Guest Column

Loras College's old and classic Fieldhouse has hosted its last intercollegiate basketball

A friend of ours in Dubuque who is a Loras College graduate and fan said our Internet site, of all media, just had to take note of a recent passage in intercollegiate sports in Iowa. We’re grateful for him sharing the following farewell to what has been one of our favorite old gymnasiums in the state. —Chuck Offenburger

By CHUCK ISENHART
March 5, 2007
DUBUQUE, IOWA

In the words of Greg Brown, Iowa’s esteemed folk musician, “Hey-hey, hey-hey, who woulda thunk it?”

“It” being that my first column for Offenburger.com, which my namesake and pal Chuck Offenburger has been shagging me to do for years, would be to write about an historic event that Chuck O. himself wishes he could have chronicled.

We all know that two of Chuck O’s favorite Iowa institutions of higher education are Loras College here in Dubuque and Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, and that he has taught at both of them. We also know that one of his favorite sports venues is the Loras College Fieldhouse.

Unfortunately, Chuck O. could not be here on the night of Saturday, February 24, when the Loras College men defeated Buena Vista, 77-62, to win the Iowa Conference basketball tournament for the first time – earning the Duhawks an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III national tournament – in the last intercollegiate game to be played at the Loras College Fieldhouse.

So, instead, you get Chuck I’s personal story of the Fieldhouse, the fabled “Pit” built for the 600 male students of Loras’ forerunner “Columbia College” back when Calvin Coolidge was president (that would be 1925, for those who are historically challenged).


For 80 years, the Loras College Fieldhouse in Dubuque has been loved by the Duhawks and their fans, and hated by opponents. Steel rafters overhead, a balcony hanging to the playing floor's out-of-bounds lines, arched windows, screaming fans right on top of the players. ''Great atmosphere!'' the Lorians have always said. ''Snake pit!'' the opponents have answered. It has now seen its last intercollegiate basketball game, with Loras opening a new arena next school year. (Photos with this story by Chuck Isenhart)

Last September, Iowans for a Better Future hosted a statewide Higher Education Summit to promote education as a “growth industry” in Iowa. It was at the State Historical Building in Des Moines. As a “business person” among the 400 attendees, most of them students, I rose as an alumnus of Loras College to comment on an aspect of the Iowa college experience – especially at the small, private schools – that makes them so attractive: An opportunity for personal recognition combined with a sense of community that is the hallmark of liberal arts education.

Loras’ own motto says it best: “You belong here.” More than a marketing slogan, it becomes a tangible reality for students attracted to the scenic campus on the hill. With only a modicum of effort, one can become enmeshed in a web of intellectual endeavors and social connections, test-driving the idea that becoming part of something bigger than yourself without losing your identity – to “belong” – is a life achievement. I think this experience is available at most any small college in Iowa. In their own unique ways, they show what it means to be a community.

For me, the Loras College Fieldhouse is a symbol of this notion.

I went to Nativity Grade School, one block from Loras, six blocks from the house at 87 Nevada Street where I grew up. Heck, high school was farther away from home than college! (I actually moved on campus my last two years because I wanted the “complete” college experience.)

It almost wasn’t the case. Like a lot of students, I was accepted at several colleges and universities. Journalism was one of my first loves. I published my first newspaper in fifth grade – The Weekly Sports Rally. I knew that Northwestern and the University of Missouri were the places to go for aspiring news writers. The campus I almost ended up at was, of all places, Eastern New Mexico State. Why? Because the admissions recruiter took a genuine personal interest me.

But Loras College won out. Why? Because I felt like I already belonged there. Our neighborhood baseball teams formed the day the first blade of grass turned green. Within three blocks, we had enough kids to form two complete teams: The Nevada Street Sluggers and the Dubuque White Sox. We piled into the station wagons, headed up to Loras and told our parents to get lost for three hours while we played our doubleheaders and settled our own fights on Faber Field.

The place I really belonged, though, was the Fieldhouse. I was a “sports nut.” The Fieldhouse was open to kids in the neighborhood every weekend. That’s where I was, playing basketball. And if I wasn’t playing, I was watching. My paltry $5 per week allowance wasn’t enough money to buy all the record albums I wanted AND pay to get into the basketball games. So I would stand in the dimly-lit Fieldhouse entryway, pretending to be waiting for someone. As soon as there was a commotion, I would dart up the steps to the balcony. After so many games, surely the ticket-takers caught on to the machinations of this pathetic, greasy-haired kid and found a reason to look away so I didn’t have to miss any of the action.

The official farewell for the Fieldhouse was held on February 17, when the Duhawks got another double dose of Buena Vista in the regular season finale, since it was not yet clear there would be a tournament game there a week later. They called it “Thanks for the Memories” day at the Fieldhouse. Honorees included Jack Frasco (’60), leading career men’s scorer; Mary Goedken (’87)), a fourth team all-American and top free-thrower; Alicia (Davis) Kemp (’05), a two-time all-American who owns the women’s record book; as well as Mickey Marty (’49), Jim McCabe (’51) and Natalie Pucci (’08). If you want to know more about folks like this, as well as all sorts of other Loras sports history and trivia, I refer you to retired College Registrar Bud Noonan, who can be found at most any game. (Try to stump him with this question: Who scored the last point ever at the Fieldhouse?)

I should also give Loras College Archivist Mike Gibson his due by quoting from his Fieldhouse Tribute: “Architect Paul V. Hyland designated the four-story, 80 x 150-foot Renaissance/Romanesque architectural style building, which cost $150,000 to build. The basement housed automobile garages; the second floor dressing rooms, showers, lockers, a handball court and a bowling alley; the third floor offices and a gym; the fourth floor a balcony, a running track, boxing and wrestling rooms and more offices. Seating capacity was 2,500, with 1,600 on the main floor, with the rest on the balcony.”

