BOWLING GREEN — He was sitting in the upper level general admission seats, on those well-grooved wooden bleachers above the seatbacks, up in the nosebleed section, three rows from the rafters, lined up even with the baseline. It just seemed a little odd under the circumstances.
We can only presume he'll get a better seat next season at the new Stroh Center.
So, I asked Kerm Stroh, what are you doing way up here?
"I wanted to sit here because it's pretty close to the spot I sat the night we beat Jud Heathcote," Stroh said, referring to Bowling Green's 98-85 victory over Heathcote's nationally-ranked Michigan State team in December, 1990.
Everybody has a memory. That's what Saturday was for as BG celebrated the last regular-season game in venerable Anderson Arena. (Not the last game, though. Thanks to the Falcons snapping a six-game losing streak with a 73-63 win over Buffalo, they'll host a first-round MAC Tournament game here Tuesday night. Perhaps they'll hang new posters advertising the contest as "Re-opening the doors of the house that roars.")
Click here to see a photo gallery of the last regular-season game at Anderson Arena.
Saturday was nice. Some of BG's greatest men's players of all-time, some like the legendary Mac Otten — who played on Harold Anderson's powerful NIT teams of the late 1940s — even predating Anderson Arena, were back in town. Thirteen of them were named to the All-Anderson team and honored before the game; the rest stretched from one end of the court to the other at halftime. Afterwards, they showed a wonderful video and there were a few speeches.
The best moment of the whole afternoon, other than a win for the home team, was when BGSU president Carol Cartwright walked over and stood next to the great Nate Thurmond. He is 6-foot-11. She is not.
"Had her by two feet," Nate said.
Yes, it was all very moving.
Soon, the Falcons will be moving and, truthfully, it can't happen too soon.
Five decades ago Anderson Arena was a showplace. It has provided, over time, one of the great home-court advantages in the game. As Kerm Stroh said, there isn't a bad seat in the house. But, now, it is a tired, worn old barn with restrooms and concession stands that were merely inadequate 50 years ago and are now both inadequate and old.
On the court and in the locker room, the college game is about recruiting — and recruiting has become about glitz and glamour. We can wax as poetic as we like about nostalgia and history, but there is nothing glitzy or glamorous about this gym inside Memorial Hall. The Stroh Center will be a different story.
Over the past 10 seasons, BG's men have an overall record of 150-157 and a MAC mark of 78-92. There was one really good season and one really bad season. Everything else has hovered around mediocre, and mediocre doesn't inspire ticket sales. Yesterday's crowd of 2,512 was about 1,000 under the current capacity. It was also the largest of the season for BG's men.
So that's where they are at. The Stroh Center is where they are going.
But nobody seemed to be in a big hurry to leave Saturday. Pretty much all of the crowd stayed for the postgame ceremonies. The best pep band you've ever heard sang "Hey Baby" for the final time, blasted out "Forward Falcons," gave us that 20-verse — or was it 30? — slow-to-fast rendition of "Ay Ziggy Zoomba," the famous nonsensical fight song, and finally everyone swayed side-to-side to the alma mater.
"I was here to open it, and it was a pleasure to be here to close it," Thurmond said. "Hopefully, I'll be back to see the new Stroh Center. Time moves on. The new place will have its own flavor and it will have nights when it roars."
Indeed. Closing day was nice. Opening day will be nicer.
Contact Blade sports columnist Dave Hackenberg at: dhack@theblade.com or 419-724-6398.
First Published March 6, 2011, 2:09 a.m.
