The Trojan Horse rides again.
For multiple decades, the wooden cart and mascot was part of Center Grove High School tradition. The horse was ubiquitous at basketball games and other school events, first serving as a clever way to bring water and towels to players, and later as a mascot.
With a spirit of preserving the past, a group of Center Grove alumni, and current students and educators, have brought the mascot back to life.
“It’s really an honor to be part of a little bit of history,” said Ruel West, a 1958 graduate of Center Grove.
In a labor of love and a flurry of school spirit, a group of Center Grove alumni have recreated the Trojan Horse mascot that had been a large part of basketball games in the 1940s, then later in the ’60s and ’70s. They’ve researched the history of the cart, carefully cut and assembled wood into a reconstruction of the horse and enlisted current students and educators to help finish it.
The project is a way to connect Center Grove’s historic past with its dynamic present, participants say. They hope the recreation not only stirs nostalgia among older alumni, but sparks a feeling of school pride in current students while preserving an important piece of history.
“I enjoy people and their stories. I’m happy to share stories with newer folks moving into the neighborhood and community,” said Jeff Beck, a 1967 Center Grove graduate who helped with the project. “I am concerned as no one from younger years seems to be picking up on all the movements in our community. The time will come when questions will again arise.”
The Trojan Horse mascot cart has a long story, stretching back into the 1940s. Research has shown the reason for the cart was an antiquated rule of Indiana basketball.
From 1910 to 1948, coaches were barred from speaking to players during timeouts, according to research by John Frank, a longtime history teacher at Center Grove who helped with the project. Players would gather near the free throw circle and a team manager would bring towels and water to them.
So high schools took pride in crafting unique carts to bring supplies to them. Some of those carts, including ones from Evansville Bosse, Kokomo and French Lick high schools, are in the collection of the Indiana High School Basketball Hall of Fame, Frank said.
At Center Grove, the solution was to build a cart shaped like a Trojan horse.
References to the Trojan Horse towel cart appear in the 1940s in local newspapers. The Maple Leaf, Center Grove’s yearbook, referenced it in the late 1940s.
“The first Trojan Horse mascot is believed to have been made by the school’s ‘shop class’ and had a white body and red mane. The words ‘Center Grove’ were painted on both sides,” Frank wrote in a history of the mascot.
When rule changes made the Trojan Horse obsolete in 1948, it is believed to have been retired, spending its days in the coach’s office. A fire in 1952 destroyed the high school, and the cart is presumed to have been lost as well, Frank said.
But in 1966, a Center Grove student named Pressley Kegley designed and built another mascot Trojan Horse. During basketball games at the time, the horse was part of the festivities. Over time, though, it too was lost to history.
Still, the memory of the mascot stayed with alumni — a group of which decided to authentically recreate the 1940s version of the Trojan Horse cart. After the school corporation renovated an entrance area of the high school, alumni were reminded of the mascot, and wanted to recreate the piece for display cases inside the school, Beck said.
Spurred by Bill Paddack, a 1955 graduate of Center Grove, the group got to work researching how the cart should look.
“We all got together for lunch, and that was the beginning,” West said. “(Bill) knew that I was into woodworking. He described how when he was a kid in the ’40s going to ballgames, and wanted to see if we could do it.”
West reached out Mike Robards, who graduated in 1970, to build the frame of the cart out of poplar wood. The two are avid and skilled woodworkers, doing projects throughout the year, including making toys for children at the holidays. They used old photographs as a template to come up with dimensions for the horse, then worked on cutting out the pieces, preparing them and assembling them.
“We have a lot of generations involved in Center Grove. There are deep roots,” Robards said.
Beck, and his wife, Sharon, painted the piece in the spring. To help them put “Center Grove” lettering, and paint the school’s Trojan logo of the school, on the side, they reached out to Ryan Jones, an art and technology teacher at the high school.
Jones recruited a pair of students, Nolan Canfield and Oleg Zook, to help with the physical project. They also created a website with the history of the Trojan Horse and old photos. A QR code will be placed with the horse in the display case, so people can easily find out more information about it.
“I always enjoy working with individuals in our community on various projects. Students need to see the skills they have learned can be applied outside of the school building to help others in their community. The fact that it is also historical to the school is another plus,” Jones said in an email. “The students enjoyed the challenge and working on something that wasn’t in the curriculum but a real-world application of the material they have learned.”
Plans are to have the Trojan Horse installed in the high school later in May. For those involved, the project has been a positive connection between the past and the present.
“We’re proud of work done by the team and students and Mr. Jones,” Beck said. “It’s important to have students involved learning Center Grove history.”
