Meyer GymEst. 1956Tour the gym

Stories · 1968–2024

Stories from the
Pressure Cooker.

From the newspaper story that named it to the night the town lined the streets: the lore of the Meyer Gym, every word of it sourced.

“Not by a high school team.”

Brownstown coach Junior Sibbitt in 1968, asked whether Scottsburg could be beaten on its home floor
The 1968 headline: “Teenage Torture: It's Not a New Horror Movie, But Just High-School Basketball at Scottsburg”

The night it got its name

Friday, Dec. 13, 1968 · Scottsburg 91 · Brownstown 62

Thirty-two minutes in a pressure cooker.

Jim Barley's Warriors were 6–0 when Brownstown came to town, and they pressed all over the floor from the opening tip. Denny Dressman covered the game for the Louisville Courier-Journal, under the headline “Teenage Torture.”

A basketball game at Scottsburg, he wrote, “is more like 32 minutes in a pressure cooker.” The name stuck to the gym, and it has never come off.

Bill James scored 40 that night. Brownstown's coach called Scottsburg's zone press one of the best in the state, and when he was asked whether anyone could beat the Warriors at home, he said: “Not by a high school team.” Nobody did that season. The Warriors went 25–1, beaten only at the semi-state.

Dressman went on to 25 years at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and in 2008 to the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

Read the whole clipping at scottsburgwarriors.com →
Newspaper photo: Jim Barley, in a suit, leans in to talk to his players on the bench
The line from the article: “A basketball game at Scottsburg is more like 32 minutes in a pressure cooker.”
From the article: asked if Scottsburg could be beaten on its home floor, “Not by a high school team,” he said.

From the Louisville Courier-Journal, December 1968. Clippings from the scan at scottsburgwarriors.com.

  1. The gym's recordNov. 30, 1968

    Sixty-nine.

    Two weeks before the Brownstown game, Bill James scored 69 points against West Washington. No Scottsburg player has scored more in the gym, and it stands on the IHSAA's all-time list of single-game scoring.

    He pulled down 25 rebounds that night too, and Scottsburg won 96–68. He finished with 1,890 points, still the school record.

    James went on to Marshall, where in 1973 the football coach, rebuilding after the 1970 plane crash, made the basketball player a receiver; the film We Are Marshall has him as a character. He played for the ABA's Kentucky Colonels, went into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, and came home to coach the Warriors.

    Bill James, No. 40, dribbling up the floor in a white Scottsburg uniform
    Bill James, No. 40. scottsburgwarriors.com captions it the night of the 69.
    The 1968–69 Scottsburg Warriors in dark uniforms with their coaches and managers, under a basket
    The 1968–69 Warriors: 25–1, and 20–0 in the regular season. Photo from scottsburgwarriors.com.

  2. On the airFor years, on WMPI

    The voice of the Pressure Cooker.

    For years the Warriors' games came out of this gym over WMPI, Scottsburg's own radio station, with Walker Amick calling them and Tommy Patton beside him at the microphone.

    Amick knew the floor from the other side, too: he played for Scottsburg on the same 1945 team as Gene Rogers, the man who would later lead the crowd in “Give me one big fight.”

    Two men in headsets and microphones smiling at the camera from the broadcast table above a packed crowd
    Walker Amick and Tommy Patton on the air for WMPI.
    Five Scottsburg players in dark jerseys kneeling arm in arm around a basketball, in an old gym
    Scottsburg's 1945 team, with Walker Amick and Gene Rogers. It's older than the gym: the Meyer opened in 1956.

  3. A debutNov. 22, 1986

    Damon Bailey's first game.

    Sports Illustrated had already named him the best high school freshman in the country. Damon Bailey's first varsity game for Bedford North Lawrence was here, before a near-capacity crowd of 3,500 at “noisy Charles Meyer Gymnasium.”

    He scored 20, ten of them at the free-throw line, and the Stars won 82–70. Scottsburg's coach that night was Bill James.

    “It was a typical first game.”

    Bedford North Lawrence coach Dan Bush
    Watch: Bedford North Lawrence Stars at Scottsburg Warriors, 11/22/1986The whole game, on the Warriors' channel · 1:50:26 · YouTube
    Newspaper clipping: “Bailey has 20 to help Bedford breeze 82-70”, with the box score
    The next day's paper: his debut “before a near-capacity crowd of 3,500 at noisy Charles Meyer Gymnasium.”
    A scorebook page headed Bedford North, Nov. 22, 1986: Damon Bailey, number 32, with 5 field goals, 10 free throws and 20 points; the final score 82
    The scorebook from that night: Bailey, No. 32, 5 field goals and 10 free throws for 20.

  4. Miss BasketballJan. 16 and Feb. 25, 1989

    Forty-nine, then the title.

    Renee Westmoreland scored 49 against Columbus East on Jan. 16, 1989, the most anyone has scored for the Warriorettes in this gym.

