GREAT THREAD!
The Field House was simply awesome... Like Wrigley Field, it had no parking, few bathrooms and lots of seats with obstructed viewing. But it was such an asset to the home team!!!
I never understood why the real 'assets' of The Field House were never recreated at Carver Hawkeye. The Field House had bleachers with these loose wood and metal slats that hung down from the underside of the bench seats and connected to the plank that one stood on (so as to keep stuff from falling underneath the bleachers). And during crucial times in a game, all of the fans would simultaneously kick the plate with their heels and the joint would get so loud you couldn't think. I remember Ron Gonder from WMT Radio (back then, maybe only 1 or 2 games each year would be televised -- if you were lucky!) having to yell into the mic so everyone could hear him. I remember seeing many great Iowa-Iowa State wrestling matches there (those would sometimes be televised on the Iowa Public Broadcasting network -- which before cable was like watching black and red blurs in a snow storm). I remember Waterloo West's own Dan Gable wrestling there for Iowa State -- and then becoming head coach after Kurdelmeier had started the Iowa wrestling frieght train a- rollin'. In basketball, I remember watching Ronnie Lester handle the Michigan State Spartans with Earvin Johnson and Greg Kelsor in '78-'79 -- and then saw Michigan State let the air out of the ball the following year at the Field House -- this was before the shot clock came into existence in the NCAA: The halftime score was something like Iowa 5 - MSU 2! Yeah... unbelievable!! I remember the Ronnie Lester jersey retirement and that big win which really helped Iowa advance to the NCAAs in 1980. Perhaps my fondest memeory, however, was watching Iowa beat what would be Bobby Knight's 1981 National Championship team with Landon Turner and Isiah Thomas. I'll never forget in the second half, seeing Thomas get more and more frustrated and then getting ejected for attempting to cold-**** Steve Krafcisin with an unprovoked punch to the face while standing at half court with him during an Iowa free throw. (Isiah was lucky everyone including the ref saw him, 'cause he never would have made it out of there alive if they'd missed that one!)
But my memories pale in comparison to my father's memories. He recalled the Rick Mount story that was already mentioned earlier in this thread. But topping the list of Dad's favorite Field House memories (he attended Iowa in the 50s) was watching the The Freshman Basketball Team with Connie Hawkins beating everything they faced -- including winning scrimmages against the Iowa varsity team. Back then, freshman were ineligible to play varsity and oftentimes would play before the varsity game. This team would come out and do a pre-game warm up that included the Globetrotter's 'Magic Circle' routine to the Iowa Band playing Sweet Georgia Brown... With Don Nelson only two years older than Connie, the two would have probably combined to make the Hawkeyes the premiere NCAA team at the time, giving Cincinnati (with Oscar Robertson) and Ohio State (with Lucas, Havlicek and the aforementioned Robert Montgomery Knight) a run for those national titles... But Fate had other plans and Hawkins wasn't allowed to play after his freshman year. [For those who want to learn why Connie never played one second of varsity ball, I suggest reading Foul, the autobiography of Connie Hawkins.]
I guess I would like to leave everyone with is this: As the University sinks millions of dollars into Carver Hawkeye to make it things nice and modern, perhaps it should think about trying to bring back things that used to help the basketball team -- things like getting the students 'down-close' to the floor and moving the media into the rafters and re-installing those noisy "kick-plates" for additional "home court charm"... They's sound absolutley fantastic smashing against the cold, dull concrete that is Carver Hawkeye!
