Indiana State Fair 2023 Photos, Part 3 of 9: The Year of Basketball

One side of the Midway's gateway arch surrounded by basketballs, greenery, and one creepy clown head.

A veritable garden of basketballs growing at the Midway entrance, guarded by a creepy clown head.

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

As we mentioned last time, this year’s fair theme was The Year of Basketball. We aren’t sports fans, but we realize we’re vastly outnumbered in this state. I’ve seen a few basketball films, we attended a Pacers game exactly once, and a high school buddy once took me to an early-’90s Butler/Purdue game where the players spent more time beating on each other than shooting the ball. Otherwise, this chapter was assembled for You, The Viewers At Home, or at least those among you who can better appreciate the exhibits and nods than we did. At least we got to see some authentic props from one film we’ve seen, so there’s that.

The core of the theme was an exhibit at the Harvest Pavilion called “Land of Legends: Celebrating Indiana’s Basketball History”, where families could learn some Hoosier basketball history and/or run around enjoying various activities, kind of like a sports-focused Children’s Museum.

A pavilion with exhibits and kids running around. A giant inflatable basketball looms overhead inside a matching basket.

Overhead, a giant inflatable basketball dribbled itself up and down through a basket.

Naturally our Pacers were prominent among the exhibits.

A Reggie Miller giant bobblehead, choking itself.

Giant bobbleheads on display included Pacers legend Reggie Miller, once again reenacting that ’94 Spike Lee incident we just learned about…

A Black female basketball player, turned into a giant smiling bobblehead.

…and Tamika Catchings, a 4-time Olympic gold medalist who played 15 years for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, including their 2012 championship. She once competed on American Ninja Warrior and owns two tea shops here in town.

White bleachers holding dozens of kid-painted basketballs.

Part of a display of basketballs painted by the Boys and Girls Club of Indianapolis.

Same display, lots more.

A black-and-purple basketball decorated with stars, nebulae, a sun, and a rocketship.

Bonus points to whoever made this space-themed basketball, complete with nebulae.

Sculpture: big yellow letters L, V, and E stacked vertically; between them, a basketball stands in for the letter O.

A salute to love starring a distant cousin to Wilson from Cast Away.

A TV in the corner of the pavilion with orange plastic lawn chairs and beanbag chairs in front of it. Onscreen, Lil Bow Wow stands on an empty basketball court while the camera pans around him.

A screen showed basketball-themed films each day, such as Like Mike starring The Artist Formerly Known as Lil’ Bow Wow…

Same T screen showing a young teen Jesse Plemons in "Like Mike".

…and an impossibly young Jesse Plemons who grew up to become Todd from Breaking Bad season 5.

Oscar Robertson artifacts, such as newspaper clippings, an autographed basketball, a golden shoe, and a Crispus Attucks High School jersey #43.

Artifacts from the life of Oscar Robertson, point guard for the Milwaukee Bucks and the former Cincinnati Royals, who was raised in Indianapolis and played for Crispus Attucks High School.

Fun trivia: in 1954 Robertson’s team was among those who lost to the severely underdog Milan High School team during their championship season chronicled in the movie Hoosiers. Robertson went on to win games, awards, and other bigger and better things.

Speaking of that film, which is practically required viewing for legal Indiana residency…

Display of Milan High School 1954 winning team relics, including two letter jackets, newspaper clippings, and bobbleheads of the team.

Artifacts from Milan’s biggest claim to fame, whose story was told in a major motion picture starring Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper. and Barbara Hershey as the Concerned Teacher.

For lovers of authentic film props: the actual 1951 Chevy Deluxe driven by Hackman’s character.

An ancient red school bus with a yellow sign on the side, "Hickory Huskers".

On the complete opposite corner of the fairgrounds, Hoosiers fans were welcome to climb aboard the 1939 school bus the team rode in the film.

A smiling Anne sitting aboard that same bus, with only the "HUSKER" part of the sign in frame.

In my reality head-canon this is a memento from that time Anne traveled the Midwest as a roadie for Hüsker Dü during their early zero-budget hardcore years.

A tall vitrine containing a homemade Pacers sweater, two Indiana-themed basketballs, and a basketball top hat.

Over at the Indiana Arts Building, some of their competitions also drew basketball-themed entries.

A red-and-orange Pacers quilt draped over a box in a display case.

A Pacers-themed entry in the annual quilting contest.

Custom-painted backboard labeled "Grow the Game" with basketballs growing on a tree.

A special competition invited artists to submit custom-painted backboards that crossed basketball with the State Fair and/or with farming.

Custom-painted backboard showing kids playing basketball in front of Normandy Farms' white buildings.

A salute to historic Normandy Farms, which used to be a thing in the Traders Point area.

Popular State Fair sights surround the arch that leads to the Midway (read: carnival rides), one leg of which can be seen in our lead photo.

Custom-painted backboard with the State Fair Midway, showing two concession stands, some corn, a barn, a blond kid on a purple horse, a giant purple cow, a Ferris wheel, one of those spinning rides with cars suspended from cables, and a ticket booth.

An Expressionist wider shot of that same Midway.

Custom-painted backboard with lots of Indiana icons; refer to caption.

Can you name the Indiana icons on this backboard?

(What I see in there: corn, basketballs, an Indy 500 checkered flag, our state bird the cardinal, our state flower the peony, our state tree the tulip tree, the Indiana Dunes, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, and Triple XXX Root Beer in Lafayette. I don’t get the hat.)