Recently, I had the opportunity to broadcast the University of Northwestern Ohio-Purdue basketball exhibition game played at Mackey Arena on the Boilermaker campus. As we drove up John Wooden Avenue toward the arena, we passed Lambert Fieldhouse, the imposing, red brick structure that served as the home court for Purdue basketball from 1939 to 1967.
Seeing Lambert Fieldhouse again sparked a flood of memories for me. In late November 1966 I played my first college basketball game in that venerable building.
St. Joseph’s College was only a short drive from Purdue and made for a practical season opener for both schools. In that era, because freshmen were not eligible to compete at the varsity level, they often played their games as a preliminary to the varsity contests. Our game that evening was memorable to me for several reasons.
I clearly recall coming out of the locker room for warm-ups and being greeted by an overflow crowd packed into the 11,000-seat gymnasium. The atmosphere was electric, unlike any I had experienced in my short playing career. The enthusiastic and energetic mob of spectators was there for one reason: to witness the debut of the most decorated and exalted recruit in Purdue basketball history, Rick Mount.
Mount, an Indiana high school legend, was already a nationally recognized talent, a rarity in that era. His face appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on Feb. 14, 1966, the first high school player to achieve that distinction.
I can still see the magazine cover in my mind’s eye. Mount was holding a basketball in his arms in front of a red barn and rocking a perfectly coiffed flat top haircut with the words “brightest star in high school basketball” above his image. Mount immediately became the target of every red blooded 18-year-old basketball player in the country who wanted a piece of his fame. When I later discovered my first collegiate game would be against Purdue, that group included me.
Purdue boasted the top recruiting class in the nation that year, and their game with St. Joe was expected to be a mismatch. We put our best defender, Ted Hillary, on Mount to begin the game. He pinned Mount’s first shot on the bank-board but was called for a foul, a familiar refrain that night. Mount eventually worked his way through all of us as we unsuccessfully attempted to stifle his game.
Mount’s jump shot was a thing of beauty, the most fundamentally sound delivery I’ve ever witnessed. His jump shot was so picture perfect, I recall actually admiring it while guarding him. Rick Mount was the real deal.
We gave Purdue all it could handle that night and were competitive the entire game but eventually lost by 10 points. Mount rewarded his legion of fans by scoring 47 points and treating them to a preview of what became an illustrious career. He remains Purdue’s all-time leading scorer, a remarkable feat when considering Mount only played three years on the varsity and competed in an era before the 3-point line was established. He is still regarded as basketball royalty in Indiana.
It was the last year for Lambert Fieldhouse as home for the Boilermakers. Mackey Arena opened the following season with UCLA invited for its inaugural game. This was an era when many of the older basketball fieldhouses were on their last legs, and college basketball programs began moving to new arenas. We played in Notre Dame’s Fieldhouse (built in 1925) the year before they moved to the Joyce Center in 1968. We also played Dayton at its old fieldhouse (built it 1950) the year before it moved to their new digs at UD Arena. We got to play in the Toledo Memorial Fieldhouse (built in 1933) a few years before they moved to Savage Hall. My favorite place to play was Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, which first opened in 1929 and, thankfully, continues to serve as the basketball home for the Butler University Bulldogs.
The older fieldhouses could not furnish the seating or the amenities the new arenas provided. But I always felt blessed to have had the opportunities to be a small part of the history of those wonderful old gymnasiums. Most of them still exist and are repurposed for new uses. But they still have the ability to spark wonderful memories in those of us lucky enough to have run their floorboards.
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