Basketball is played in a wide variety of places across Indiana. From city blacktop courts to suburban driveways and backboards nailed to the sides of barns in the country. There are arenas that seat thousands of fans, like Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis (the home of the Pacers and Fever), the historic Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum and the Indiana Hoosiers’ iconic Assembly Hall. More than any other state in the nation, basketball is part of Indiana’s identity. But while the sport has many homes in Indiana, there’s little argument as to what the state’s premier arena is.
Hinkle Fieldhouse, the nearly 100-year-old home of the Butler Bulldogs, is the subject of the latest episode of Sports Illustrated’s video series “Stadium Wonders.” Our tour guide was Sally Wirthwein, a Hinkle Fieldhouse historian and former Butler cheerleader with incredible admiration for the building, its history and its place in Indiana culture. Wirthwein took us into every nook and cranny of the arena—not just the playing court and the stands, but also the gleaming home locker room, the practice facility and the time capsule of an equipment room in the building’s basement. It was a fascinating inside look at a classic American sports venue.
Built in 1928, Hinkle is one of the most recognizable gyms in college basketball, thanks in large part to its significance beyond the Butler home games played there. Much of Hinkle’s mythology is tied to its four decades as the host of the Indiana state high school boys basketball championship, which was held there from 1928 to ’71. The most famous Indiana state championship game of all was played at Hinkle (still known at the time as Butler Fieldhouse) in 1954 when tiny Milan High School won the title that inspired the 1986 Gene Hackman film Hoosiers. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ve seen Hinkle. Several scenes were filmed there, including the scene depicting the championship game.
The word “cathedral” gets thrown around a lot when describing noteworthy sporting venues, but there really isn’t a better word to describe Hinkle Fieldhouse. Yes, there’s history here—almost 100 years of it—but the gym is also just a beautiful sight to behold even absent that context. It rises like an airplane hangar above the surrounding parking lots on Butler’s campus five miles north of downtown Indianapolis—a hulking brick structure with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Inside, the ceiling is supported by a network of exposed steel trusses that inevitably inspire appreciation for quality craftsmanship of inter-war construction. Walking around the empty arena is a great way to grasp its sheer size. That vaulted ceiling makes Hinkle feel much larger than many other gyms with similar seating capacities.
When it was built, Hinkle was the largest basketball arena in the country, boasting 15,000 seats, but after a series of renovations, the gym’s capacity has been pared down to 9,100. The biggest change came in 1933, when the court was rotated 90 degrees to improve spectator sightlines and mitigate the effects of the sun shining through the large windows on the east and west sides of the arena. (Take note, Jerry Jones.)
The first game at Hinkle was played on March 7, 1928, four months before the invention of sliced bread. In the years since, the building has seen plenty of history—basketball and otherwise. The arena was the home court for two early professional teams in the late ’40s and early ’50s: the Indianapolis Jets of the BAA (a predecessor to the NBA) and the NBA’s Indianapolis Olympians. It hosted the first ABA All-Star Game in ’68. Indianapolis’s Crispus Attucks High School, led by Oscar Robertson, won back-to-back state championships at Hinkle in ’55 and ’56, becoming the nation’s first high school team with an all-Black starting five to win a state title in an integrated tournament. When the NCAA opted to hold the entire 2021 Division I men’s basketball tournament in the state of Indiana due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hinkle was chosen to host 16 games. Seven U.S. presidents have spoken there, from Herbert Hoover to Barack Obama. There have been track meets (including a world record-tying performance from Jesse Owens while he was at Ohio State), bicycle races, circuses, ice shows and a piano recital in which 125 pianos were crammed onto the floor of the fieldhouse. The arena also served as a military barracks during World War II.
Butler won’t let you forget about all that history during a visit to the arena. Hinkle Fieldhouse is as much a museum as it is a basketball gym, with plaques dotted around the walls that serve as reminders of why Hoosiers love the place so much. If you can’t make a trip out to Indianapolis this season, hopefully our video can give you a sense of what makes this one of the most unforgettable venues in college sports.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Stadium Wonders: Hinkle Fieldhouse Is Indiana’s Basketball Heart and Soul.
