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Post by gaace on Dec 12, 2021 4:16:04 GMT -6
www.courierpress.com/picture-gallery/news/2021/12/10/evansvilles-soldiers-and-sailors-memorial-coliseum-through-years/6461917001/I viewed the photos from the link above and noticed the Coliseum floor had an old-timey basketball court painted on it. Does anyone know if the Aces ever played there? Evansville first played basketball in February of 1920 but didn't start play at Roberts Stadium until 1956-57. I know Evansville College played in the Armory before the Stadium but wasn't sure how many years they played at the Armory. I recall reading somewhere that the Aces (probably Pioneers at the time) played at the Agoga Tabernacle which was at the corner of 4th and Cherry Street but can't find that resource now. That building was torn down long ago for Welborn Hospital. The Coliseum opened in 1917 and the Old Central gym opened in 1927 so maybe Central played games at the Coliseum.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2021 9:36:51 GMT -6
www.courierpress.com/picture-gallery/news/2021/12/10/evansvilles-soldiers-and-sailors-memorial-coliseum-through-years/6461917001/I viewed the photos from the link above and noticed the Coliseum floor had an old-timey basketball court painted on it. Does anyone know if the Aces ever played there? Evansville first played basketball in February of 1920 but didn't start play at Roberts Stadium until 1956-57. I know Evansville College played in the Armory before the Stadium but wasn't sure how many years they played at the Armory. I recall reading somewhere that the Aces (probably Pioneers at the time) played at the Agoga Tabernacle which was at the corner of 4th and Cherry Street but can't find that resource now. That building was torn down long ago for Welborn Hospital. The Coliseum opened in 1917 and the Old Central gym opened in 1927 so maybe Central played games at the Coliseum. This is the fun kind of research the old papers yield. There would be ample evidence to support games at the Coliseum and given that these venues had multiple uses, one would assume the teams may have moved their games almost on a whim. I hope to answer some of this. EC did indeed play at Agoga, as did the old "Catholic" team, which we know as Memorial. I don't know where Reitz, or Bosse played. Lincoln was built in the late 20s. The Coliseum was planned in 1913. The plan was modified all the way up until 1916. That was all before the college moved to Evansville in 1921, so there would have been no express purpose for letting EC play any sports there, owing to there being no such thing. It is possible the original design did not include a basketball floor, although high school games were quite popular by then -- the first state tournament was at IU-Bloomington in 1911. Generally, I think these buildings were essentially a reason to build something that served many purposes. But there were still plenty of Civil War and Spanish-American war vets around and the city saw their convention trade as lucrative. They spared no expense in building it. The advent of Evansville College was not accidental. The city saw itself as thriving and a serious fund drive enabled them to land the college from Moore's Hill, which was bankrupt. It was soon afterward that Stryker put the sports teams together and a useful gym built on campus. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2021 10:19:57 GMT -6
First EC game, according to the Journal in 1921, was at the "Y" against State Normal, which beat the Pioneers 28-14. Cheat!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The women also played a game and the Purples beat the Whites 8 points to 2. Abby Feit's great-grandmother scored 6 for the Purps. The Y court served as the school's main gym for a while, but they did build a gym on campus, and games were played there. I assume they moved to Agoga to allow for more fans. I can't find that they played in the Coliseum, but that doesn't mean they didn't. Generally, gyms at the time were rarely accommodating for basketball and the games reflected that. Hence, the term "cager."   |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2021 10:41:28 GMT -6
Not sure where on campus this gym was located, although in 1921, who cares? Everything else on campus was built in 1947. Carson Center would be way more useful and they did play at the Armory before Roberts.  |
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Post by gaace on Dec 12, 2021 22:52:19 GMT -6
atp, thanks for your research. I have never heard of this campus gym. It looks like a large fieldhouse from the outside but a picture from page 125 of the 1922 yearbook shows an interior view and the gym doesn't look so big. The baseline is up against a brick wall and the backboard looks like something of a "reclaimed" antique wood thing you'd find on HGTV. I'd guess this gym was razed to make room for something else in 1947 when you say everything else was built on campus. If that were the case it would have only been around for 25 years. archive.org/details/linc1922univ/page/124/mode/2up |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2021 16:04:50 GMT -6
atp, thanks for your research. I have never heard of this campus gym. It looks like a large fieldhouse from the outside but a picture from page 125 of the 1922 yearbook shows an interior view and the gym doesn't look so big. The baseline is up against a brick wall and the backboard looks like something of a "reclaimed" antique wood thing you'd find on HGTV. I'd guess this gym was razed to make room for something else in 1947 when you say everything else was built on campus. If that were the case it would have only been around for 25 years. archive.org/details/linc1922univ/page/124/mode/2up Gyms in 1922 were not built for interscholastic sports, to be sure, but for physical education. But a 70-foot court would have been pretty common. I read one story that said EC was upset about a game they had played in Oakland City that the court was too confining. I recall the library, science building and maybe the Union were all built in the 1940s. Others may have more insight. Most everything else was pretty new when I enrolled, which included the Shanklin, Neu Chapel and Carson Center, as well as Harper Hall. I think the Hughes and Moore dorms were not all that old either. Tearing down a gym that served no real purpose would have taken them less than a week. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2021 16:40:34 GMT -6
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - kay
The gym was used for only 3 years before the Aces moved into the Armory. That was in 1925.
