North Daviess (2,900) Built 1968
January 25, 2025: Barr-Reeve vs. North Daviess (Boys)
January 25, 2025: Barr-Reeve vs. North Daviess (Boys)
What are sports without good old fashioned rivalries? One of the biggest reasons I got hooked on high school basketball growing up was because I saw the passion people had surrounding these rivalries. In this state, and probably the whole country, there isn't a bigger hoops rivalry than Indiana and Purdue. I grew up in a Indiana family on my dad's side and a Purdue family on my mom's side. I'm not a diehard college basketball fan, but experiencing that rivalry at the tail-end of the Bobby Knight/Gene Keady era captured my attention in a way that sticks with me even to this day. The bigger rivalries for me though were the ones I saw up close and personal at Westview games. There was nothing bigger each year than Westview/Lakeland and Westview/Fairfield. I remember hearing words being shouted at those games that I definitely wasn't hearing at home. I learned to despise both schools from a young age and that disdain carried into my junior high days when we finally got to play those schools ourselves. We beat them the majority of the time (because Westview is superior obviously), but two of my biggest basketball heartbreaks came at the hands of my rivals as well. When my cousin's Westview team beat Fairfield twice in the regular season in 2007 and then lost to them in the third bout during sectionals, it about killed me. Losing to Lakeland for the 7th grade conference championship was probably the lowest I ever felt after a loss in my entire life. Those games just meant more. It felt like the fate of the world was on the line each time. Every school across the state with any kind of history has these rivalries, and I was able to revisit one of the fiercest around this last weekend.
Ask anyone around Indiana who loves basketball about the Buggy Bowl and you'll probably see a wry smile creep across their face. There's no stranger tradition, and there's no greater rivalry. North Daviess and Barr-Reeve both reside in areas with some of the biggest Amish populations in southern Indiana. The Buggy Bowl name is derived from the tradition of students "borrowing" buggies under the cover of darkness and bringing them to the school the night before the big game. They're typically left on the front lawn, sidewalks, or even the roof of the school hosting the game. Students these days have a little more tact in the way they obtain the buggies, but the tradition still stands. The two 1A schools have more than just their Anabaptist heritage tying them together. They also have two of the most dedicated fan bases in the entire state. Don't tell anyone from Daviess County that Hoosier Hysteria is waning, they won't know what you're talking about. While both teams typically draw better crowds than anyone else on a normal night, when they play each other it is on a whole other level. Barr-Reeve essentially built an entire new gym because they were turning away so many fans for this game every other year. The rivalry burns that brightly. This was my first time taking in the game at the home of the North Daviess Cougars. My fine friends from Montgomery told me I wouldn't have anything to write about. They said it wouldn't be worth my time. The rivalry itself is worth the trip, but much to their chagrin, I found the gym to be just fine as well.
North Daviess advertises a seating capacity in their gym of 4,200 people, but according to John Harrell's site, it now only holds 2,900 after the remodel they undertook a few years ago. That is a lot of seats to lose. There are two levels of seats along each sideline which look pretty typical. There are 10 rows on the bottom and 12 rows on the top of newer wooden bleachers. They're the lighter variety that all new wooden bleachers seem to be, but they don't feel as cheaply made as many of the others when you walk on them. In all four corners of upper level are big plywood storage closets that look like they were fashioned by 7th grade woodshop students. A couple have colorfully painted doors, but that doesn't really distract from the fact that they look haphazardly thrown together and out of place. Considering how dismal the concession operation was outside of the gym, they really should turn one or two of these into a functional concession stand. There are walkways above each baseline that connect the upper levels together. There's a long press row along the railing above one baseline which gives a great view of the game. The opposing baseline walkway has 4 rows of additional seats, which would be great for a near sellout like this one, except they hung the senior athlete posters right up against the railings, completely taking the way view for over 100 potential fans. Good stuff!
They've done a good job of utilizing the space above each of the baseline walkways. Above the small bleacher section is a Southwestern Indiana Conference team display. The plaques themselves are nice and clean, but for the second night in a row I visited a school where there is no mention of the conference's name to go along with the schools. Make it make sense! The opposite side has alternating orange and black vinyl athletic accomplishment banners. They're modern and basic, but the color scheme really pops. In the bottom corner of this wall there are some old photos of sectional winning teams from the school's past, including some of the preconsolidation schools. There's also a neat plaque honoring the two members of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame from a couple of these schools. The five schools that existed before coming together to form North Daviess in 1968 are all honored on one lower level baseline wall: Elnora Owls (gym still standing but overtaken by Mennonites), Epsom Salts (yes you read that correctly), Odon Bulldogs, Plainville Midgets (folks were a little less sensitive back in the day), and the Raglesville Rockets (gym still standing but overtaken by Amish). The baseline wall below the press area has "North Daviess Cougars" printed on it with cougar eyes glinting out at the court on the sides.
The court itself isn't my favorite design, but it's not bad. Most of it is stained a medium color, except for some lighter areas inside the wings and the free throw semicircle. At center court lies a silhouette of a pawprint which is fine, but the interlocking "ND" logo there is a direct ripoff of Notre Dame. I despise when schools are so lazy that they just hijack a college or pro team's logo. Every school has a plethora of talented art students. Utilize your resources and give some kids a cool opportunity. It just rubs me the wrong way. The big bright spots here are the silhouettes of menacing cougar heads right underneath the baskets. Putting any kind of decal in that spot is not something I've seen before. There's no writing along the baselines at all which is weird. They decided to put "North Daviess" along one sideline and "Home of the Cougars" along the other. I don't hate it, but it just makes it harder to read when there are people milling about down there constantly.
I came into the 2025 Buggy Bowl with not too many expectations for the North Daviess gym. I walked out feeling pleasantly surpised despite the efforts of one Mrs. Rachel Raber to convince me otherwise. After writing through the entire description gym again here though, it does feel a little disjointed in more ways than I initially realized. It's not the trash heap Barr-Reeve fans try to make it out to be, there are some really positive elements to it. There just seems to be a lack of cohesiveness in the planning and execution of the design. It still provides a fantastic environment for one of the rivalries that carries on the legacy of what Indiana high school basketball is at its essence. It's hard to put into words, but you know it when you see ande experience it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, drive down to Daviess County for next year's Buggy Bowl. Just look for the buggy sitting on the roof of the school, you can't miss it.
