MICHIGANTOWN — At the Michigantown High School gym, it wasn’t the cheerleaders who fired up the crowd before games.
It was the goose. Michigantown Ganders supporters unleashed the school mascot onto the court before tip-off to strut, honk and rile up the fans inside the pint-sized gym that seated only about 400.
The fact the bird wore a red diaper bag to keep the gym clean didn’t hamper his moxie.
During a game against the Frankfort Hotdogs in the 1950s, the goose had enough pluck to chase a wiener dog — the opposing mascot — off the court, according to Pat Newton, a former team cheerleader.
“That was something to see,” the 85-year-old said with a chuckle. “That was fun.”
The goose was just one of many quirks of the gym, which was built in 1924 after the former school building burned down. It served as the school’s homecourt until 1959, after which Michigantown consolidated with six other high schools under the Clinton Central School Corporation.
Other oddities? The playing court sits four feet below ground and nearly fills the entire gym’s interior footprint. A brick wall stands just inches away from one of the out-ofbounds lines, giving little room for players to land after a layup or leap to tip the ball back into play.
The balcony where most fans sat juts out over the hardwood, blocking the view of about a quarter of the entire court, making it impossible to see some of the action below.
The scoreboard didn’t keep time. Instead the scoreboard operator ran a stopwatch and manually moved the minute hand, according to Sam Fields, who played on the team in the 1950s.
He remembers the student running the board in the small second-story cubbyhole sometimes falling asleep. Fields would bang on the wall, waking him up to move the timer.
Another quirk was the makeshift ladder leading to the cubbyhole. It was located directly beside a shower in the visitors’ locker room.
Despite its small stature and oddities, the new Michigantown gym marked a huge step up from where the team played before 1924.
For years, the school’s court was housed on the second floor of a downtown tavern, today called the Angry Donkey. The goals had to be lowered 8 inches so the ball wouldn’t hit the ceiling during the arc of a shot.
“The new gym was a Cadillac in the 1920s,” Fields said. “It was terrific.”
Today, the facility also serves as a museum documenting the history of the team and all things related to Clinton County schools.
Thousands of photos and other memorabilia line the walls and fill the rooms, including old letter jackets, class rings, year books and dresses donated by former students. One room is dedicated to a beloved Spanish teacher who taught for decades at Clinton Central.
But the gym is dedicated to one of the most prominent people in the school’s history, Wilbur Rule.
The Michigantown native was a 1940 graduate and returned to his alma mater right out of college to teach a smorgasbord of subjects, including chemistry, shop, science and physical education. He became head coach of the Ganders in 1945.
During Rule’s tenure, his teams won 212 games.
After consolidation in 1960, Rule went on to become Clinton Central’s long-time athletic director.
Fields’ most vivid memories of Coach Rule happened away from the court.
Like the time Fields didn’t have enough money to buy wood for a school project. Rule let him clean his garage and called it even.
Another time, Fields caught a nasty flu the day before a sectional game. Rule took him to his home, made him soak in scalding hot water and kept an eye on him through the night. “I got 26 points the next night, so it worked. But we got beat anyways,” Fields recalled. In fact, Rule inspired Fields to go into teaching. He eventually became the principal at the same place he played ball for Rule after it was transitioned to an elementary school in 1960.
Fields jokes that he’s since been demoted to custodian of the building.
Today, the gym is still standing, thanks to the Lions Club and a team of dedicated alumni. The club took over the building in 1972 when it stopped being used as a school. By 2013, the structure was in dire need of repairs, so a group raised $200,000 to fund a major renovation. Now, it’s regularly rented out for weddings, receptions, parties and other community events. Those preservation efforts have kept the gym’s quirks intact.
The old, manual scoreboard is mounted in the corner. It displays the final score of the game that led the 1933 team to the school’s first and only state finals appearance. The Ganders were undefeated going into the 16-team event but lost to the Logansport Berries in the first round.
Even so, the school thought it was a big enough achievement to justify buying the gym one — and only one — new goal. It had a glass backboard, and it still hangs across the court from the original wooden goal installed when the gym was built, according to Denny Shoup, who played on the gym’s final team in 1959.
And the goose? A ceramic replica complete with a red diaper stands at the entrance of one of the rooms.
That’s despite the fact that coach Rule nearly caused the bird’s extinction. After a game, he put the gander in the trunk of his car and then forgot all about him.
“The next night, he was driving and went over a bump,” Fields said. “They heard the gander yelp, so he pulled over and said, ‘Oh my God!’ They pulled over by a creek and gave the gander a drink.”
The facility today stands as a living monument to that one-of-a-kind history — and as one Indiana’s few remaining gyms to survive after a major consolidation, explained Shoup.
“This is very unique across the state to be able to save a building like this,” he said. “There’s a lot of pride in that.”