Passing this great piece on from fellow Indiana High School Basketball Historical Society member, Richard Tekulve. Good stuff for sure!
Nearly a quarter of a century ago when I first started my journey to visit every single Indiana high school gym and count every single seat in every gym my destination?? Took me to the much anticipated Walter P. Chrysler Fieldhouse or as it is better known as the New Castle Fieldhouse. I had heard the capacity number repeated in articles and books for decades but had personally never visited the gym.
Upon arriving I visited the office of the A.D. (Vance Meier) at that time and told him what my purpose was. I also told him I collected seating charts of basketball gyms and arenas and asked if I could obtain one of the theirs of which he politely gave me a large (2 ft. X 3 ft.), detailed engineering chart. I then walked over to the gym and it was at that time I got my first look at the "famous" fieldhouse.
I can vividly remember like it was yesterday as I my eyes scanned slowly left and right and my first thoughts in my mind were "Ain't no way, maybe 8 thousand". At that time I had already been in perhaps a hundred or more gyms so I could usually walk into about anyone of them and within a minute or so I could guess (normally within about 90%) of what they seated. I then began to count as the sign says "The worlds largest gymnasium".
Using the chart as a guideline (and it was very accurate) I walked around the entire gym and every section then totaled up all of the seats and my total was as I kind of expected = 7831 which was 97.9% of my original 8000 guess.
I decided to go back to the AD office and ask Mr. Meier where the other 1400 seats were at that time. I had experienced temporary seats before in my travels around the state from time to time but not 1400 of them.
I found out that they were scattered (if that is the correct word to use) in various places. I spent over an hour pursuing these seats on softball, baseball diamonds, soccer and football fields. They were mostly 3 or 4 row aluminum type that contained aprox. 10-15 seats per row as this is the most common type which can also be easily transported because of their lighter weight involved.
I was fully aware of the 'sunk down' gyms which were designed and built by Ralph Leggeman of Evansville since I had an article about him that was published a half-century ago. An example of this gym would be if you were to eliminate only the top 2 rows (23 and 24) it would result in a loss of 876 seats and therefore reduce the total capacity to 6955 from 7831.
I lasted visited the fieldhouse in December for the Hall of Fame Classic tourney. Once again my total was not 7831 but 7830. I found a one seat ''blemish'' as in row 6, section B the seats numbered skip from 17 to 19 with no seat numbered 18.
Addressing the hidden temps it appears that perhaps the last time the temps were used could have been in 1997 when Batesville brought 3-4 thousand fans with them and a one loss team to New Castle.
Here is another gym that will drop in the numerical standings; Marion's Bill Green Athletic Arena. I have only been to this arena one time on October 20, 1992. At that time I counted 7692 seats as they had a sign stating Capacity 7690. I remember talking to Bill as it was tryouts for the upcoming season and they had an awful lot of potentials on the floor. He said ''you pick 'em' I don't know who to cut''. We talked about the arena for a short time, and he said they're tight seats ain't they? They were only 16 inches wide at the time and are still 16 on the upper concourse which has a total of 4658. The lower seats on both the ends and sides are replaced with what looks like 18 inch molded plastic which would reduce the total to around the 7000 area.
Columbus also replaced their lower level seats and probably lost 300-400 in the process. Kokomo years ago lost well over a thousand when renovated. From many of the clear, bright and sharp pictures of Indiana gyms on the internet these days I would make a conservative estimate that somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 percent have had new bleachers installed sometime after the year 2000. Along with that most have added an extra aisle or two and sometimes eliminated a row not counting the required A.D.A. which takes seats away on the front row. Overall they have become smaller because mainly of the cost to repair the older bleachers of which many are in the 50 year old range. Therefore new bleachers are put in place and are wider at the now standard 18" width along with the new regulations. When I did my visits (mostly between 1992 to 1994) I noticed the width of seats ranged from 14 to 19 inch.
Very few newer ''large'' gyms have been built in the last 25 years or so . A new, big gym now is in the 4000-5000 range and it is highly unlikely we will ever have a school build another 6000 to 8000 seat gym costing in the 10-20 million dollar range. I have read a few articles about schools wanting to repair their outdated and overused bleachers, but costs run into a half-million or more
dollars and it is as odd as it sounds cheaper to replace with the new version.
Perhaps over the years we became spoiled as we could travel the country and brag about the humongous size of our high school gyms in the Hoosier state. But like class basketball perhaps our bragging is just a little more quiet now.
