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Voices roar. Pom-poms swish. Tlie ball thum|is down the lxudwood floor as hometown tans shout ft>r one last basket before halftime during tlie opening game of the 2007 high school boys’ sectional tournament in New Castle, Ind., last February. As the halftime buzzer sounds, players hustle from the court to the locker room while tlie crowd stands and cheers in the New Castle Chrysler Fieldhouse, die world's hugest high school gymnasium. "New Castle is a basketball town," says Chase Stigall, 18, a senior and member of the New Castle Trojans basketball team. “Everyone comes out on Friday nights to watch I the game.” I Basketball fever runs deep in I New Castle (pop. 17,780). In hut, * that's why the community’ built H . a gymnasium to seat 9,325 ■ I spectators in 1959. "We had so many people wanting to see the games that they couldn’t all get in the old Church Street gym,” recalls Bill Lehr, 79, New castle High School princi- Ifc' pal from l% 7 to 1979 "So the communi- Chase Stigall focuses on a free throw. ty pitched in to see that a big enough gym was built." Volunteers raised more than $1 million for the 81,000-square-foot field house, where the Trojans practice and high school sec tionals have been hosted each year since the giant gymna sium was built. “This is a great [dace to see basketball," says Ray Pavy, 66, sitting atop the field house’s upper deck. “There’s not a bod seat in the house.” An avid Trojans fan, Pavy is part of New Castle’s leg- endary hoops heritage. During the last game played at the old Church Street gym in 1959, Pavy scored 51 points and rival Kokomo's Jimmy Rayl shot 49, setting a state scoring record for two players in a single game. Basketball is a sport that’s at the very core of life in New Castle, says Neil Thornhill, a local dentist and basketball historian. “My family has had season tickets for almost 50 years,’’ lie says. “1 played guard back when 1 was in high school." During one memorable 1961 tournament, a bliz zard hit during a Saturday evening game, stranding more than 2,000 fans in the fieldhouse. Townspeople were able to drive home, but toads leading exit of town became so treacherous they were closed. "Gtrs were getting stuck everywhere," recalls New Castle resident Jack Riggs, 75. Trojans fans support the hometown team at Now Castle (Ind.) Chrysler Fieldhouse, f ! the world’s largest high school gymnasium. ’ >&s&*** ''V CX ’Mil, j\ ■' yl A ” i dL __ Nearby grocery stores and bakeries carried in sand wiches and ckxighnuts to feed the crowd. On Sunday morning, the sermon of a local Presbyterian minister was piped in and the gym became a church for a day. New Gistle’s basketball lieritage is evident through out tlx- town, from the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, across tlx* street from the fieldlxxise, to tlie Steve Alford All-American Inn, nanxxl for a local hexips legend. Tlx? two-story nxxel on the outskirts of town has a pickup sized basketball shoe in tlie parking lot and a lobby filled with memorabilia of Alford’s career as a New Castle High School star, Indiana University All-American, NBA [slayer, Olympic gold medalist arxl current University ot New Mexico c«uh. fiifijlllj Another giganut busketUrll slxxr is H Page 6 •www.americanprofile.com