Pleasantville (500) Built 1954
July 24, 2024
July 24, 2024
Driving across the state in search of gyms has taken me on a wide variety of streets and through some incredible scenery. People laugh when I genuinely say I think Indiana is hands down the best state to drive through in our great nation, but it's honestly how I feel. Of course I'm biased, but trips like the one I took down to Pleasantville are the reason why. The state roads I started on felt like county roads with acres upon acres of corn on both sides and not a building in sight for miles on end. These turned into actual county roads that wound up and down through forested hills that felt like I had taken a wrong turn into Appalachia. I was far enough off the grid that while my GPS mercifully helped me find my destination, as soon as I reached it, I had no service to do anything else on my phone whatsoever. It was as useful as a paperweight in my pocket. When I finally arrived, I met my local guide named Ron who let me into the gym and answered a multitude of questions for me. He was as nice of a guy as you can find, and like the many people in town who are responsible for the current state of the Pleasantville gym, he has a lot of pride in it.
Walking in, what struck me the most was how pristine it is. It genuinely seems to sparkle. This hasn't always been the case. When Ron and his colleague Lonnie Todd took over the care of the gym a little over a decade ago, it had fallen into disrepair due to the negligence of a town trustee that had mismanaged funds and had left the gym to rot. Mr. Todd (who grew up next door to the gym) spearheaded a community effort that included work days where up to 30 members of the community would just show up with tools in hand ready to work. With the help of volunteer labor and grassroots fundraising efforts, they repaired the gym and truly restored it to its former glory. This included fixing a gaping hole in the roof, repairing a section of hardwood floor with original leftover flooring they found under the bleachers, and cleaning out endless debris that had haphazardly been stored throughout the gym. Where else would a group of people band together and put countless hours into saving a rundown gym that no longer served a primary purpose in the community? Only in Indiana.
The main feature of the gym is the incredible arched roof. Huge wooden trusses stretch from sideline to sideline in a giant semicircle. There is no upper wall here, the ceiling meets the permanent bleachers on both sides. Thinner boards run perpendicular to the trusses and tie it all together. All of the wood across the roof is a deep, rich mahogany. Pictures truly do not do it justice. It's one of the most gorgeous centerpieces of any gym I've visited. It makes the entire place feel palatial. There are breaks in the descending roof on each side where beautifully set windows let natural light gleam through onto the court. It's majestic in every sense of the word. The bleachers underneath these windows run the entire length of the floor from wall to wall. There are 5 rows of permanent seats that sit up on tiny little 5 inch risers that give them the appearance of almost floating. While the bleachers are a little more weathered, they still share that same rich color that the ceiling has. One side of the bleachers still has the original scorer's table that runs the old scoreboards.
The baseline views are not as breathtaking as their sideline counterparts, but they don't do anything to take away from the aura of the gym. The far end of the gym has a plywood wall built into the bottom with a mat on it to protect players. Above it, the wall stretches to the top of the circular roofline in a square grid pattern that has a bluish-grey tint to it. The antique scoreboard is the only adornment on the wall. The baseline side where you enter the gym is much more busy. The large HVAC system (one of the few things not original to the gym) is housed here along with storage for chairs and tables that are used when the gym is rented out for community events. The doors to the foyer and original locker rooms are here, along with a sign recognizing the Union Bulldogs (where students in Pleasantville now attend school) that is reminiscent of the kind you normally see in modern gyms recognizing conference teams. Ron was kind enough to actually show me one of the locker rooms which are still used when teams come to play games at the gym. The original showers are there along with the blackboard used by coaches to draw up plays back in the 50s and 60s.
The one aspect of the gym that I didn't appreciate at first but really stuck out to me as I walked around the talking to Ron was the hardwood floor itself. It has a hue to it that I once again am going to use the adjective of "rich" to describe. I don't know how else to put it. It just fits and looks perfect. There's a very simple "P" inside the small inner center court circle surrounded in blue paint for the Pleasantville Blue Streaks. The perimeter of the court is trimmed in that same blue. The baskets that hang at both ends still have the original wood backboards. That's very unique, as almost every other old gym I've visited, even the most well-preserved ones, have had glass backboards installed at some point on the main hoops. It adds to the charm in a gym that is already teeming with it.
Like many of these historic gyms, the people of Pleasantville have done a great job of chipping in to preserve and display the history of the school and gym in the foyer. There are multiple displays of memorabilia, old letter jackets, and photographs of past teams. Pleasantville never won a sectional, but they did come close in their final year before consolidation in 1965. The old school that was connected to the gym was eventually torn down. Driving past, you wouldn't even know that the simple white building houses one of the finest chapels of basketball we still have in the state. You have to step inside to see why it's special. The more time I spent with Ron there, hearing about the blood, sweat, and tears that the community put into it to save it, the more I understood how much their love for it matched its beauty. This places deserves people who care about it, and the people of Pleasantville deserve a place that means so much to them. It's a match made in Hoosier Hysteria heaven. Only in Indiana.
