New Castle (Church Street) (1,800) Built 1924
July 26, 2026
July 26, 2026
Throughout the history of sports, there have been certain singular games that were so iconic that they are remembered by a single phrase. If you're a general sports fan like myself who grew up watching ESPN and listening to sports talk radio, I'm sure you're familiar with them. If someone mentions "The Miracle on Ice," you know they're talking about the USA men's hockey team upsetting the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics. If your buddy brings up "The Ice Bowl," you know they mean the Packers vs. Cowboys game that took place in the 60s when the wind chill dropped to nearly -50 degrees. Baseballs fans all know "The Bloody Sock Game," when Curt Schilling gutted through 7 innings with blood coming through his sock in the 2004 ALCS to help the Red Sox beat the Yankees as they clawed back from 0-3 deficit to win the series. Basketball fans who grew up in the Jordan era still mythologize "The Flu Game," when Michael battled through a debilitating illness to score 38 points in a Finals game against the Jazz and will the Bulls to victory. All of these games featured great players putting on performances that defied logic. Their impact transcends time and lives on to this very day. You wouldn't think that a sport on a much more niche scale like Indiana high school basketball could produce such moments, but you would be wrong. That's because up until the mid-90s, Indiana high school basketball was anything but niche. It had heroes and figures that were truly larger than life, especially to kids growing up watching their local high schools teams go to battle every Friday night in the winter. For Hoosiers, these figures created moments and games that were on par with all those I mentioned above. Of all the famous individual games throughout the history of Hoosier Hysteria, there is one I consistently hear about more than any other: The Church Street Shootout.
Henry County started a campaign a couple years ago with the slogan "Basketball Lives Here," and with good reason. It's the home of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, the greatest museum in the world. It's the home of the Hoosier Gym, which is an unbelievable treasure, and exemplifies everything this blog is about. It's also home to the New Castle Fieldhouse, the largest high school gym in the galaxy. On top of all this, Henry County also has a few other old gyms across the county that are still standing tall and proud. Of all these, the Fieldhouse in New Castle typically gets the most attention. Not only is it big, it's beautiful, and it holds so much history. The Trojans have won a ton of games there, have had titans of the game play there, and hosted some of the most intense game night environments in the history of Hoosier Hysteria when the NCC was in its heyday. What some people don't realize is that New Castle had many great teams long before the Fieldhouse was even a thought.
From 1924-1959, the Trojans played in a gym that sat next to the YMCA in town on Church Street. Over the years it simply became known as "The Church Street Gym." Over the 34 seasons they played and hosted sectionals in this gym, they won 25 of them and only lost 9. In those years they also won 6 regionals and the 1932 state championship. As astounding as those numbers are, they still don't hold a candle to what happened on the night of February 20, 1959. According to Fieldhouse of Dreams by Steve Dicken, a fanstastic book about the building of the New Castle Fieldhouse, a lot was on the line that night. Kokomo was visiting New Castle. Depending what happened in Muncie Central's game the same night, both teams had a chance at the NCC season title. The NCC scoring title was also on line between Kokomo's Jimmy Rayl and New Castle's Ray Pavy. Rayl started the night just 10 points ahead of Pavy. What unfolded that night in front of 2,000+ people in a gym not built to hold that many has become the stuff of legend. Rayl and Pavy traded shot for shot on the way to a 92-81 victory for the Trojans. When the dust settled, Pavy finished with 51 and Rayl with 49. Somehow the nets were still intact on the rims despite the scorching they endured. It was the very last high school basketball game every played at the Church Street Gym, and it could not have possibly gone out in a greater blaze of glory.
After the Church Street Shootout closed the book on the Church Street Gym's days as a high school basketball venue, it found a second and very fruitful life as a part of the New Castle YMCA. I've heard from a few folks who can remember going to New Castle games here back in the 50s, but most people tell me about how many pickup games they played in the gym when it was a part of the YMCA. After the YMCA moved out, it became the home of the Indiana Legends, a member of the same semipro league that has another team playing in the old Danville gym. Earlier this year, control of the building was transferred to a newly formed group called ReNew Castle. They're hoping to find developers who will invest in the gym and two other historic buildings in town (one of which was the even earlier home of the Trojans, the old Sears building) in order to give them a meaningful use for years to come. They held an open house at the end of July, and I was able to stop by and see the gym and old YMCA building next door which was pretty cool too. It doesn't look exactly the same as it did when Pavy and Rayl collectively dropped a hundo almost 70 years ago, but a lot is still intact, and it's more than enough to fill in the gaps of what's missing.
The Church Street Gym originally featured a horseshoe design with a stage on one end. This is a pretty common layout, and one that almost always produces fantastic results, but it was much more common in the 50s. I'm sure there were a couple other gyms from the 20s that featured it, but none come to mind at the moment. It certainly was not prevalent at the time. The bleachers were the permanent wooden kind and went up ten rows. Today the only remnant left lies on the baseline end opposite of the stage, right where you enter the gym. All the bleachers along the sidelines were torn out to provide more space for programming when the YMCA took control of the gym. What's left is not much, but it's critical to help picture what the gym would have looked like during it's varsity basketball days. Because of the remnant, it's not hard to picture what it would have looked like with everything intact.
One of my favorite aspects of the gym is the windows, especially the ones above the baseline entrance to the gym. In the center is an ornate, large semicircle, with smaller full circles on both sides. Long rectangular windows run along the tops of the sideline walls, and other windows run right above the sidelines a little higher up where the ceiling juts out. It's hard to explain, but it's similar to what you will find at Shawswick. Old support beams run right along the sidelines and are emblematic of a classic 20s gym. The stage on the far end has two pillars of tan brick framing it in on the sides. There are openings on both sides of it instead of a solid wall which gives it kind of an odd look. One side has a set of stairs leading to rooms behind it, and the other has a short makeshift wall that looks like it was built out for storage. I wonder what both sides looked like originally. I kind of doubt the hardwood is original to the gym, but it still looks very old in the best way. It's a lighter tan color that is worn, but not worn out. There's a lot of purple on the court and bleachers due to it being the home of the Legends. Not the proper New Castle green, but you can't complain when the gym is still getting used for something productive.
Walking through the gym, getting a full tour from a couple members of the Pavy family, it really brought it to life for me. It was refreshing talking to a group of people who share a love and appreciation for these old gyms. They just get it. I had one person recognize my Hoosier Gym Journey hat and even thank me for what I'm doing, which felt really weird because I don't see myself in that way, but I was appreciative of their kind words. It gave me a chance to turn around and thank them for what they are trying to do in saving this gym. It's not even in bad shape yet, and the fact that people are rallying together to preserve it now before it starts to fall apart gives me a lot of hope. When plans for the New Castle Fieldhouse were being made back in the 50s, their rallying cry was "Gym Now!" They certainly got it done. I'm not sure the Church Street Gym is going to be saved "now," (like I said, I'm not even sure it needs "saving" currently), but I feel pretty confident that the people I met on this day are going to not only save it eventually, but find a new use for it that will preserve it for generations to come.
