I've had the opportunity to be in the Robertson Memorial Field House a few times over the last weeks, and I thought I'd talk about this grand ole' structure, which has served Bradley University so well since 1949. As most everyone knows, the Field House was constructed from two World War II airplane hangers, at least one of which housed B-29 bombers, according to the Historic Peoria website. The marvel of Maplewood also warrants a Wikipedia entry. And if you want to read the most comprehensive information about the Field House, go to the Peoria Journal Star's wonderful series Remembering Robertson: The Field House Project. These reports are written and assembled by Kirk Wessler, the sports editor of the Journal Star and a Maplewood kid himself.
My son's preschool teacher, Sister Elaine, invited us to go to the last official Bradley game as the Lady Braves hosted Northern Iowa on March 8. We sat close to the floor behind the Bradley bench. My four-year-old Luke caught a ball, was given a t-shirt, saw one of his classmates, laughed at the halftime baby crawl race, and munched on free popcorn, so he considered the evening a grand success.
Like the men's game, the women's game has become more physical as of late, and the players are bigger. After President Joanne Glasser acknowledged the seniors, the game got off to a rousing start, with Bradley jumping to a 21-2 lead in the first half. The woman from Northern Iowa never recovered, and Bradley went on to win.
As I watched the Northern Iown players shoot around before the game, I thought how meaningless it must be to them that this was the last game to be played in the Field House. They might look up at dark, drafty-looking, domed space with the metal beams criss crossing below the curved ceiling and down at the perilous, raised floor and think, "I'm glad I don't have to play here again." Heck, maybe some of the Bradley players were thinking this as well. Younger people haven't had the time and the experience to invest the Field House with the kind of meaning that makes some of us sad that it's going.
But anyway, the game's the thing, and for my money, its most thrilling moment came at the end of the first half when Bradley's Devyn Flanagan lofted a shot not far from inside the half court line, which swished through the net at the buzzer. It only extended Bradley's large lead, but still: seeing the ball sail practically soundlessly through the net from such a distance at the same time the horn is sounding: the visceral adrenaline flow such a moment produces, the collective rise to the feet and roar of the crowd is one of the reasons we watch sports and one of the reasons we have such great memories of the Field House.
My son's preschool teacher, Sister Elaine, invited us to go to the last official Bradley game as the Lady Braves hosted Northern Iowa on March 8. We sat close to the floor behind the Bradley bench. My four-year-old Luke caught a ball, was given a t-shirt, saw one of his classmates, laughed at the halftime baby crawl race, and munched on free popcorn, so he considered the evening a grand success.
Like the men's game, the women's game has become more physical as of late, and the players are bigger. After President Joanne Glasser acknowledged the seniors, the game got off to a rousing start, with Bradley jumping to a 21-2 lead in the first half. The woman from Northern Iowa never recovered, and Bradley went on to win.
As I watched the Northern Iown players shoot around before the game, I thought how meaningless it must be to them that this was the last game to be played in the Field House. They might look up at dark, drafty-looking, domed space with the metal beams criss crossing below the curved ceiling and down at the perilous, raised floor and think, "I'm glad I don't have to play here again." Heck, maybe some of the Bradley players were thinking this as well. Younger people haven't had the time and the experience to invest the Field House with the kind of meaning that makes some of us sad that it's going.
But anyway, the game's the thing, and for my money, its most thrilling moment came at the end of the first half when Bradley's Devyn Flanagan lofted a shot not far from inside the half court line, which swished through the net at the buzzer. It only extended Bradley's large lead, but still: seeing the ball sail practically soundlessly through the net from such a distance at the same time the horn is sounding: the visceral adrenaline flow such a moment produces, the collective rise to the feet and roar of the crowd is one of the reasons we watch sports and one of the reasons we have such great memories of the Field House.
The above picture is a postcard that was given out at this last offical game played at the Field House.
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