I saw a picture on social media of the UTHS girls basketball team in an open gym in the school’s main gym. The floor had been redone evidently this past off-season and it looked spectacular. Seeing the girls doing an open gym in the main gym gave me hope that maybe the girls were going to start playing there again. I couldn’t help myself, so I fired off several texts to people to ask if the girls would be moving back into the main gym. Happily, my sources indicate that the Panthers will be playing their girls games in that gym.
In the 46 years that I coached at Galesburg, we played 6 games in the main gym. We won a Sectional there with wins over Sycamore and Rock Island in 2002. When there was a leak at Wharton FH, we moved our Moline game over there. When Justin Shlitz was head coach, he moved two seasons of games to the main gym. And then during COVID, we played a game there. It is absolutely one of the nicest gyms in Illinois.
When I first started, UT played their girls games at what they called the “North Campus.” To get there, you turned at what is the present campus, and went down by the Soule Bowl. At the bottom of the hill, up on a hill was the “North Campus.” It housed the freshmen and sophomore students for classes, and in the late ‘70’s thru 1990 that was where the girls basketball team played.
The “North Campus” gym was actually a stage. The floor doubled at basketball court and as stage for concerts or plays. On one side of the floor there were permanent bleachers and on the other side down about 4-5 feet were theater seating. For girls games, fans only sat on the side of the bleachers. So if a ball went off on the theater side, it might take 4-5 minutes to retrieve the ball.
Until sometime in the late 1940’s, UTHS was called the “Hilltoppers.” Obviously the origins of the name was from the school located up on the hill. It was vote of the student body that produced the “Panthers.”
Legend has it that in the late ‘50’s when Coach John Thiel was being heckled by a UT fan from behind the bench, Thiel at a timeout muttered to himself that he wished someone would shut him up. A bench player heard that and decided to win favor from the coach and charged into the stands after the unruly fan. The team bus had to pick the player up at the police station on the way out of town.
In the 1980’s, Coach Mike Dergo had one of the all-time best teams in WB6 history. They had Vicky Austin, a 5’7” athletic guard who could shoot from anywhere. Another guard named Harris, and a physical post player by the name of Findahl. When you went into that old school and onto that very unusual floor, that team was very, very tough to beat.
Around 1960, the “South Campus” had been built with the main gym. The girls basketball did not have an opportunity to play there. It was around 1990 that UT built an addition to the “South Campus” that included a new, small gym that became the “girls gym.”
During the 46 years that I coached at Galesburg, we didn’t always get to play in other school’s best gym. At one time we played in the “second gym” of Morton, Canton, Quincy, UTHS, Rock Island, and Macomb.
For years, Canton had their girls play at their HS in a newer, smaller gym, and not at historic Alice Ingersoll Gym. Finally after parents threatened a lawsuit, Canton moved the girls games to Alice Ingersoll. Can you imagine if you were a girls basketball players and your community has always viewed Ingersoll as a community treasure but you don’t get to play in it?
Often coaches say that it is nice to have their own separate gym so they don’t have to share with the boys team. They can practice when they want, and they seldom have to practice in the evening. At Galesburg, usually the varsity boys or varsity girls would need to practice 1-2 evenings per week. The irony is that when Coach Reynolds was at Galesburg, practicing in the evening did become an area of dispute between the two of us. The dispute was that both of recognized we had much better practices if the players got to go home after school, relax, and then come back to practice. So we each wanted to practice in the evening.
Obviously my bias is coming out- I believe the girls teams should get to play in the best gym the school has. When GHS built on a new science wing and put in state of the art science labs, we still had the old labs. No one would say,”Let’s let the boys have class in the new labs because they are most likely to be doctors. Let’s put the girls in the old labs, they will be good enough for them.”
People might say, that it is none of my business where other schools choose to play. And they are probably right. For many years, I actually thought it was good for Galesburg if another school played in a “second gym,” it might reduce the enthusiasm level of the girls at that school.
Years ago, I realized it did indeed impact my players. We had a road game coming up. The day of our road trip, one of the players told me of a conversation that she had in class with some of the boys basketball players. The boys were telling her about the atmosphere of the gym they played when they went to this school. The boys players shared details of how neat the atmosphere was at this school- the scoreboard, starting lineups, banners, trophy displays, etc. The girl told them that girls team didn’t play in that gym. The comment that came back was, “You are girls, you don’t need a gym like that.” I realized by not playing in a school’s best gym, not just the girls at that school but Galesburg girls were receiving a negative message.
I sure hope that UT moves the girls games into their school’s “best gym,” it is one of the best gyms in the WB6. That will leave only a couple places where our girls don’t get to play in the school’s best gym.
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