East had a major renovation and when it was done in January 2009 a brand new gym was part of the upgrade. It's very nice and has multiple floors. The stage not only presented challenges on those loose balls, it required special inbounding rules due to the lack of space on the ends.

I read Haygood's Thurgood Marshall bio. It's a good one -- even if he is a M^&*i grad!

Portland IN, where my Pops played was on a stage. Benches on north end and 3' restraining lines on the back wall, front sideline and south end line for inbounds as the guys with size 12 or larger feet could not stand against the back and end wall without their toes being over the OOB line.

I have listened to stories for 50+ years about games on that stage. Just had a patient in a few weeks back that told a great story about a Hartford City player flying into the 2nd row off the stage saving a loose ball.....he said... "your dad seemed to love to shoot from the back corner of the stage from what seemed to be behind the basket. I still do not know how he did that looking out from the back wall into the void and the 2 upper balconies making shots from that corner..." Fascinating conversation....then he said " I watched your kid put up 26 one night in 07 when they beat Jay County..6 of them were from the same damn corner in the new gym"

I have some pics of that stage... I would love to see any of the old one over there . EDIT....I just remembered my earliest memories of my Pops coaching at Wayne HS were in the old building before the built the current HS on the stage at what became Titus Jr Hi where i got to play 10 or so years later. It was a bit scary playing up there...but I do remember the lights and windows were very bright. Maybe Joe, you or Wanny/whatever his screen name is presently were over at Titus can weigh in here with a similar experience.

Book sounds like a good read. Dayton Belmont, Cleveland EastTech, Dunbar, Middletown, Delphos St Johns are but a few of the legendary teams I got to hear about growing up. Thanks for posting this up.