HOPE (WTHR) - We all know what high school basketball means to Hoosiers. They make movies about it -- and ask just about any old-timer about how far their team went in the single-class tournament when they were in school, and they can probably tell you in in great detail. We also have some palatial gyms, 9 of the 10 largest high school gyms in the country. But, there are also dozens of smaller gyms across the state--and this is the story of one of them.
Hope High School played in its gym adjacent to the school, not far from the town square, from 1938 (when the Civilian Conservation Corps built it) to 1966 (when the students moved out to Hauser High School along State Road 9). In it's heyday, the building was magic. Barb Johnson is a 1966 graduate from Hope High, and she remembers what it was like back in the day: "On Friday nights, it was full to the brim with people that would come into town -- and that means close to a thousand people would be sitting in here watching the basketball games because that's what you do in a small town."
When the students left, and took their games to Hauser, the old gym carried on. It hosted physical education classes, elementary school games, community meetings, and people getting together to play ball. The last pick-up game here was three years ago, and there won't be a next one until this old building gets a little help. One look around, and you can see what all it needs. It has a leaky roof. Mold. The wood is rotting and the paint is peeling, but Community Center of Hope Board President Jeff Yarnell wants to bring it back from the brink. "I think the building has life," he said, " just because of the history in here and the amount of people who want to see it saved make it worth it."
The building is now part of the Community Center, and Center Director Chelsea Kendall says losing it would be a devastating blow: "We're not able to provide the services and programs that we want to. We'd like to add senior programming again, we'd like to be able to rent the space out to anyone who would like to use it, you know be it athletics or events. It is an important community asset."
The cost of building the gym has been lost to history, but contractors say saving it could run up to $400,000. A local building says he's willing to do it for his cost -- about half that -- but, that's still a tough climb for a town of just over two thousand people.
When they heard we were coming out to see their gym, about 50 of those people came out too -- and had an impromptu reunion on the floor. Some wore their high school letterman's jackets, they poured over old yearbooks, they reminisced about tough practices in the gym, the big wins and tough losses of their youth. One of them was 86-year-old Josephine Robertson, a cheerleader for the 1945 Regional Champion Hope Red Devils. She pointed herself out in the team picture, taken in that gym when the season started in 1944. She's hoping for one more win -- a big one -- saving this gym from demolition. Josephine said: "From my heart, I'd hate to see it go, because it was a lot of good times. Ya, we had good times here."
If it all makes you think of the iconic film "Hoosiers", you're not far off. Hope never won a state championship, but their gym almost made it to the big time. Local legend has it that before producers of the film decided to put Hickory High's home court in Knightstown, they considered using the old gym in Hope. It had the 1950's look -- wooden bleachers and a vintage scoreboard. It even had an "H" at center court, but the Hope gym still missed the cut. Jeff Yarnell says people were devastated: "A lot of these people here -- these old-timers here -- will tell you it broke their hearts. It's a tiny little town it was huge to them, you know, huge and it didn't happen."
We all know what happened to Hickory High -- and 30 years after the movie, their home court in Knightstown became a tourist attraction. The people of Hope believe that if Ollie, Strap and Jimmy Chitwood made their gym famous, their building might not be in the shape it's in today. "People travel to see stuff like that," said Jeff Yarnell, "so I definitely think we wouldn't be in this shape we're in right now trying to come up with ways to fix it."
The effort to raise the money to rebuild the gym has begun. The Community Center Board has a gofundme page. It is also trying other ways to raise money -- like a golf tournament, 3-on-3 basketball tournament at Hauser High School, and a barbeque contest and car show this summer. They'll even consider selling the naming rights if a person or a company comes up with enough cash. They know it's a long shot, but they're trying to be optimistic. That's something they come by naturally -- after-all, saving a piece of Hoosier history is admirable -- and this is a town called "Hope."
