Whiteland (Old) (500?) Built 1934
June 4, 2026
June 4, 2026
Are you good at coming up with things on the spot? Do you thrive in unexpected moments? I do not. I feel like I'm easily caught off guard. Put me in a situation like a trivia game where I know I have some time to think about a question, and I'm great. Ask me a random question in the middle of a conversation, and even if I know the answer, I'll often freeze like a bench player getting his first action of the game and staring at the rim motionless when he's wide open. I'm just not very quick on my feet. This happened a couple months ago when I was in Whiteland checking out the old gym there with my friend and fellow gym hunter Cliff Pappe. Dr. John Schilawski was giving us a tour of the administration building which was built right on the site of the original high school. They even encapsulated the central portion of the old high school facade in the building, it's really neat. Anyways, Dr. Schilawski asked us if we knew who the most famous Whiteland basketball player ever was, and I froze. I couldn't get the words into my head and out of my mouth. I've read about this person countless times. I've watched old interviews he gave decades ago. Even though he became famous as a coach at another high school, he was originally a great player here at Whiteland, and I knew that! I knew his story well. It didn't matter though, I was tongue-tied. I can't remember if Cliff or Dr. Schilawski ended up stating the obvious: Ray Crowe, but I remember feeling silly. Here I was alleging to be a "historian" of sorts when it comes to Indiana high school basketball, and I couldn't remember the name of one of the greatest coaches our sport has ever seen. Oh well, at least I was still going to get to see a cool little gym before the visit was over.
Ray Crowe made his name coaching the Indianapolis Crispus Attucks teams from the mid-50s who took the state by storm. He led them to back-to-back state championships (along with the first for the city of Indianapolis) and helped develop a young man named Oscar Robertson who is arguably the greatest high school player Indiana has ever seen. He not only was a great basketball coach, but he was also a pioneer when it came to race relations in Indianapolis as a coach, athletic director, and later as a civic leader. The impact he made went far behind high school basketball, and it started right here in Whiteland. The gym we were visiting on this day actually opened the season after Ray Crowe graduated in 1934. It's a small bandbox of a gym that I didn't even know was still around when I visited their magnificent current gym back in January. I stumbled upon it back in March when I was combing over some other old schools in the county. It sits right between the administration building and an elementary school. It was the home of the Whiteland Warriors until 1958 when the current gym was built. During their time here, the Warriors captured a sectional title in 1950 and a regional championship in 1944. After they stopped playing high school games here, it was used for practices and middle school games for awhile before being primarily converted to a wrestling facility for a couple of decades. In more recent years it's just been used for storage. Even though it's covered with school supplies these days, you can still see vestiges of its time as a house of hoops.
This is an old wood frame gym which are always neat to see because there just aren't many still standing. We actually went in the back of the building first and saw the old locker rooms. There are still lockers intact along with the old showers. The locker rooms sit behind a small old stage that has long since been covered with wood paneling. The whole interior of the building is actually covered in narrow dark brown wooden boards. Interestingly, the boards run horizontal on three walls, but vertically along the baseline wall that houses the stage. There are rectangular windows high up on the sideline walls that were covered up years ago. A drop ceiling was also put in at some point which makes the gym feel even smaller than it already is (they love putting drop ceilings in their gyms over here at Whiteland). One unique little feature is the triangular supports that connect from the upper sideline walls into the ceiling. They have a cool look to them. Along three sides of the gym and two corners are four rows of permanent blue wooden bleachers that are all still intact. The only break in them occurs directly opposite of the stage where a small garage door was put in at some point. The scorer's table is still in place on one side with "Warriors" written across it in wooden letters. An old school Whiteland scoreboard hangs up in one corner. The baskets are gone and the floor is now tile. but you don't have to squint too hard to see what it must have looked like back when it was rocking on Friday nights in February.
It was really neat listening to Dr. Schilawski tell stories about the gym and the history behind it. He's been around the Whiteland community a long time and is as passionate and knowledgeable as they come. These are always the best people to talk to when visiting old gyms. They can seemingly take a dormant structure and bring it back to life through their words. I was taken aback by the history displayed in the current Whiteland gym when I visited earlier this year. They have many artifacts dating back well before this gym was even built. It's one of the best historical displays I've found at an active high school gym. As impressive as it is, maybe the coolest piece of Whiteland Warrior basketball history doesn't sit in that display. It sits right across the baseball field in a little beige wooden building. A place that stores equipment for students today, but also a place that stores precious memories for people old enough to have experienced it in its heyday.