    Six weeks later, at Market Square Arena, she scored 30 in the state final. Scottsburg beat Benton Central 74–72 in overtime before a record 16,567, and Donna Cheatham's team was state champion. She was named Indiana's 1989 Miss Basketball, Scottsburg's first and so far only.

    Watch: 1989 state championship: Scottsburg 74, Benton Central 72 (OT)The whole game, from the IHSAA · 2:20:18 · YouTube
    Smiling Warriorettes in gold reach for the IHSAA state champions girls basketball trophy, 1989
    The 1989 state champions and the trophy. Photo from scottsburgwarriors.com.

  5. Run and gun1991–1997

    A hundred points, twenty-two times.

    Tony Bennett, a Jeffersonville native who had played and coached at Providence, took over the Warriors in 1991 while teaching biology. In six seasons his teams went 93–44, with four sectionals and three Mid-Southern Conference titles.

    They ran. Four of the five highest scoring averages in Warriors history belong to his teams, led by 88.5 points a game in 1995–96, and they scored 100 or more 22 times. That season's home opener set the gym's team record: 123–52 over Southwestern. Jennings County's 102, the most a visitor has scored here, came in a 121–102 Warriors win in 1992–93.

    One of his players, Eric Richardson, coached the Warriors to the 2024 state title. Bennett became Scottsburg's principal, and in 2009 Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction.

    “Guys, let's lace 'em up, play our guts out, and win.”

    Tony Bennett, recalling his pregame talk at his 2009 swearing-in
    The 1995–96 Scottsburg Warriors in white uniforms with their coaches, in the bleachers
    The 1995–96 Warriors: 88.5 points a game, and the 123. Photo from scottsburgwarriors.com.

  6. Tip-off2015 and 2024

    Lights out, spotlight on.

    Before the Warriorettes' opener in 2015, the lights dimmed for introductions and a spotlight picked out each player, and Donna Cheatham's light-up sneakers on the bench.

    On Dec. 13, 2024, 56 years to the day after Dressman's game and against the same Brownstown, a visitor touring Indiana's gyms watched the lights over the stands go out at tip-off, leaving “a heavenly spotlight” on the court. That, the writer said, was when they understood why it's called the Pressure Cooker.

    The gym in the dark, purple and gold spotlights sweeping the court
    Game night in our 3D model of the gym.

  7. A streetSept. 13, 2014

    1 Jim Barley Way.

    Thirty-six years after his last season as the Warriors' head coach, the street outside got Jim Barley's name, with a ceremony and the unveiling of the sign. The gym's address is listed today as 1 Jim Barley Way.

    WDRB's feature that fall caught Barley back on the Meyer Gym floor.

    Watch: Jim Barley, Scottsburg coach: WDRB featureShot and edited for WDRB by Kyle Lizenby · 2:23 · YouTube

  8. A full houseJan. 14, 2017

    “How special The Pressure Cooker is.”

    New Albany brought Romeo Langford, the No. 2 prospect in the class of 2018, before a near-capacity crowd. He scored 35, and New Albany won 97–40.

    “A taste of how special The Pressure Cooker is when there's a full house.”

    Scottsburg coach Brent Jameson

  9. Fifty years onDec. 7, 2018

    The 1968–69 Warriors come back.

    Half a century after Dressman's story, Jim Barley's team, 20–0 in the regular season, was honored between the junior varsity and varsity games. The opponent was Brownstown, again.

  10. ChampionsMarch–April 2024

    The town lined the streets.

    When the Warriors came home from the semi-state at Seymour, the town lined the streets to welcome them, coach Eric Richardson told the IHSAA. Then they won the school's first boys' state title, and on April 4 the celebration was here, in the gym.

    “Our community is behind this team.”

    Coach Eric Richardson, 2024
    A full house in gold at the Meyer Gym, banners and pennants overhead, the floor in front
    April 4, 2024: the state champions' celebration in the gym. Photo: DLHahn Photography (Eyes of the Heart), from scottsburgathletics.com.

Watch

Game film
and the gym on camera.

Each one opens on YouTube.

The other bench

The most anyone
brought here.

  • 50points by a visiting playerAnthony Winchester, AustinNov. 23, 2001
  • 102points by a visiting teamJennings County1992–93

In their words

  • “When the team is winning, the band is booming, and the place becomes a pressure cooker.”

    Marc Viquez, Stadium Journey, 2021

  • “Scottsburg history oozes from the hardwood.”

    Justin Sokeland, WBIW, 2023

  • “It will be a tough place to play.”

    Bedford North Lawrence coach Kurt Godlevske, 2023

  • “A basketball crazed town.”

    Scottsburg coach Brent Jameson, 2017

  • “Donna Cheatham is Indiana girls basketball.”

    Ingrid (Schulze) Royalty, class of 1980, in USA Today, 2015

Where these come from