OK, so maybe it wasn't the best idea to rent Alumni Hall to an Iranian dissident group during the summer of 1975. But how was an athletic director to know a revolution was being fomented at center court? What was Gene Sullivan supposed to be, an undersecretary of state fluent in Farsi?
A month after Sullivan was hired as DePaul's athletic director, four members of the Iranian Student Association approached him about using Alumni Hall for their national convention. This was before much had been reported about the Islamic movement that would sweep across Iran and topple a government. Sullivan did the math and realized the three-day convention would bring DePaul close to $10,000 in cash, enough to give Alumni Hall a new coat of paint for the first time in 20 years.
Down with the Shah! Up with the Sherwin Williams!
There were hundreds of dissident Iranians sleeping on the gym floor at night and getting downright apoplectic by day. A concerned Sullivan checked with the Chicago Police Department, which told him the group was legitimate. Four years later the Shah was out, the Ayatollah was in and America was being held hostage by Iran and Ted Koppel.
"Did they plan to overthrow the government in Alumni Hall in exchange for a paint job? I don't know," Sullivan said, laughing now. "They came from every direction. They were bearded and kind of scary, and they were screaming and yelling in the microphone all day." Sounds a little like Ray Clay.
There have been more coats added to Alumni Hall since then, just as there have been more colorful stories added to the rich collection of tales involving the building at Sheffield and Belden. But Alumni's history is about to hit the wall. The DePaul men's basketball team will play its final game there Saturday, against Howard. In June, the building will come down, and a student union will rise in its place.
Another piece of Chicago is about to be left in the dust of progress. Alumni is the little gym where the Blue Demons put together a 287-71 record in 43 years. Muhammad Ali fought an exhibition there in 1979, the same year Dick Vitale made his debut for ESPN in the building. To this day, there are those who wish Ali had fought Vitale. Mike Tyson fought an exhibition there in 1987. The Bulls regularly practiced in Alumni Hall in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as did visiting NBA teams. Before there was a WNBA, the Chicago Hustle played there. Loyola's Sweet 16 team played its home games at Alumni in 1984-85. There were pro volleyball games, the Chicago Catholic League basketball playoffs and Bobby Riggs.
There was Ray Meyer.
"Everything was real cozy at Alumni Hall," DePaul's coach from 1942-1984 recalled. "It was like playing in your living room."
That was it, wasn't it? Alumni Hall was a glorified high school gym that was a claustrophobic's nightmare. It seated 5,308 and for two hours or so each game, fans sat shoulder to shoulder and produced dangerous decibel levels. Then they went to the Blue Demon Room inside Alumni for a beer or six until their ears stopped ringing.
"Last week the last women's volleyball game was being played here and there were 400 people watching," said women's basketball coach Doug Bruno, a former player at DePaul. "I had a recruit here, and it was hard to have a conversation with her it was so loud."
Alumni Hall cost $2 million to build in 1956 and it didn't take long to realize two things: It was a wonderful place to play for the Blue Demons and it was miserable for opponents. The latter would become an issue as more and more top teams declined to risk the chance of an upset there.
When DePaul became a big draw in the 1970s and more fans wanted to see the games, "cozy" wasn't enough anymore. The Blue Demons went to the Final Four in the 1978-79 season, going 14-0 at home, and were a very tough ticket.
"Alumni Hall originally was going to be built to seat 10,000," Meyer said. "Then our president talked with the president of Northwestern. Their building held 7,500, and their president said, `Why would you build one bigger? We never fill ours.' So we cut the number of seats. That was one of the biggest mistakes we made. With 10,000, they could get by with that today. It would be a great home court."
It might have been the last time anyone listened to Northwestern when the topic was athletics. During the 1980-81 season, the Blue Demons began playing most of their games at the Rosemont Horizon, now called Allstate Arena, and their average attendance that year was 13,369. Alumni Hall became an old pair of jeans to wear around the house but not much in public.
It was, though, a place where generations connected, from Howie Carl to Joey Meyer to Dave Corzine to Joe Ponsetto to Mark Aguirre to Terry Cummings to Rod Strickland to Quentin Richardson. They all played and practiced there.
