There have been some strange facilities to host games. Some lasted longer than others, but very few relics remain. These are the strangest of the strange.

Out of the list, I have only seen games in Enigma, Alapaha, and Ray City, though they do not count as weird gyms; it was just the living arrangements that made these different. If forced to pick the oddest place I have personally seen games, Ware Magnet might be the winner. Ware Magnet took over Manor’s old buildings and continues to play in a small gym with little out of bounds room and carpet on the floors. Through the 2008-09 season, Pelham’s gym was a 1930s relic, albeit very nicely maintained, from what I remember (a lone trip in 1998).

Did you ever see a game in one of these gyms or have seen an unusual one of your own? Please let me know.

Berrien: The site’s home team had unusual lodgings from 1954-62. For reasons unknown, a gym was not built when Berrien High opened in 1954. The Rebels were forced to do things differently, and very differently they did.

Good “shells” were located all around the county, four of them in all. Alapaha, Enigma, and Ray City had a place as well as Nashville. Why Nashville’s court wasn’t used full-time is unknown. There is the possibility that because it was in the worst shape of them all, which is evidenced by its demolition in the early 1960s (the rest still stand).

Getting back to the story, when Valdosta was scheduled to play a home game, they would go to Ray City. Tifton would drive to Enigma. Atkinson County went to Alapaha. Quitman was one of the few teams to regularly play in Nashville. Cook was shuffled about, as it was probably customary to do little things to peeve the neighbors to the west.

Bogart: BHS had a home-court advantage in a major way. At one end of the floor, a ceiling hung low. So low that shots that hit this ceiling counted if they swished the net. The facility also had but a single bathroom without showers and coal-burning stoves.

A previous “gym” was reported as being a warehouse with a cement floor.

More information on Bogart’s gym.

Claxton: It was not completely unusual for a school to not have a home place to play. Sandersville played on the road in the 1950s. Berrien did not build a gym when it opened, but spread the games around other gyms in the county.

Claxton made an interesting choice when confronted with the problem of no home hardwood. In 1957, they were tired of their two options – playing on literal home dirt or scheduling everything out of town.

They opted to cancel basketball for that 1957-58 season. What makes the choice so unusual is that it is the only known time in Georgia history that a team has played football, but not basketball in a school year.

It seems as if the Claxton Enterprise was not too thrilled about the decision to forgo hoops and seemed to try to rub it in on several occasions. Nothing was ever directly said, but a couple of weird briefs appeared about other places. Once, they mentioned the new gym built for Fort Valley High. Another time, they mentioned that Bryan County had built a new gym and were selling the old.

Update: I have been informed by Tommy Palmer that Claxton did not resume basketball until the 1964-65 season.

Clinch County: This might have actually been the correct measurements, unlike most of the facilities listed here. The green barn was unusual for other reasons. All information comes courtesy of Martin Register’s column in the Valdosta Daily Times, printed February 10, 1980, the final season in the gym.

Until 1949, Homerville High had a brick gym. It burned. A temporary structure was moved in from Waycross and was supposed to last until a bond was passed to build a real home floor. The bond fails and probably failed repeatedly. In 1969, the green building was declared a fire hazard. While renovations are made to bring it up to standards, Clinch County plays its first 10 games on the road. A bond for a new gym fails.

Register eulogizes his old home:
“The laws of probability dictated that few of those scrawny seventh graders would realize their dreams and grow up to win region championships on last-second hook shots.

But many would enjoy a flash of glory, if only stealing the ball from a Patterson third stringer in the waning moments of a game whose outcome was decided long before.”

Collins: Tommy Palmer, who sent in the update on Claxton, describes the situation in the small town of Collins:

"As far as unique Gyms are concerned, the one at Collins High School, which was merged into Tattnall County High School was an old wooden structure with about one foot of out-of-bounds space and barely enough space under each basket to in bounds the ball. It sat right next to the railroad tracks in Collins, and when the trains came through during the basketball games, the old Gym literally shook, much to the dismay of the almost always, standing room only crowds."

Eastman: Report from the September 16, 1953, Dodge County News:
“Built in the early twenties, the gym has reached various stages of deterioration that required patchwork. At the present time, the committee reports, “you can see the sky through holes in the roof, the rest rooms are a disgrace to the school, the siding has deteriorated so badly that it does not keep out the wind, heating equipment is not even adequate to take off the chill and the floor has been rotted by rains pouring through the roof.”

It is assumed that this beast held on until Dodge County High was built in 1957. The two photos printed in the newspapers showed the dressing rooms, which looked quite rough. I don’t believe there was a floor at all, rather a dirt surface.

Echols County: Their last gym must have been something special. In polling a former long-time referee about the worst facilities to be, this was ranked number one.

This states the gym was built around 1932. The referee that rated this gym would have been seeing games after the improvements were made in the 1950s. Improvements included a real scoreboard, a new floor, a new roof, and improved heating. The current Echols County gym was built in c. 1973.

Heard County: Cited in 1970 by the Hogansville Home News as being worse than Hogansville’s gym. If accurate, this must have been a doozy.

Hogansville: Their run to the title in 1970 was hosted in a bandbox of a gymnasium. Details come from the Hogansville Home News from the same year.

The gym seated 350 people. There were two sets of restrooms. One was for the Green Wavettes, visiting girls, and female fans. The other was for the Green Waves, visiting boys, and male fans. While the paper stated how bad this place was, it pointed a finger at Heard County, saying the gym in Franklin was the worst in the region. A personal first-degree encounter with the Hogansville gymnasium led me to believe the floor was not regulation size. A three point line had been added and if you were not shooting from the top of the key, you could not legally shoot a three. Everything else would have been out of bounds.

The gym continued to host games for a few more seasons. It was demolished in 2003.

Lanier County: How would you like to enjoy a game in a seat with a back and armrests? Until the early 1960s, the Bulldogs had just that. This luxury came with consequences. You see, Lanier County did not have a gymnasium. They had an auditorium. Basketball was played on the stage. The court was too short and too narrow and the ceilings a little low. The only ground rule remembered is that a stripe was painted just past the midcourt line. You had to cross that line in 10 seconds, but could double back.

More questions are unanswered. Did Lanier have a scoreboard? Where were the benches? How was … just about everything handled?

The stage was abandoned by 1964, but was still in use in 1962. The auditorium still lives on, though it has been remodeled and the court painted over. The entire building was moved in two pieces to just south of Lakeland. It is the now the Threatte Civic Center.

The last Lanier County gym, put together in c. 1976, had its own unusual feature for years. The floor might have originally been hardwood, but if it was, it was replaced by the mid-1990s. I am not sure what the surface was called, but it looked unusual . All of this is in past tense, as Lanier has installed a hardwood floor in 2008.

Reidsville: With a gym like this and an interior such as this, there has to be some stories. Note the wooden backboard and daylight coming through the slats in the second picture.

St. George: The Bears, located in the southernmost portion of the state, ended their existence in a gym with a basket nailed to the wall.

Washington: Before consolidation and the addition of a dash and Wilkes following it, Washington High’s gym was a little short on one end. The out-of-bounds line was painted on the wall. No word as to how taking the ball out after made baskets worked.

Whigham: Someone remembered once that Whigham had low ceilings and knew how to work them as the ball would sometimes thread through the rafters.