interview with Dick Lloyd about the Rutgers basketball court ; College Basketball/ The Barn/ Dick Lloyd Interview

Thank you eventually. I think the big thing what kind of a shock you have on deck. Could I see the monitor. I'd like you to. Yeah. That's great. That's great. OK. Dick I'd like you to touch on. The history of this gymnasium. How it came to be. Perhaps what it cost. The Ballantine hall fire. And all that sort of thing. I think to talk about. The bar in this gym would have to go back to Ballantine gymnasium which is really where records best of all began. It was the gym that was built 10 years before records started playing basketball. There were no bleachers in there. Wreckers had many fine seasons there. And I guess it was about 1930 that that structure burned down. Rutgers was forced in the middle of the season to find another facility to play in. And they came upon the Masonic Hall and Highland Park spent about a year and a half there. And in the meantime went into a fund raising campaign and raise the. Debt for those days sizable sum of

$400000. Started construction on the College Avenue gymnasium. And inaugurated it January 6 1932 and began playing their basketball here. It's interesting to note that the Masonic Hall burned down shortly after records left it also so they burned up a lot of facilities I believe. Continuing in this vein. When the gym was built. We mentioned that. It was considered to be a primary facility in those of its own and that perhaps it would have served for a longer period of time if for instance the swimming pool had not existed. You could go into that a little bit. Well this is key seating capacity in this gym is twenty five hundred in one thousand thirty two. That was a good sized crowd. There were chair back seats. For the reserved ticket holders. The first couple years of the gym was opened. Michigan played here. Stanford came in and played here those teams were willing to come away across the country and play in a

fine facility like this. And behind the wall. On the other side which is where the team sat. Behind night country lies a swimming pool which is used for the intercollegiate swimming program at Rector's University. If this part that we're standing in could have been duplicated over there we'd have almost doubled the seating capacity. And who knows we may have still been playing in there today. Please stop. What a shot. OK great. Great. Dick if we could touch on some of the disadvantages of playing in an old. Gymnasium like the barn What are some of the problems here. Playing in an old gymnasium like the barn did cause some problems. I can remember games where the noise level was so high that it actually chipped the paint off of the ceiling and the paint would come down the floor and we'd have to stop the game to get that swept off.

There were several games that were played during some real. Rain storms and we had to have managers stationed at strategic positions around the floor. To come out with towels and wipe up spots I know there was one right by the foul shooting area that had to be wiped up regularly. Fine. Please pause. I think it's wrong to talk about. If we could get. Back into the basketball history a little bit of the rocker's program. The Frank Hill era bring that up to the Bill Foster years and your own contribution of course with your brother. Rector's basketball certainly has a great tradition. Frank Hill who coached here for 28 years was a great coach and established the rector's basketball tradition. He finished coaching about 1942 and then Rutgers basketball fell on some lean years. It was in

1963 64. That Bill Foster arrived on the banks. And began a new era in Rutgers basketball. It wasn't a great beginning and I believe Bill's first year he was 5 and 17 but the rest is all history. He won from 5 and 17 to the most famous team in 1967 which I believe had a record of twenty two and seven. Entered Rutgers first postseason tournament the NITV and had a fantastic tournament losing to southern Illinois the eventual winner. Arriving with a bill. Well I should say. About the same time was Bob Lloyd. Who had a great history here wreckers and was on that sixty seven team along with players like Jim Valvano who was known as the other guard at that time but also made a tremendous contribution. Jim of course is now the head coach at North Carolina State. And since Bill Foster's error and the sixty seven an I.T. team

