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The old Iowa Field House: “The most massive building of its kind in the world.”

This. My dad was there that night. People were blown away by this new band from England. He and his friends only went because they liked the Yardbirds and Jimmy Page. Plant, Bonham and Jones were complete strangers to the world. That would have been amazing to see!

Neat link for that show. Set list, notes, press, and a couple of pictures.

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/january-15-1969

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I stand corrected, maybe it was the Eagles I was thinking of.

Anyway, does anyone remember the game vs Indiana around 81 maybe where the Hawks were crushing them and Isiah Thomas took a swing at Steve Krafcisin? I thought he was a punk ever since that day. Karl Malone gave him a comeuppance some years later.
 
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I stand corrected, maybe it was the Eagles I was thinking of.

Anyway, does anyone remember the game vs Indiana around 81 maybe where the Hawks were crushing them and Isiah Thomas took a swing at Steve Krafcisin? I thought he was a punk ever since that day. Karl Malone gave him a comeuppance some years later.

Yes...although I think it was a year or 2 earlier than '81.

I also remember Tree Henry accidentally mooning the crowd as he took off his warm-ups to enter the game.
 
A cool pic from the article.

An enthusiastic overflow crowd was on hand to greet the Iowa men’s basketball and wrestling teams in 1980. The basketball team had defeated Georgetown University earlier in the day in Philadelphia and the wrestling team had won the NCAA title. The crowd waited until after midnight to cheer their returning heroes. (The Gazette)

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Great memories...at the time I was 17 and was at this pep rally welcoming back the basketball team that night. Would be great to have moments like this again someday in I.C.
 
Yes...although I think it was a year or 2 earlier than '81.

I also remember Tree Henry accidentally mooning the crowd as he took off his warm-ups to enter the game.
I remember it and it was '81 as Isiah only played 2 years. That was the year we beat Indiana twice and they won the NC. The NC was on the Monday evening that president Reagan was shot and they were debating whether or not to broadcast the game. What I thought I also remembered was that the game was moved to Sunday because of bad weather. I can't find any evidence but we were discussing that very game today and we all thought the game was moved but records show it was a Thursday.
 
I still play pick-up hoops in the old Fieldhouse, most of the time it's in the new wing with the 6 courts but every once in awhile I'll shoot on the old floor. Like to look up and think about all the legends who played in the same building.

Are the courts open to anyone? Thought the restricted use for awhile.... Awesome if open to the public again!
 
Lived in Rienow for two school years 99-01. Used to go across the street to play b-ball in the South Gym often with the guys on my floor. That was probably the best location for pick up games in the entire state when considering number of people and quality of competition. Free to anyone, so you had a bunch of non-students show up too. I used to enjoy shooting hoops on the Main Deck by myself during the middle of the day as it was an experience to play in such a large open space. Even the North Gym had the old parquet floor from CHA installed sometime around 2000 and was kind of a different experience to shoot around in.

Last I saw they made the entrance require you to badge in, at least on the side by the pool. You’d need to talk to a recent student to see if that is true for the whole building. If true, that would be sad that they would have changed the whole persona of the pick up games by forcing people to be members just to play b-ball.
A payed membership is required to use the Field House now. That change was made when the university constructed the new Wellness Center. For students, it is part of their mandatory fees.

There are still pickup basketball games, but I have no doubt that it has changed since the free days. The main deck has a good floor that was just refinished this winter. They have done a lot of remodeling to the gymnastics areas. The locker rooms still suck. Only a few of the showers put out hot water.
 
I was a student manager for the swim team their last few years at the field house. Amazing building. In the upper deck of the pool there is a perch where hydrology students would observe.

The old swimming equipment room was a closet that had a stairs that lead into the ceiling. The sides had built in filing cabinets that dated back into the golden age of Iowa swimming.

Going through the trophy case one time we found an old tax notebook that was repurposed to keep track of individuals times. It dated back to the 1890’s years before the field house was ever built.

The “10 meter” diving platform isn’t 10 meters. Never has been building codes wouldn’t allow for a platform to be built that close to the ceiling.

The old dolphin shows that we’re put on had people diving OUT of tiles in the ceiling.

There’s so many rumors of the tens of thousands of gallons that leak from it a month. And they question if the water would be drained out of it if the walls could support themselves.
 
Was there when Mount went for 50, most from the deep corners but Hawks won. After Sam W was gone there would be some reference to him over PA and the noise was deafening. JJ and the Dealers. Great memories!
Remember the crowd shouting "shoot" every time Mount touched the ball. He did and it went down. Mostly from the corner.
 
I was a student manager for the swim team their last few years at the field house. Amazing building. In the upper deck of the pool there is a perch where hydrology students would observe.

The old swimming equipment room was a closet that had a stairs that lead into the ceiling. The sides had built in filing cabinets that dated back into the golden age of Iowa swimming.

Going through the trophy case one time we found an old tax notebook that was repurposed to keep track of individuals times. It dated back to the 1890’s years before the field house was ever built.

The “10 meter” diving platform isn’t 10 meters. Never has been building codes wouldn’t allow for a platform to be built that close to the ceiling.