The gym was still being used in the late 50s by campus women, so I assume it was either on the site of Carson Center or not far from it. Carson, Wheeler and Krannert groundbreaking was in 1961. The gym was razed in 1962 but its exact location isn't given. Somewhere between the Olmstead and the Armory is probably good enough. Maybe it's where the parking lot was located.
The college owned land north of Walnut for most of its existence but had never actually built anything on that land until 1961, so we can be sure the old gym was not on that side of the street.
The first game EC played in that little campus gym was against a team called the Sullivan Mutuals, who won over the Pioneers (aka Aces).
I found all this through various searches of old Couriers and adding the clips is kind of cumbersome.
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Post by gaace on Dec 14, 2021 6:39:35 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2021 10:04:28 GMT -6
The article did say the Armory but I suppose the writer gaffed on that or something else. I was mostly interested in the fate of the old gym, not so much in where the team played. They usually only had 7 or 8 home games anyhow and I did see they played a game once in Henderson when one of the parochial schools there dedicated a new gym. But I always thought Agoga was where they played. And in reference to the original comment, perhaps they did play a few games in the Coliseum. It is hard sometimes to locate this stuff without a consistent search criteria. This much is clear. The Stadium seating more than 11,000 was easily the most important investment the city ever made, if you don't count shoring up the river levees. The best crowds they could draw anywhere was about 2,000 -- although Butler Fieldhouse was the 8th Wonder of the World when it was built in 1928. At the time, Butler was easily the largest fieldhouse in the world. Almost no College Division teams could envision a game in front of 10,000 fans! |
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Post by austinace on Dec 14, 2021 20:00:06 GMT -6
Unfortunately, I can't add anything to the history of the Armory other than my personal history. The two things I remember from playing in a church league at the Armory one year I was in college was: 1. The openness of the armory gave me some depth perception issues of how far I was away from the basket as I was not used to playing in an open environment like that (kind of what I would expect if you played in a big stadium for the first time). 2. I have never been fouled so much in my life. I was a reasonably athletic college student playing against a lot of guys that were passed their prime; and once I got a step on them they weren't going to give me the easy basket. Funny what we remember decades later from our college days. Maybe I should go try and play in a league now so the roles could be reversed - I did have an offer a couple of years ago but that was a pretty crazy stretch for me and maybe should revisit it now or maybe not.  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2021 22:29:04 GMT -6
 The Aces WERE playing games in Agoga in the 1926-7 season and I can find no evidence they played anywhere else. It is possible they played at the Coliseum but that would have been an unusual event. I can't find if it was possible to play games in the old Armory that was replaced by the Taj Mahal on Rotherwood. I used to live on Olive Street down the block from the Armory and was always impressed with it. This from Dec 1937 shows the interior at the time. |
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Post by gaace on Dec 19, 2021 21:53:33 GMT -6
digital.evpl.org/digital/collection/evaebooks/id/6893/From 'We Face the Future Unafraid: A Narrative of the University of Evansville', it says the Pioneers/Purple Aces played home games at the Agoga Tabernacle beginning in 1924 after moving from the campus gym. "In 1935 the site changed to the Memorial Coliseum and from there to the National Guard Armory near campus." 1957 is when games were first played at Roberts Stadium.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2021 12:10:01 GMT -6
digital.evpl.org/digital/collection/evaebooks/id/6893/From 'We Face the Future Unafraid: A Narrative of the University of Evansville', it says the Pioneers/Purple Aces played home games at the Agoga Tabernacle beginning in 1924 after moving from the campus gym. "In 1935 the site changed to the Memorial Coliseum and from there to the National Guard Armory near campus." 1957 is when games were first played at Roberts Stadium. So they would have played one or two seasons at the Coliseum. |
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Post by E-Villan on Dec 20, 2021 14:45:09 GMT -6
Looking through Newspapaers.com, I found several articles of Aces games at the Coliseum from 1935 through 1937, so they played at least 3 seasons there. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12-29-37  |
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Post by E-Villan on Dec 20, 2021 14:50:36 GMT -6
Correction, at least 4 seasons. From the Evansville Courier 1-22-39  |
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