Nearly a quarter of a century ago when I first started my journey to visit every single Indiana high school gym and count every single seat in every gym my destination?? Took me to the much anticipated Walter P. Chrysler Fieldhouse or as it is better known as the New Castle Fieldhouse. I had heard the capacity number repeated in articles and books for decades but had personally never visited the gym.
Upon arriving I visited the office of the A.D. (Vance Meier) at that time and told him what my purpose was. I also told him I collected seating charts of basketball gyms and arenas and asked if I could obtain one of the theirs of which he politely gave me a large (2 ft. X 3 ft.), detailed engineering chart. I then walked over to the gym and it was at that time I got my first look at the "famous" fieldhouse.
I can vividly remember like it was yesterday as I my eyes scanned slowly left and right and my first thoughts in my mind were "Ain't no way, maybe 8 thousand". At that time I had already been in perhaps a hundred or more gyms so I could usually walk into about anyone of them and within a minute or so I could guess (normally within about 90%) of what they seated. I then began to count as the sign says "The worlds largest gymnasium".
Using the chart as a guideline (and it was very accurate) I walked around the entire gym and every section then totaled up all of the seats and my total was as I kind of expected = 7831 which was 97.9% of my original 8000 guess.
I decided to go back to the AD office and ask Mr. Meier where the other 1400 seats were at that time. I had experienced temporary seats before in my travels around the state from time to time but not 1400 of them.
I found out that they were scattered (if that is the correct word to use) in various places. I spent over an hour pursuing these seats on softball, baseball diamonds, soccer and football fields. They were mostly 3 or 4 row aluminum type that contained aprox. 10-15 seats per row as this is the most common type which can also be easily transported because of their lighter weight involved.
I was fully aware of the 'sunk down' gyms which were designed and built by Ralph Leggeman of Evansville since I had an article about him that was published a half-century ago. An example of this gym would be if you were to eliminate only the top 2 rows (23 and 24) it would result in a loss of 876 seats and therefore reduce the total capacity to 6955 from 7831.
I lasted visited the fieldhouse in December for the Hall of Fame Classic tourney. Once again my total was not 7831 but 7830. I found a one seat ''blemish'' as in row 6, section B the seats numbered skip from 17 to 19 with no seat numbered 18.
Addressing the hidden temps it appears that perhaps the last time the temps were used could have been in 1997 when Batesville brought 3-4 thousand fans with them and a one loss team to New Castle.
Here is another gym that will drop in the numerical standings; Marion's Bill Green Athletic Arena. I have only been to this arena one time on October 20, 1992. At that time I counted 7692 seats as they had a sign stating Capacity 7690. I remember talking to Bill as it was tryouts for the upcoming season and they had an awful lot of potentials on the floor. He said ''you pick 'em' I don't know who to cut''. We talked about the arena for a short time, and he said they're tight seats ain't they? They were only 16 inches wide at the time and are still 16 on the upper concourse which has a total of 4658. The lower seats on both the ends and sides are replaced with what looks like 18 inch molded plastic which would reduce the total to around the 7000 area.
Columbus also replaced their lower level seats and probably lost 300-400 in the process. Kokomo years ago lost well over a thousand when renovated. From many of the clear, bright and sharp pictures of Indiana gyms on the internet these days I would make a conservative estimate that somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 percent have had new bleachers installed sometime after the year 2000. Along with that most have added an extra aisle or two and sometimes eliminated a row not counting the required A.D.A. which takes seats away on the front row. Overall they have become smaller because mainly of the cost to repair the older bleachers of which many are in the 50 year old range. Therefore new bleachers are put in place and are wider at the now standard 18" width along with the new regulations. When I did my visits (mostly between 1992 to 1994) I noticed the width of seats ranged from 14 to 19 inch.
Very few newer ''large'' gyms have been built in the last 25 years or so . A new, big gym now is in the 4000-5000 range and it is highly unlikely we will ever have a school build another 6000 to 8000 seat gym costing in the 10-20 million dollar range. I have read a few articles about schools wanting to repair their outdated and overused bleachers, but costs run into a half-million or more
dollars and it is as odd as it sounds cheaper to replace with the new version.
Perhaps over the years we became spoiled as we could travel the country and brag about the humongous size of our high school gyms in the Hoosier state. But like class basketball perhaps our bragging is just a little more quiet now.
