Noblesville (Current) (4,200) Built 1996
February 11, 2025: Anderson vs. Noblesville (Boys)
February 11, 2025: Anderson vs. Noblesville (Boys)
I've often lamented to my wife about the fact that I waited until the year we had our first child to start going to basketball games consistently again throughout the season. I would go to games sporadically to watch my brother play when I was in college or the occasional Anderson game when I first started teaching here, but I largely wasted those responsibility-free years. I can't imagine what gym number I would be on by now if I had thought of pursuing all of this a few years earlier. I think part of the reason was that while I didn't have the responsibility of kids, I honestly was more stressed and had more anxiety. I didn't have the mental capacity to pursue a lot of my interests in my free time. I was hyper-obsessed with school and work in a way that wasn't healthy. Having kids really puts things into perspective and helps you focus on what really matters. I chilled out a lot and somehow that led me to rediscovering the love for gyms and Hoosier Hysteria that I had growing up. One of the experiences that really heightened my stress levels was a long term substitute teaching position that I took straight out of college in a first grade classroom. I actually cut my student teaching short to take the job. Nothing could have prepared me for what I got myself into over those two months. It was a crash course in everything it takes to be a teacher when you have no support system around you. As crazy and intense as those two months were, it really helped me get my feet wet before I started my own full time job the next fall in Anderson.
That long term sub position was in a Noblesville elementary school that I had no connection to whatsoever before I started. I interviewed on a Tuesday, called my supervisor to see if I could get out of the last three weeks of my student teaching placement, and started the next Monday. I definitely had some stereotypes in my head of the types of students and parents I would be interacting and working with going into it. I had heard all the typical stories of what schools in Hamilton County were like, both good and the bad. While some of those stereotypes were certainly true, what I found in Noblesville was that the community was pretty similar to any other school I had experienced throughout my practicums in college. There were certainly students who came from much more affluent backgrounds than I was accustomed to, but for the most part they were just normal kids in the classroom. There were also many other kids from a wide variety of backgrounds. While the situation was still chaotic as a whole, I quickly felt more at peace about the community and culture I found myself in. At the end of it all I was offered a job to stay and teach there full-time, and had I not already accepted something in Anderson where my wife and I were going to live, I may have very well taken it. I tell this story because last week I took my son with me to watch Anderson play at Noblesville, and it all just kind of came full circle. Maybe it's because I got to see it up close and personal during those two months, but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Noblesville. When I talk about my disdain for Hamilton County as a whole and what it represents, I kind of push Noblesville to the side and leave it out. This is even true in terms of its gym. Unlike the lifeless boxes the other schools play in, Noblesville has some spunk.
The one way I will say that Noblesville is on brand with being a Hamilton County school is that everything is made to look and feel very regal and opulent. It's almost as if a basketball gym was placed inside an art museum. Everything in the surrounding hallways is very ornate. There's a lot of stained wood everywhere. It feels this way in the gym itself, but it's a little more subtle. The fact that the main color scheme is basically just black everywhere makes it feel like the Met Gala version of high school basketball. The fancy stairs leading up to the second level also contribute to these vibes. The structure of the gym is pretty normal though. The lower sideline bleachers go up about 15 rows and the upper bleachers about 17. This makes for a pretty big seating capacity for a post-80s gym, but it's genuinely needed as it routinely hosts what has become the best sectional in the entire state over the last decade. There are also small baseline bleachers on the floor level that only go up 5 rows. All of the bleachers are sharp, black, plastic. Old pictures show the gym used to have wooden bleachers (which means they were replaced after only about 20 years, which is an incredibly short lifespan for any kind of bleachers). This is the one and ONLY time you will ever hear me say that I think the plastic bleachers are an improvement, and it's not by much. Looking at old pictures, the wooden ones looked good, I just think the black really fits the overall mood of the gym. They look impeccable.
Everywhere you look in the gym you see the black, white, and off-gold color scheme that all ties together so well. There are rectangular athletic accomplishment banners hanging high on both baselines walls. They look clean but they're pretty hard to read. On the lower baseline walls are smaller state championship plaques for different sports. You can also find a white plaque honoring the school's Indiana High School Basketball Hall of Fame inductees which is always a nice touch. It's kind of shoved up in the corner of one of the lower walls. The upper baseline wall opposite of the main entrance has the standard Hoosier Crossroads Conference team display that you see at the other schools in the conference. It's not bad. There's an upper concourse you can walk around on that makes it easy to get around the place. When the upper bleachers are rolled up there are full practice courts behind them. They actually have little scoreboards hanging up in the far back sides of the upper level for these side courts. That's an interesting extra feature. Above the main entrance to the gym are two very nice press boxes built into the side of the concourse. They also look very elegant. The court design is very minimalist but in a way that matches the aesthetic of the gym. There is a simple big black "N" at center court. "Noblesville" is written neatly in that off-gold color along the baselines against a black background. The hardwood is primarily a very light-tan color with only slightly darker shades inside the wing areas. "Millers" is written in basic black font inside the sidelines. A simple but effective Jumbotron hangs above center court with another golden "N" on the underside of it.
I have a hard time finding things I like in Hamilton County. I have an even harder time finding gyms I like that were built after 1990. Noblesville's gym is an exception in both areas. There's some heart to the place and the people there. They've also managed to build a pretty successful basketball program (especially on the girls side) in a part of the state that isn't known for its tradition. Every time I watch them I marvel at how well-coached they are. I find myself rooting for them against the other schools in the area (though if they could stop beating Anderson in close games year after year that would be nice). This is never going to be the first gym that comes up when talking about the best places to watch a game in central Indiana, but it shouldn't be very far down the list.
