Tipton (3,050) Built 1960
December 20, 2023: Anderson vs. Tipton (Girls)
December 20, 2023: Anderson vs. Tipton (Girls)
If you've been following my blog this year, you may have noticed that it takes a lot to really turn me off towards a gym. I'm always trying to find the unique and beautiful in each place I visit. What makes this all so fun is that there are a million different ways that a gym can be special. From sleek designs with new court finishes, to rustic artwork and bleachers that haven't been touched since the Truman administration, and everything in between, there's a lot to enjoy. Many of the older gyms I've been to have kept the elements that give them real character, but touch up and or modernize a lot of things around the edges. The best way I can describe the gym I walked into tonight in Tipton is "worn." Other than the floor maybe being redone at some point and the lower level plastic bleachers being installed, I don't think a single thing has been touched in half a century. Aged wood everywhere, fading bricks around the bleachers, chipped paint, it all culminated in a feeling that I had walked straight into a place that my dad could've been playing in during the early 80s. To my point though, I loved it! Despite what my wife may say, I'm really not that hard to please.
As you also may know if you've been following my ramblings on here, I'm a big bleacher guy. They set the tone for the whole gym. Tipton has a standard matching two-level configuration along each baseline. What's interesting is that while the bottom section has standard beige plastic seats, the upper level has rows of permanent bleachers that are made out of some kind of rubber material. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it. It's meant to look and feel like wood, but it's not. Not sure how I feel about it, but it's intriguing nonetheless. The hardwood floor has a really nice light finish to it with a big standard "T" at midcourt. The "Tipton" and "Blue Devils" script inside the lane and along the baseline is absolutely gorgeous. Along one baseline is a really nice throwback stage. It's surrounded with neat brick along three sides and nice, old wood paneling underneath. The pep band plays loudly atop it. Above it is a decent conference team display. On one side of the stage is a display of all the 1,000 point scorers the school has had. On the other side is a mural of a basketball with the door to the locker rooms inside the circle. A nice little oddity. It's one of the better baseline wall sections I've found. The opposite end is much less festive with some boring athletic accomplish banners and another big "T" painted on below. The bleachers do reach up to the rafters on both sides, and each is accompanied with some old murals at the very top with sayings and flames licking the ceiling. While I'm guessing they're meant to be intimidating to opponents by invoking a hotter place that corresponds with the school mascot, they feel a little more comical in nature. Last but not least, I found it very weird but pleasant that as I approached the entrance to the upper level, I also had the option of walking straight into the school library which apparently shares a wall with the gym. That's definitely a first for me.
As I watched the Anderson girls team finish off one of the biggest demolitions I've witnessed at a high school basketball game, I looked up and noticed the side baskets hanging from the rafters. They looked liked they were operated with some kind of medieval torture device and had the most unforgiving slab of glass attached to what must've been the first prototype of a breakaway rim. They reminded me of the side baskets in the old Westview gym where I made my first baskets on a 10 foot rim as my dad coached the junior high girls team. With wood backboards and no breakaways, there was no such a thing as a getting a shooter's roll. If it hit the rim, it wasn't going in. As gyms often do, this one just took me back. Back to places I experienced in my youth, and to places even further back I've only visited in my daydreams of the heyday of basketball in this state. When a gym can act as that kind of time machine, there's nothing quite like it.