That’s where you could find me, with a lot of other students and kids, directly over the visiting team bench, trying to intimidate the opponents with our taunting and perhaps the accidentally-dropped kernels of popcorn. Not much of a welcoming or inviting environment, I must say. Between the stands and the floor, there was very little elbow room. Coaches could have become rich collecting tolls from fans passing in front of them with their concessions. And when the stands behind the east basket were packed with purple and gold face-painted students, cacophony raged. You may wonder why, to this day, there are always two sheriff’s deputies on hand at every game. I never remember them being needed, but they are a remnant of the day when the school’s identity was more closely wrapped up with the fortunes of its sports teams.

A physical education student from Loras named Mike Flaherty coached my eighth grade basketball team at Nativity. He invited us over to Loras to watch and play. Junior high was the pinnacle of my own career. My idol was Jim Kelly, who is still third in the Loras 1,000-Point Club. I remember Kelly’s daring, wild-haired drives to the lane against far taller and heftier opponents to score the most amazing lay-ups. My day of glory was at St. Joseph (the Worker) Grade School, when I scored one basket on an invasion of the “paint” just like Jim Kelly. The next year, I was inexplicably cut from the freshman basketball team at Wahlert High School, even though I was undefeated in my one-on-one match-ups. After that, I decided to take up a “new game” – soccer – principally because, since few others knew how to play it either, I couldn’t get cut!

Other memories of the Fieldhouse:

-- Winning a pizza at halftime of games, as an adult fan, by scoring a shot from half-court before the song “That''s Amore” finished playing;

-- Listening to Maynard Ferguson at a concert waking up the dogs for miles around with his jazz trumpet;

-- Staying up all night for a dance marathon when our Alpha Phi Omega fraternity and “Little Sisters” sorority raised funds to help fight muscular dystrophy;

-- Playing intramurals under the organized and watchful eyes of the legendary Al Schramm and Pat Flanagan. Opponents used our team (the “R-Metes”) to wipe up the floor. Holding an intramural record at Loras is an honor as high as graduating maxima cum laude;

-- Participating in one of my first political events there, a Republican mock convention in 1980 (I don’t remember who I lined up with, but I remember supporting independent John Anderson in my first real life presidential election);

-- Organizing a community rally there in 1995 as director of the local labor-management council, with the help of college chaplain Rick Mihm, to support the families of hundreds of unexpectedly laid off workers from the FDL Foods meatpacking plant, probably the first industry in town paying wages (with the help of the UFCW union) that allowed the workers to send their kids to college;

-- Finding certain faculty members or staff you needed to see, sitting behind the Fieldhouse’s west basket next to the gym doors. That has included a lot of the school’s presidents, like current chief Jim Collins and his young family (when he is not on the road raising money “For the Glory”). The late presidents Pasquale di Pasquale and Joachim Froehlich were also great supporters of the school athletic teams and other student activities. They were approachable. It is very easy at schools like Loras for students and alumni to become personal friends of the president.


It has always seemed crowded in the Loras College Fieldhouse, whether you're in the Loras student body at the east end of the floor, or in the lane as one of the players. The whole experience was ''up close and personal,'' as they say.

Times change. And colleges like Loras change to keep up with the times. Old-style dormitories are replaced with apartment-like complexes with common space shared by fewer people. Blackboards and notebooks are replaced by Powerpoint projectors and wireless “notebook” computers. And dungy old fieldhouses with all their history and character are replaced by state-of-the-art “Athletic and Wellness Facilities” that add to the modern environment attractive to today’s students when they come for campus visits.

The Loras Fieldhouse may not “return to dust” – alternative uses and designs to give it new life are being reviewed – but it is now the last of the old athletic barns at a small Iowa college to be de-commissioned.

President Collins has worked hard to raise the $12.5 million needed to renovate the Loras “Rock Bowl” football stadium – another venerable icon here – and to build a new arena for basketball, volleyball, concerts and speakers, as well as 9,500 square feet on two levels of “cardiovascular and strength conditioning space.” It opens in November 2007. (Chuck O. should be here for that.)

After graduating from Loras with a degree in political science and speech communication, I went on to get my “big city” experience in pursuit of a master’s degree at Marquette University in Milwaukee. So I hear regularly from two college and university presidents – Collins at Loras and Jesuit Father Robert Wild at Marquette.

Now, the checks I write aren’t big enough to grab any college president’s attention, but President Collins one day brought to my attention the fact the best thing an alumnus can do is to help recruit a new student to the alma mater. It’s like writing a check for $64,000, with installments over four years, he said.

Well, I’ve always thought that good ideas can be priceless, even if you don’t use Mastercard to pay for them, so here is an old $64,000 idea that I remind President Collins of every year when I write my paltry check for use as he sees fit: I understand that the college’s facilities are for the students first. Still, try to find ways to remain open to the local community, especially to young people like the greasy-haired junior high kid I once was. If you build it, they might come. If they feel like they already belong there, they will come.


Chuck Isenhart is a 1981 graduate of Loras and a 1984 graduate of Marquette University. Except for a short stint as policy director for the Rick Dickinson for Congress campaign, he has been executive director of the Dubuque Area Labor-Management Council since 1990 (www.dalmc.com), as well as a soccer and basketball referee. One of his personal initiatives, conducted under the banner of Open Eyes Enterprises, is the America’s River Soccer Classic tournament in Dubuque every August (www.americasriversoccer.com). Chuck can be reached at openureyes@aol.com.

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