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LOST GYMS: 'When you watch the movie Hoosiers, it was all that here and more' in Freetown
FREETOWN – The origin of the Freetown gym — how it came to be, how it was utilized and how it remains a center of this quiet community of 370 people in Jackson County — is a story of small town Indiana and the state's growing love affair with high school basketball.
The year was 1930. For several years previously, the Freetown basketball teams practiced on a dirt court in the schoolyard or in a small gym that had been converted for basketball by Sherman Berry, a local businessman. Berry, the owner of flouring mill in Waymansville, hired Freetown carpenters Bill Cornett and James Huber as engineers to construct the new gymnasium, built from the materials of the old Tobrocke flour mill.
In 1930 and '31, during the height of the Great Depression, Freetown children watched their fathers haul the timbers into town and stack them next to Berry's sawmill, then construct the gym, complete with dressing rooms, showers and a furnace.
'It was as loud as any gym you would go to today,' said Russell Fritz, a 1955 Freetown graduate. 'I don't think you could hold a candle to the atmosphere here. When you watch the movie 'Hoosiers', it was all that here and more.'
Berry owned the gym, renting it to Freetown for games and practices, along with neighboring Houston and Van Buren Township until it turning it over the school in 1948. The gym was not only a home for basketball, though. It hosted graduation commencements, proms and senior plays. During World War II, bond rallies were held in the gym. In 1944, when Freetown's own Robert McKinney was killed in action in Italy, hundreds attended his funeral service in the gym.
'I have often wondered what our town would have been like without the gym because so many things went on there,' Irene Forgey McNiece told the Jackson County Banner in 2003. 'You could call it Freetown's hub.'
The 1924-25 team won the only sectional championship in Freetown history, helping to spur the need for a gym. Fred Brock took over as coach the following year and would later be succeeded by Edgar Sprague, a 1924 Freetown graduate who would go on to coach and teach in the Freetown system for 46 years.
Freetown was home to several quality teams after the gym opened in 1931. For the 1947-48 season, upgrades were for an electronic scoreboard and expanded dressing rooms with showers in the basement of the building. Previously, the wooden scoreboard reflected only the minutes remaining. The timekeeper signaled the end of the game by firing a blank pistol or blowing a horn by mouth.
Sprague coached Freetown from 1932 to 1948, missing three years due to his service in World War II. He was instrumental in bringing Crispus Attucks, all-Black Indianapolis school having difficulty scheduling games, to play games at Freetown (Freetown also played at Attucks). During games against rival Vallonia and Attucks, fans climbed the roof to watch the games through the windows.
'There were quite a few of them up there, too,' 1948 graduate Dean Zike said several years ago. 'Not everybody could get in those big games.'
Attucks was not well known at the time as the powerhouse program it would become during the 1950s when the Tigers won three state championships and featured one of the state's all-time great players in Oscar Robertson. Years later, after Attucks won its second state championship, Attucks coach Ray Crowe was guest speaker at Freetown's athletic banquet.
Fritz was not yet in high school at the time but was in attendance the night Attucks first came to play at Freetown.
'Fred Brock (then the principal) told them they could come down here,' Fritz said of Attucks, which also played small schools like Medora, Vallonia and Clearspring. 'This place was packed. They had people standing on the roof and looking in. They continued to play for several years because of the friendship between Ray Crowe and Fred.'
That Freetown team, led by left-handed post player Bill Brown, finished 18-7 but lost by 20 points to Seymour in the sectional championship game. There was intermittent success to follow for the Spartans, who won the 1957 Jackson County championship — still noted on a sign on the outskirts of town. The next year, Freetown made it to the sectional championship but lost to host Seymour, 74-58, and finished 20-4.
By the late 1950s, the Freetown gym was rarely used for home games. The Spartans mostly used the larger, more modern gym at Cortland.
'It was a pretty good gym compared to what everybody else had,' said Bill Mann, a 1953 graduate, said of the Freetown gym. 'It had a good floor in it. When you bounce the ball, it would bounce back to you. This was a good gym. You couldn't seat a lot of people but it seated enough I guess.'
Freetown graduated its final class of 16 seniors in 1964 before consolidating into Brownstown Central.
'Nobody wanted the school closed because it was hard on the town,' Fritz said. 'The town goes downhill a little bit when you lose your school.'
The gym remained. It continued to serve as a community hub for many years, undergoing a $550,000 renovation with the aid of a grant in 2003. The grant allowed the community repair the east side of the gym, which was beginning to collapse.
'Some people complained about (the renovation) when it was done, but they were glad after it was done,' Fritz said. 'That money was available for grants and we could apply for it, so that's what we did. It was well worth it. It's a good feeling that it's still around. Everything in today's society is just thrown away. It could have been torn down just as easily when we got the grant to have it done.'
When the renovation was complete, Fritz said one former player — who was originally against the idea of refurbishing the gym — sat in a corner of the gym in tears when it was complete.
'He sat down there and just cried,' Fritz said. 'It was a good thing we did it. It will be good for a lot of generations, I think.'
The Freetown Elementary School was closed in 2011, another tough blow to the small community. But the gym remains a constant source of pride, still hosting annual class reunions, family reunions and community events. And, yes, the occasional basketball game. Just like Sherman Berry, Bill Cornett and James Huber would have hoped nearly 100 years later.
'They are getting a lot out of it,' Mann said. 'It did a lot of good for the community.'
