Downtown Hickory

The town of New Richmond still looks much like it did during filming. A restaurant now occupies what were the barbershop and feed-and-seed store in the movie.

Hickory High School

The Nineveh school was vacated on May 29, 1986. The Princes Lakes–Nineveh Jaycees acquired the building for $1, intending to turn it into a community center. Later they decided to sell the school to a man who said he was a developer who would turn the building into condominiums. But by 1990 a deed for the property still had not been cleared. Also, accusations were made that the supposed developer had falsely claimed to be an attorney, and soon after that he faced legal difficulties, some involving alleged fraud. During the next few years the Nineveh school sat empty and was vandalized several times. Eventually it was scheduled to be razed. It was twice the victim of arson in June 1994, leaving a burned-out shell. The building was partially demolished in 1997 and was completely torn down in 2000. A post office now inhabits the site. A small brick monument with a plaque commemorates the school.

The Hickory gym

The Knightstown gym, used mostly for elementary-school activities, faced imminent destruction in 1988. It was no longer needed because the grade-school students who had been housed in the 112-year-old former high school next door had moved to a newly constructed school north of town. Residents who were determined not to let the two old buildings be torn down formed a group called Historic Knightstown. They enlisted Historic Landmarks of Indiana to help them save both the gym and school. A real estate developer in Michigan purchased the school and turned it into 35 income-assisted apartments. Eventually the town assumed ownership of the gym and named a board of directors to manage it as a community center. Today the renamed Historic Hoosier Gym, little changed from its filming days, is open to the public seven days a week. It welcomes thousands of visitors and Hoosiers fans from around the world every year.

The Cedar Knob gym

The St. Philip Neri gym still stands. Its windows were replaced with glass blocks, and its original wood floor was replaced with linoleum after vandals poured sulfuric acid on it in 1994. Eventually the linoleum was replaced with hardwood.

The site of the film’s sectional game

Brownsburg’s College Avenue Gym had been officially vacated shortly before being selected as a Hoosiers location. The summer after the filming, school district officials announced that a private group would renovate the gym and two adjacent empty school buildings, which needed extensive repairs. A nonprofit corporation would raise the necessary funds—approximately half a million dollars—through grants and donations and also would manage the project. Volunteer labor and donated materials would be needed as well. After being restored, the gym would be available for community use. However, by the spring of 1989 these efforts had stalled, and the site was put up for sale. In June 1990 the three buildings were demolished to make way for the College Avenue Condominiums.

The site of the film’s regional game

Lebanon’s Memory Hall was officially vacated in 1988 because the city could no longer afford to maintain it. As the gym sat empty, the city considered tearing it down. In 1996 a developer converted the former junior high school next door, which had sat empty for 22 years, into 59 apartments for seniors. The city retained control of the gym and leased it to the developer for $1 a year; it was transformed into the Lebanon Sports and Fitness health club. In October 2013 Ironman Properties of Lafayette purchased both Memory Hall and the senior apartments and a couple years later built two additional apartment buildings near the gym. Today Memory Hall is part of the luxury apartment complex known as The Flats of Lebanon.

Hinkle Fieldhouse, site of the state-finals game

Hinkle Fieldhouse, home of the NCAA Division I Butler Bulldogs, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It was remodeled two years later. New doors, windows, and chairback seats were installed, and offices were added. The seating capacity was reduced from 15,000 to 10,757. A $36.2 million renovation (which the school termed a “preservation”) began in the summer of 2012 and was completed in November 2014. Changes included 4,500 new chairback seats (thus further reducing the seating capacity to about 9,100), more handicapped seating, wider aisles with handrails, a video scoreboard, a small scoreboard in each corner, wider concourses, better ticket windows, larger concession stands, more restrooms, an expanded gift shop, coaches’ offices, new locker rooms, training and weightlifting rooms, a classroom for student-athletes, meeting space, a bigger hospitality room, a lobby, and air conditioning. On the exterior, 282,000 bricks were tuck-pointed, and 9,734 windowpanes were replaced with energy-efficient glass.

Terhune (seen in the opening credits and in a deleted scene on the Collector’s Edition and 2012 Blu-ray DVDs)

The grain elevator and silos were torn down, and the railroad tracks were removed. Johns and Calvert General Store, turned into Junior’s Service station and general store for the movie, was converted to apartments.

The small white church in the opening credits

The Concord Church of Christ was burned down by an arsonist on January 10, 1994. This was the first in a series of arsons that hit rural Indiana churches in the 1990s. An Indiana resident eventually pleaded guilty to setting this fire, as well as 26 other church fires in nine states between 1994 and 1999. He admitted responsibility for as many as 25 more fires. In 2001 he was sentenced to life in federal prison.

The white barn with a basketball hoop in the opening credits

This barn was heavily damaged during a storm in the spring of 2023 and subsequently was torn down.

The “town meeting” church

The Elizaville Baptist Church still stands.

The red barn on which GO HUSKERS is being painted

This barn still stands.

The hospital where Shooter enters rehab

The Wishard Nursing Museum was no longer in existence after the closing of Wishard Memorial Hospital and the opening of the Eskenazi Health campus in late 2013. Some of the props from the hospital scenes can be found at the Milan ’54 Hoosiers Basketball Museum.

The Avon Theater, whose marquee is shown briefly on the night of the state finals

The Avon burned down on February 26, 1999. Investigators determined that the fire began in the theater’s marquee, which used old-style knob-and-tube wiring, and then spread to the attic.

The interior of Principal Cletus Summers’ house

This house still stands.

Principal Cletus Summers’ property

This house still stands. The garage and barn have been torn down. The nearby Liberty Chapel Church, seen briefly in the background in a couple of scenes, still stands to the south.

Myra and Opal Fleener’s property and the interior of Norman’s house

This house and one of the barns are still standing.

Shooter’s house

This cabin still stands. It is located on private property. It has been mostly crushed by a fallen tree.

The bridge Coach Dale drives across in the opening credits

In March 1990, the 77-year-old iron truss Brown Bridge was inspected and found to be in poor condition. It was torn down and replaced with a new bridge the following year.

Read descriptions of the filming sites and learn their locations.