Carl scored 43 points against Marquette in 1960 to set the DePaul single-game scoring mark at Alumni Hall. The building record is 47 points by Alfredrick "The Only Man with Three First Names" Hughes in 1985, when the Ramblers played in Alumni because they needed a bigger venue than their Alumni Gym for home games.
Carl's DePaul record has been in jeopardy several times. The closest anyone came was Aguirre, who scored 41 points against Loyola in 1980. Carl was at that game and remembers looking to congratulate Aguirre afterward.
"They told me he was in the racquetball court, so I went there," Carl said. "I opened the door and it was pitch black. He was sitting there with Bernard Randolph and he was crying. He was crying, Randolph said, because he didn't break the record.
"I said, `Mark, that's nothing. You have a chance to be Player of the Year this year. This record is only a small individual thing. I would definitely trade that for being Player of the Year'--which he did become. It was a strange thing."
When DePaul unveiled its new logo last month, Carl was there, too, and this time he approached Richardson. If anyone is going to break Carl's record in the last game Saturday, it likely will be Richardson.
"I said, `Now look, I don't want you doing anything crazy on November 20,' " Carl said. "He looked at me. I introduced myself. He said, `I probably won't play much more than half a game.' "
That would give Richardson time to take in the halftime ceremony. The school has invited every former DePaul player back to help say goodbye to the gym. Meyer, who has been at odds with the school since his son Joey was fired as coach in 1997, said he has a previous commitment and can't attend.
Many of the players will fondly remember Alumni's cramped quarters. Because the home and visiting locker rooms at one time were separated by a thin wall, Meyer and Marquette coach Al McGuire would take turns yelling at their respective teams so as not to drown each other out.
This is the place where Dave Dopek trained for his 1995 NCAA 200-meter indoor title by running on Alumni Hall's "track," which is really nothing more than a rectangular hallway. This is the place where Bruno shows recruits "the weight room for the women's basketball team." That's technically true, but it's also the weight room for the track team and the men's basketball team and every other DePaul team.
"Alumni Hall was a great place to be part of," he said. "But if you think in terms of the student-athletes, they're going to have better facilities. If you think of terms of coaches, they're going to have offices. There's an excitement that's bigger than the gym."
It's doubtful the new building will have a bomb shelter complete with canned goods and rations, which Alumni Hall did when it was built during the Cold War.
There was the brawl between DePaul and Northern Illinois in 1989, which also involved fans in the stands. Police were called, and the building was evacuated. Did we mention it was a women's game?
It's very possible that Allstate Arena will produce its own memories. But they won't be the same memories, memories of a different time and a very different place.
"It's funny. I used to think about what it would be like to sleep at night on the floor at Alumni Hall," Carl said. "It sounds crazy, but I was so into basketball. I loved it so much. It didn't seem funny at all to me when Michael Jordan kissed the floor after a championship. It was that same kind of feeling."
Meyer understands completely.
"That was a part of my life," he said. "That's like putting an eraser down and erasing something. I'll always have those memories, though. Alumni Hall never changed."
ONLY 5,300 SEATS, BUT PLENTY OF MEMORIES
DePaul's Alumni Hall will host its final men's basketball game when the Blue Demons open the season Saturday against Howard. The Blue Demons' home for 43 years is scheduled for demolition in May.
Alumni Hall record
Oct. 3, 1955
Ground is broken at Belden and Sheffield Avenues.
Dec. 4, 1956
DePaul defeats Illinois Wesleyan 82-66 in its first game at Alumni Hall.
March 7, 1960
Howie Carl sets the Alumni Hall scoring record (which still stands) with 43 points against Marquette.
Nov. 26, 1977
The Blue Demons beat Butler 93-65 to begin a 54-game winning streak that ends in 1998.
March 1, 1980
DePaul decides to move to the 17,000-seat Rosemont Horizon.
1991
The Blue Demons begin scheduling some games at Alumni Hall to maintain a campus presence.
Nov. 20, 1999
DePaul brings a .802 winning percentage at Alumni Hall into its last scheduled game, against Howard.
Source: DePaul.
Chicago Tribune.