After almost two years on the bench, the New Castle Fieldhouse has returned to its starting spot as the world’s largest and finest high school fieldhouse.
On January 16, the Courier-Times wrote that the New Castle Fieldhouse’s new seating capacity is 8,424 seats. This updated seat count came after 595 new temporary seats were added. With these new seats, the Fieldhouse reclaimed the title of the largest high school gym in the world.
In March 2019, the Indianapolis Star reported that the Fieldhouse no longer held that title. The Fieldhouse’s demotion came after extensive research by Doug Bradley revealed that the Fieldhouse’s capacity was actually 7,829. The Fieldhouse was demoted to third as Seymour’s Lloyd E. Scott Gym took the title as the largest high school gym.
Once called “a cathedral” of high school basketball by USA Today, the Fieldhouse was built in time for the 1959-60 basketball season. The immense Fieldhouse was a drastic change of scenery from the compact Church Street Gym that had been the Trojans’ home previously. At its opening, it boasted that it could seat more than 9,500 spectators and displaced the Wigwam in Anderson, Indiana as the largest high school gym in the world.
The grand Fieldhouse is the representation of Indiana’s love and affection for high school basketball. For a time, the conference that New Castle was in, the North Central Conference, was home to six of the twelve largest high school gyms in the world. The Fieldhouse has been home to some of the greatest Hoosiers to play the game of basketball, such as Kent Benson and Steve Alford. New Castle has also been hosting the Raymond James Hall of Fame Classic every year since 1990.
The Fieldhouse routinely hosted sectionals and regionals for the IHSAA Boys Basketball tournament, with numerous legendary moments and games happening in the hallowed halls of the Fieldhouse.
An iconic matchup between New Castle and Marion took place in 1983, when New Castle’s Steve Alford scored 48 points and Marion’s James Blackmon tallied 41 in their race to be the state leader in points. In 1990, Glenn Robinson and his Gary Roosevelt squad were upset in the Hall of Fame championship game by Martinsville. Josh Estelle’s three-point buzzer beater sent New Castle to the 1996 regional championship, taking down Batesville 62-61. In 1997, the New Castle Trojans and the Fieldhouse were featured in a “Sports Illustrated” article depicting the final single-class Indiana high school basketball tournament.
In the modern day, the Fieldhouse has still produced memorable games and moments.
In December 2016, ESPN nationally televised a pair of games from New Castle that included nationally ranked teams Sierra Canyon from California, LaLumiere from Indiana, and fellow Indiana school New Albany led by their nationally recognized star Romeo Langford. The Fieldhouse reached full capacity for the 2017 sectional championship matchup between New Castle and Connersville. In 2019, the beacon of high school basketball was once again filled to the brim as Blackford and their sensational player Luke Brown played against undefeated #1 Delta in the sectional semi-finals.
New Castle had moveable bleachers in order to fit more people in the Fieldhouse, and those bleachers saw plenty of use during Hoosier Hysteria in March. The need for those bleachers, however, diminished with time, and they were sold. This was the reason for the storied Fieldhouse falling down from 9,325 seats to its 7,829 count in the updated 2019 count. Now, with more temporary seats, the Fieldhouse has regained the title of the largest high school gym in the world.
The Fieldhouse brings a sense of pride to the people of New Castle. The atmosphere of the Fieldhouse is unlike any other, with the feeling of nostalgia flooding the gym. The iconic arena is an important part of the history of high school hoops in Indiana and why it brings people from all walks of life together during the cold Friday nights in winter.
Hanging on one of the walls in the Fieldhouse is a sign that says “The largest and finest high school fieldhouse in the world”. The sign is once again true, and the Fieldhouse will continue to see many basketball games for years to come.
