The old field house was such a part of my memories of my first few years at ND. It was a link to the past...the distant past. It was nothing more than a long high roofed building with a dirt floor and a balcony. It was the perfect place for a jamb-packed, sauna hot, roof-rocking noisy pep rally. The team would filter in and stand up in the balcony like the gods on Olympus. And than Zeus (Ara) would address his minions. And we were intoxicated with his words. Now at the other end, there were some temporary (although they were always there) bleachers that surrounded a floor that was maybe 18 in. off the dirt. It was there that visiting players had to enter the pit. The court was almost surrounded by students, who, when a player was throwing the ball in bounds, were maybe 3 ft. from his poor, poor ears. Two hours of loud, nasty, intimidating shouting which never seemed to stop. The game I recall most was when Houston with Elvin Hayes came to ND. They were awsome during warmups, of course, no one shouted much during warmups. The game started and they played a zone defense. ND's captain was a kid named Arnzen. He was maybe 6' 6" and was a little slow. But man could he shoot the ball. He must have gone 19 for 20 and somehow we upset the Cougars who were probably favored by 20 pts. Lastly, as to Johnny Dee, I'll always remember him. I was part of a group of 32 guys who ran a football from ND's 50 yd. line to Spartan Stadium for the 1966 game of the century. He was us outside the stadium and had heard about what we'd been doing. He asked if we all had tickets. About half of us did. Dee got a hold of Biggie Munn, MSU's athletic director and they let those of us who didn't have tickets in. We had to stand anywhere we could but we were in the stadium. Dee was a great guy.
Gip has done well describing the aura of the old fieldhouse. My memories include the boxing gym on the second level behind the elevated balcony at the west end of the building. It was a huge room that included a ring. It was where we did all our workouts. Just below the room/balcony was the equipment room, where the guy who headed the equipment and workout clothing distribution was a little Irish leprechaun, about 70 yrs. old (or so it seemed), named Mac MacAllister. To him, everyone was a piss ant. He always had a scowl on his face. We learned later after graduating that it was just an act. The seating capacity for basketball was about 1,800, and the setting was as Gip described it. For many years, until the ACC was built, Indiana refused to play ND in the fieldhouse when it was ND's turn to host the game every other year. ND likewise refused to go to Bloomington, so the game was played each year at the Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne. I have some great memories of games in the fieldhouse which resemble Gip's, so I won't expand on them. To show my age, I remember playing teams like Evansville with Jerry West and Creighton with Paul Silas. The best team I saw was my freshman year with "super" sophs Larry Sheffield from New York, Jay Miller from Goshen, IN, Ron Reed (yes, the former baseball pitcher), from LaPorte, IN, and Walt Sahm, a 6'9" center from Indpls. Cathedral. They were led by seniors John Matthews and John Andreotti. They won 20+ games and lost only 6 or 7, as I recall with my sometimes-innacurate memory. They never reached the same level the next two years. It was, I think, my senior year (Gip's freshman year) when John Jordan retired and Johnny Dee was named head coach. Two final thoughts. 1) The events held each year in the fieldhouse, in addition to indoor track meets, included the Collegiate Jazz Festival and the Bengal Bouts. 2) The pep rallies were exactly how you envision pep rallies should be, with the screaming students on the floor below the team and the band. Since those years, I've never seen a venue for our pep rallies which comes close to matching the atmosphere of the old fieldhouse. The Stepan Center was OK, but it wasn't quite the same. How's that for the musings of a crotchety old man? :lol:
I guess what surprised me was how they described you fine gentlemen attending ND as pretty darn mean to the opposing teams!!
Irish hire Tenn OL coach, Harry Hiestand, to replace Ed Warriner who left for Ohio State. Naturally as with everything this is controversial, with some saying he's not a very good coach and that Tenn fans are glad that he's moving on. It's clear he had very young OL's in his short tenure with the Vols so if they didn't seem like the Tenn OL's of old maybe youth was a big factor. Also Tenn has had terrible QB play and that doesn't help make your OL look good. Any way for better or worse he's our OL coach. Hopefully now that we have one in place Taylor Decker the Ohio kid who was very solid to ND when Molinar/Warriner were our OCoord/OL coaches is now shaky and is making an offical visit to Ohio State this weekend. I wouldn't be shocked if Warriner and Urban got him to decomit from the Irish. Hopefully he won't and Kelly can visit him with the new OL coach and get him to stay with ND.
Well that OL coach is still not offical, supposedly thanks to O'Leary that Irish now do extensive background checks on these guys and it takes longer than usual to get them onboard. Also Kelly is in the process of hiring Iowa State DB coach, Bobby Elliot who was Bobby Diaco's coach at Iowa and who also coached with Tony Alford for 1 season at Iowa State. He is supposedly a good DB coach and an excellent recruiter.
Somebody stretching mightly to compare Lou and Brian Kelly!! Interesting read though. Brian Kelly is the new Lou Holtz
That's pretty funny, especially the Jon Bon Jovi and Ozzie Osbourne references. The guy has an imaginative mind. The comparisons are cool. However, although I'm a Kelly supporter at this juncture, I see no comparison whatsoever between him and Lou Holtz........yet.
I see that the ND Women's Basketball team continues to just hammer the opposition. They beat Pitt 120-48 and the starters played less than 1/2 the game. They have some rough games coming up with the Lady Vols coming to South Bend and then they have to go on the road to UConn who will be wanting more than a bit of revenge. This may be the best team we've had at ND for womens basketball, maybe even better than the Ruth Riley Nat'l Champions, but they will have a very hard time getting a NC. Baylor with 6'8" Britney Griner even better than last year is going to be very tough to beat. They have already beaten the Irish easily and then went to UConn and beat them on their own court. Unless Griner takes her game to the WNBA early, Baylor will be the favorite for the NC again next year as well.