An Ode to the High School Gym

This past January, while attending the annual Hall of Fame event at my high school alma mater (as a non-inductee), I was asked if I wanted to see the new gym floor that had been installed a couple of months earlier. I had already heard several rave reviews from family and friends, so in the interest of comparing it to the surface I played on, I accepted without hesitation.

My excitement was dimmed when we found the court covered on arrival, but while the sights didn’t make much of an impression, the sound – or lack thereof – certainly did. Other than the lights buzzing overhead, it was completely silent, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in there when that was the case.

In the absence of something to process, my mind quickly veered down memory lane, sifting through content gathered over hundreds of occasions. My “tour guide” broke the silence with a suggestion that we head back, but I was curious where this trip would take me, so I asked if I could hang around for a few minutes alone.

To my immediate left was the stairwell leading to the home locker room, where my varsity basketball teammates and I would anxiously await “Zombie Nation,” “Sandstorm,” Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” or whichever pregame song we had queued up to announce our entrance. An hour and a half later, our descent of those same stairs featured the joyous bounds of victory or the somber shuffling of defeat, with the appreciative applause from the home fans providing the soundtrack for either outcome.

At the bottom of those steps was the locker room door, a portal to some of the greatest camaraderie I’ve ever known. I’m not sure there’s a more emotional space within the anatomy of high school sports. Sure, I went to class every day with most of my teammates, but the locker room was where I truly got to know them. It was a safe space that belonged solely to us, a haven for celebrating, sobbing, yelling, venting, laughing, and all the other responses that are often muted during games in an effort to maintain one’s composure.

Though the fans weren’t there this time, as I pored over the bleachers, I recalled how much they brought to the game atmosphere. I grew up in an extremely small K-12 school community that produced generations of athletes and fans from the same families; a place where everyone knew everyone; a place where, if you really needed to talk to someone, and all else failed, you knew you would “see them at the game.” Separate lives were lived during the day, but on any given night, the individual parts became a red, white and blue mob united by a shared passion. The gym was our consummate community center.

Below the home stands was the bench, where, as a role player, I spent a considerable portion of my high school career. What I learned, however, was that I didn’t have to be on the floor to make a positive impact on the game. I enhanced my vocal and emotional leadership and communication skills from the bench, gaining an understanding of when to calm my teammates down and when to hype them up, and priding myself on being the first player off the bench to celebrate or regroup with them during time-outs, depending on the circumstances.

And finally, there was the court itself. Of course, the first things that came to mind were the big wins, the tough losses and the buzzer-beater finishes, but I also remembered the way the adrenaline pumped through my body in the pregame lay-up lines, the ‘100-point drills’ during practice, and the countless ‘down-andbacks’ we’d run as consequences for our mistakes. We even had one assistant coach who made us hold a basketball over our heads and, with our knees bent at a satisfactory angle, perform back pivots up and down the length of the floor – twice. And if reading that didn’t make you cringe, I encourage you to try it sometime. For whatever reason, that particular brand of leg soreness is indelible.

But to discuss my high school gym exclusively within the context of basketball or volleyball, would be a major disservice to its vitality. During the harsh northern Michigan winters, it was also our “indoor practice facility” for baseball. I’m sure there are still some marks on the walls from the errant throws during long-toss, and as someone who caught a few of our pitchers’ bullpen sessions, I can tell you, trying to block a ball that comes off the hardwood is markedly different from one that skips off the infield dirt.

My school didn’t have an auditorium, so the gym was also the setting for almost every one of our band concerts. I played the baritone for most of my high school career, but picking up the trombone for jazz songs was what I loved the most. The gym also played host to all our football pep assemblies, the school’s primary fundraiser, and the graduation ceremony, making it the last campus building I ever entered as a student. Our gym was a multi-purpose venue in every sense of the term.

As I look back on the 14 years since the tassel on my cap was moved from right to left, it’s impossible to calibrate the impact that gym has had on the person I am today. My communication skills, affinity and appreciation for teamwork, and my internal drive are just a few of the myriad characteristics that can be traced directly to the triumphs and pitfalls I experienced there.

On the surface, a high school gym is merely 94 feet of hardwood bookended by backboards and bleachers, with a physical capacity that can range from a few hundred to several thousand fans. But for anyone who has ever played, coached or congregated there, it holds so much more than that.