The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/503388
MAY 2015 ■ 25 BY TIM PEELER t's a building. A big pile of bricks with three-story windows, Indiana white granite columns in front, Tennessee red marble in the lobby and towering steel girders forged in Alabama that withstood seven years of construction dormancy and needed the inspiration of a couple of championship basketball seasons to be completed in December 1949. It was dedicated, appropriately enough for a multiuse entertainment building, during an ice skating exhibition the following spring. There is something, however, that ties anyone associated with NC State to the hulking shoebox in the center of campus, famously known as "The House That Case Built." Reynolds Coliseum might be the most important structure ever built by the state of North Carolina because of what has come and gone between the six sets of double wooden doors at the north entrance. At one time, it was estimated that some 20 million people attended events at Reynolds Coliseum, and only eight million of those came for basketball games. That's how diverse the activities have been in nearly seven decades of use for NC State University, its athletics department, the city of Raleigh and the state of North Carolina. "Reynolds is an iconic building on our campus," NC State director of athletics Debbie Yow said. "It absolutely needs to be renovated so that we can use it well into the next generation of campus life." The doors of Reynolds are locked tight right now, and the building was surrounded by green fences in March for a $35 million, 16-month renovation that will change forever its interior. "It was opened in 1949, and it's never been [fully] renovated," said NC State senior associ- ate athletics director Michael Lipitz, who is overseeing the project. "If it is going to exist for future generations, then the time has come. Preserving Reynolds and giving it new life will be the outcome of this project. "It's being reimagined for a new day." The Old Days, Remembered Since the doors — for the longest time painted bright orange — opened to host an NC State-Washington & Lee basketball game on Dec. 2, 1949, the elongated building has been so many things to so many people. For many, it will always stand as a tribute to Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame basketball coach Everett Case, who brought big-time basketball (and insisted on a big-time arena) to the South. It is certainly the birthplace of the state's hoop passion, having hosted the first 13 Atlantic Coast Conference tournaments, the 12 Dixie Classics and games in both the NCAA and NIT postseason tournaments in its earliest days. Sixteen of the school's 17 men's confer- ence championship teams and two national championship teams played there. All four of the women's basketball ACC champions played there. "When we came here, just out of World War II, the people in this part of the country were basketball illiterates," said the late Norm Sloan, one of the six 'Hoosier Hotshots' Case re- cruited from Indiana to establish his program. "They didn't know anything about it, and they didn't care anything about it. "Reynolds Coliseum helped create the most rabid area for fans for basketball that there is anywhere in the country." Basketball was actually a secondary tenant. Students, staff, faculty and residents from all over town and the state came to see other entertainment in the multipurpose facility, like concerts (both classical and classic rock), the circus, the Ice Capades, inaugural balls, com- mencements, campaign speeches and presidential addresses. Getting it completed may be one of Case's greatest accomplishments, but the indoor arena was hardly his idea. Thompson Gym, which opened in 1925, was already dilapidated and needed to be replaced before Case was hired in the summer of 1946 as NC State's fulltime basketball coach. The fire marshal canceled a game against North Carolina in 1947, and the building was condemned in 1948, canceling a game against Duke. Case's team was forced to move to downtown Raleigh for most of the 1947-48 season and all of the 1948-49 season, when they still managed to win the first two of the coach's six consecutive Southern Conference championships. The team moved into Reynolds for the 1949-50 season, and Case occupied a cozy corner in the north end of the building, where he strategized about basketball, watched the stock tables to see how his many investments were faring and took his daily afternoon nap. I