most unique backstories and setups of any school in the state. Thankfully it has a gym that is just as historic and quirky to match. It's been a long time since the basketball team has found much success, and realistically that will probably continue unless something crazy happens. I'm still glad that there is a group of kids that can call this underrated place home. It deserves more recognition when people talk about the most ancient gyms our state has to offer. Mishawaka, Washington Catholic, and Rushville are all fabulous in their own right, but none of them housed better teams in those earliest days than Burris. I hope I can go back to that same booth sometime (shout-out Old 67 Antique Mall in Muncie) and find some Burris memorabilia to display in the one room of the house my wife lets me decorate. It would be a welcome addition to the collection, just as this gym was a very welcoming place to watch another great game of Indiana high school basketball.
