Two wins send of Chick Evans Field House amid cheers, memories
by Hank Brockett
2/25/02
Ask Sports Information Director Mike Korcek to pick one true, quintessential memory ... and he’d rattle off a dozen. After all, it’s his job and his passion.
Maybe Carol Jones, a fan who attended the first field house game in 1957, can define one true moment. Nope. Neither can Bruce Forster, Jones’ “basketball buddy” and a field house patron since 1958. After all these years, their labor of love, the Huskies, extends far beyond singular moments.
The women and men, fans and players, legends and underdogs -- all were memories on equal footing Saturday as the Chick Evans Field House played host to its last regular season games ever, both NIU victories. So as the names of lore appeared at center court during timeouts and at halftime of the men’s basketball game, the 5,670 in attendance recognized their contributions to the building’s whole.
The Huskies’ move into the new $35.8 million arena on the west side of campus weighed little on this crowd, even as official programs detailed the advantages of season tickets and prime seating. The move is significant for Forster, if only because the path from the field house to the arena covers part of his parents’ old farm.
Forster, who first sat in field house bleachers as a fourth grader at the lab school on campus and saw his student-teachers play basketball, occupied the middle of the east bleachers nearly every game. He sits with his wife, Bonnie, but with Jones separating the two. Bonnie just doesn’t see the same game they do.
Forster and Jones don’t talk during the game, preferring to devote attention to the scorekeeping -- all the free-throws, assists and rebounds on one sheet of hand-written paper. It’s the type of tried-and-true pasttime that’s much like the field house, both historical artifacts of sporting days gone by.
Culled from those scorecards are memories too numerous to mention. Yes, the men’s win against mighty Indiana in 1972 still remains a big moment. And the players, from Tim Dillon to Kenny Battle to T.J. Lux, all roll off the tongue quite easily. But prodded for one true reason that kept him coming back to the fieldhouse, Forster’s answer was succinct and quick.
“It’s my alma mater,” he said.
In focusing on the gameplay, it would be easy to forgive Forster and Jones for concentrating on the bouncing basketball and not the hoopla reverberating off the fieldhouse’s unique curved roof.
In the lower right-hand corner of the bleachers, Bonnie Westring and Joetta Nelson stood in anticipation not just for the fieldhouse’s last game, but Matt Nelson’s, as well. Westring, the senior center’s grandmother, drove eight hours for the game and saw first-hand how her grandson slammed home NIU’s first points in potentially its last fieldhouse game. And his mother, Joetta, insisted the family keep its place right behind the Huskies’ bench.
“It’s going to be tough to let go,” Westring said.”... We’re very proud. We’re very happy for him. It’s been a lot of fun.”
On the second row of the bench, NIU President John Peters sat as honorary coach, the relative newcomer to the fieldhouse soaking up all the historical significance in Saturday’s games.
“I’ve been lucky in my career, at Nebraska and at Tennessee, to witness incredible sports moments,” Peters said. “For me, this is one of those moments ... I’m just so proud I could be a part of it.”
In the south bleachers, the most devoted fans among current students filled the place affectionately known as “the doghouse” with the cheers of the Dog Pound. Among other unmentionables, the loud cheers of “N-I-U” and “A-C-SLA-TER” (a rib on Chippewa guard Tony Bowne’s uncanny resemblance to the “Saved By the Bell” character) bore resemblance to the fandom of yesteryear.
And behind the north bleachers, a corridor navigated like a one-way country road led the current Huskies and head coach Rob Judson to the court. By the time senior Leon Rodgers capped an 80-70 win with a three-pointer, another memory took its place alongside 45 years’ worth of similar fieldhouse moments.
“I feel very privileged to close out the Chick Evans Field House,” the raspy-voiced Judson said, before revving up the crowd’s cheers one last time. “We are going nowhere but to the top.”
Soon, though, long after figuring the math required for the Huskies to play a MAC tournament game in the fieldhouse one last time, the band played the familiar notes of “Auld Lang Syne.” When the music ended, some fans still milled about, on the floor and in the stands.
Security could forgive them for lingering longer than usual.