The old dolphin shows that we’re put on had people diving OUT of tiles in the ceiling.

There’s so many rumors of the tens of thousands of gallons that leak from it a month. And they question if the water would be drained out of it if the walls could support themselves.

Wasn't the high dive platform at 10 yards instead of 10 meters, so roughly 9 meters? The building was built back when track and field ran 440yards instead of 400meters. Did swimming do the same thing? I thought that is why the pool used the bulkhead at 25 meters for meets as the whole pool was only 50 yards long instead of 50 meters like an olympic sized pool is now.

I spent a lot of time walking through the pool area on the way to the south gym and even attended a few meets during my time in school. But I never went in the water. I also remember as a kid cutting through the field house with my dad on the way to football games in the 80's and early 90's, climbing up to the upper deck and taking a peek at the pool and racquetball courts.
 
Wasn't the high dive platform at 10 yards instead of 10 meters, so roughly 9 meters? The building was built back when track and field ran 440yards instead of 400meters. Did swimming do the same thing? I thought that is why the pool used the bulkhead at 25 meters for meets as the whole pool was only 50 yards long instead of 50 meters like an olympic sized pool is now.

I spent a lot of time walking through the pool area on the way to the south gym and even attended a few meets during my time in school. But I never went in the water. I also remember as a kid cutting through the field house with my dad on the way to football games in the 80's and early 90's, climbing up to the upper deck and taking a peek at the pool and racquetball courts.

You are correct on the bulkhead. The entire length of the pool is 50 yards. But the bulk head makes one side 25 yards and the other 23.5 yards.

I’ve never heard that about the platform. But steam pipes by the diving well were a point of contention between swimming a diving teams. Swimmers usually prefer it quite a bit cooler then divers (think Olympic diving they always receive their scores in a hot tub, but you never saw Phelps in one).

That pool has seen numerous world, US and collegiate records. One thing that was great was it was a huge home pool advantage. I am amazed it isn’t some sort of land mark but honestly it’s in disrepair at this point.
 
I worked on the swimming pool in the late seventies. We jackhammered out the floor and excavated to a deeper depth because the Big said it was too shallow for diving. It was hard labor, making " little ones out of big ones " then filling " georgia buggys " ( motorized , oversized wheelbarrows ) to take the broken concrete/rerod up a series of ramps to be dumped outside. We had several U of I athletes on the crew including the Banach brothers, Andre Tippett and Tyrone Dye. The old boy that owned the construction company just died a couple of weeks ago at 98 years old.
 
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This. My dad was there that night. People were blown away by this new band from England. He and his friends only went because they liked the Yardbirds and Jimmy Page. Plant, Bonham and Jones were complete strangers to the world. That would have been amazing to see!

It was pretty amazing. There was an ice storm that day and it really held down the crowd. Zeppelin's instruments didn't a make it to the show so they used Mother Blues gear for the most part. During an intermission, I had gone out to smoke. On my way back in, Robert Plant asked me to show him the way to the "loo." I was a big Yardbirds fan and wouldn't have missed that concert for anything.
 
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One of my fave Fieldhouse stories is of those pickup courts. Gerry Wright ,"Sir Jamalot", transferred in from USC. Nobody knew who he was yet. I'm in a pickup game on those West courts. Wright gets the ball out on a fast break..my roommate is back on D. Roomie sets his feet hard in the paint...Wright jumps right over the top of him and slams it home. Everybody was wide-eyed.

My bud just walked off the court and said..."that's it...I'm done".

Reliving the old Field house actually for swimming reasons and stumbled onto this this thread. Im Serious that I might posssibly have well been been this pickup player. I was at Iowa at the time and was thinking that it was another player but that literally exact thing happened to me lol.
 
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Lot of memories in the old place. From playing on the courts in the west end to running around the building (everywhere) to selling sodas during basketball games.
My favorite story has to be the peep hole between the men and women showers. The hole was plugged and knocked open multiple times, most often the plug was poked out from the women’s side.
 
No one mentioned anything about the metal bleachers. If I remember correctly, in my opinion the upper sections were not bleachers. Weren't the bottom 10 or 15 rows the old roll and push them back as the fold up things? And then the upper section was solid metal seats and you had peoples knees in your back. Sort of just something like a 30 inch step with metal on both the bottom and the back. So the noise was created by stomping your feet until it echoed. And the lower level movable bleachers clanked and shook. Yep good times!
 
I was there as a 15 year old the night Iowa returned from beating G'Town to go the Final Four. One of my all-time favorite Hawkeye memories.
Did you live in IC at the time? I was also 15 then and lived in IC the time.
 
I attended almost every home game in the Field House from 1974 to 1981. Great memories. It was a dump, but that place rocked! Games were definitely more fun there than at CHA.
 
Allman Brothers Feb 19, 1972, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Kathy McDonald April 22, 1972. Enoch Smokey opened for Big Brother.
 
Any truth to the rumor that Steve Alford killed having concerts in CHA? It seems like it has been years since they have held any.
 
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