Rosary's old wooden gym burned down in the mid to late 40's.(way before me believe it or not - my mother's era) They had no home gym except borrowed neighborhood ones until they built the 2nd floor new gym in the parish center in 1959-1960. Sacred Heart had a newer gym also in the 60's/70's. St Vincents had columns and very low ceilings. To watch Assumption you had to ascend a long set of narrow steps in a stairway to get to their gym on an upper floor. To watch St Anthony's games you watched from a balcony to see the game played below. St John the Baptist and St Pat's had combo auditorium/ gyms with a stage along one baseline. Not unusual to see players on fastbreaks jump up on the stage finishing plays, then jumping back down to get down court again. I saw kids run straight into swinging doors behind baskets to the stairwell when completing plays on the north end of St Pat's gym. Many gyms like MHR had padding on the walls behind the baskets to help avoid impact injuries. The gyms were packed for games, kids were squished on buses, in private cars to get to standing room only contests and there were dances called "open houses" after many games. Games were fun, intense with creative cheers. After the games, restaurants like Danzers' Tino's , Smoral's, numerous area pizza joints were filled with kids/parents afterwards. Great memories.