1069 team was also back in the end. And then of course Tom Young and Phil Sellars and Mike Dabney have made records basketball history once again with their undefeated team in 1076. And reaching the final four which is a feat that not very many schools or very many teams can talk about. Could you just perhaps briefly touch on. The valve on a Lloyd freshman team. And that actually in those days the crowds were coming and the crowds were not exactly thriving here but they were at least coming to see some freshman games and they perhaps would leave for the regular game if you could just touch on that briefly. One look at the gym as it's set up now you can see there are portable bleachers there permanent bleachers where I'm standing now and then there are portable bleachers. And when Rutgers basketball first began with Bill Foster in 1963 there was no need for the portable bleachers because we just had enough people. To

fill some of the permanent bleachers. Then when Bob and Jim. Started doing their thing with the freshman team word got out. And we started to fill the bleachers up at least for the freshman game. And some of the people would stay for the varsity game. By their sophomore year we were using the portable bleachers and of course by their junior year it was almost impossible to get a ticket for Rutgers basketball game. Please pause. Because even I need my notes on it. Dick. Let's get into the 67 season. The great interest that that generated. The crowds. The ticket problem the ease with which. People were able to come because of the proximity to the library and the dining hall close circuit TV a great home record here. Carry that perhaps all the way up to when basketball was no longer played here which was actually one

year after the undefeated season. And also perhaps as you were in the middle of your answer you may want to refer to the pep band. And we will then include that. Rutgers basketball in 1067 brought more than the 22 and seven record to the banks. It was a great deal of excitement. Students lining up the night before the game to get jins had to get tickets. Our seating capacity here was officially twenty five hundred I'm sure we had more than twenty five hundred in here for most of the games. So in order for students to get tickets they had to line up the night before hand. There was a lot of excitement generated by that. The 67 season and a year after we had closed circuit TV in our exam region which is attached to this building so those students who could not get in could watch the game there. A student could be eating in the dining hall maybe get an hour or two of study in the library and then walk right across the street and come in and see the excitement of Rutgers

basketball. Several other things traditions were started at that time. The Rutgers pep band which we at Rector's University feel is the finest pep band in the country was born right here and in fact they were born right there in section in the temporary bleachers. And they have just grown over the years to be one of our finest pep bands. We also. Had several other traditions some of them we perhaps don't like to remember but the famous Who's he which the fans used to shout after the opponents were introduced and I think we can still hear some of that. In the rock currently being used. But all that excitement was every bit as important as the 22 and seven record some people called that year the impossible dream. The home court advantage everyone talks about and certainly in this facility was paramount to every one of wreckers great seasons the last 10 to 15 years. The last season in here we had only one undefeated season where the

1976 team that went to the Final Four with Phil Sellars and Mike Dabney. And Mike Palko and Jeff Kline bomb and all those players that made a contribution were 10 0 in this facility. And then we played one more year after that and the James beli team actually closed out 46 years of basketball in the barn. Stop please. A little tighter shot may be on. For this one. Let's talk about. The other elements to the whole flavor of the whole barn. Like the records. That were established here. The pro players that came out of here and even some coaches that came out of this place. Well more. Comes out of this particular born then victories. And I

think of records a lot of people think that Bob Lloyd holds the individual scoring record for this gymnasium when Bob Greason who played in that 69 team had 46 points. It's interesting to note also and these of course are records that can never be broken for this particular facility. But it's interesting to note that the highest points by an opponent is held by Chet Forty. We're familiar with Chet Forty if we watch Monday Night Football on ABC. We also have foul shooting which wreckers has done quite well over the years. And Bob Lloyd held the NCAA record but Steve Kaplan edged Bob out and holds the Boran record. And I think his percentage was ninety two point seven and Bob was like ninety two point one so they were two of the best foul shooters. But beyond records there are a lot of individuals that came out of this gymnasium we have professional basketball players. Bob was the first plane with the New Jersey Americans and then the New York Mets for two or three years. More

recently we have some players that are really establishing themselves and records basketball. We have Hollis Copeland we have James belly. We have Jordan all of whom grew up and learned their basketball in the barn. But we also have a lot of coaches that have come out of the barn people that have been associated with Bill Foster and Tom Young. We have Bob one soul who is the current head coach at Jacksonville. We had Jim Valvano who for years was known as the other guard and he's pleased now that he's known as the head basketball coach at North Carolina State. And they are off to a great start this year. We also have a player who is one of our trainers our student trainer who is the head coach at Birmingham Southern a small school in Alabama who year in year out is competing for that league championship. And of course you have currently Phil Sellars who is contributing to the Rutgers basketball program at the rec.