DAVID HEILING HIST 386 10/18/13 DEVLIN BILL ZORN WAS THE HEAD BASKETBALL COACH AT UW-EAU CLAIRE

FOR ABOUT 40 YEARS. HIS PASSION FOR BASKETBALL IGNITED A PASSION IN THE STUDENTS AND AFTER HIS TIME HERE, THE UNIVERSITY NAMED ZORN ARENA AFTER HIM. BLUGOLD PRIDE AND UNITY ARE IDEALS FREQUENTLY PRESENTED TO THE UWEAU CLAIRE STUDENTS, FACULTY AND STAFF. IN THE 1970S, THE MENS BLUGOLD BASKETBALL TEAM WAS COMMON GROUND FOR MANY STUDENTS. THE TEAMS SUCCESSES THROUGHOUT THE DECADE PROVIDED BOTH UNITY AND PRIDE FOR THOSE STUDENTS. MANY STUDENTS FROM DIFFERENT HISTORIES AND BACKGROUNDS WERE DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY THE BASKETBALL TEAM. ALUMNA SALLY GORDON FROM THE CLASS OF 74 SAID EVEN GETTING A SEAT FOR THE GAME WAS A STRUGGLE. SOT: Sally Gordon. 48 secs. Oh gosh. You know one thing that was our greatest thing to do was to go to the Bluegold basketball games. You know we had a great basketball team back then. And we would go straight from class to Zorn arena and we would sit there at three oclock in the afternoon so we could get a spot to sit for the seven oclock game. And we would just sit there. You know and the whole student section was full by likefour oclock. And you know we would just sit there and nobody missed a game. That was a great thing for campus and then they went down to Kansas City for the nationals. Hopped on a bus and went down.1 26:30-27:18 KIRK AUSMAN, ALSO A 72 GRADUATE REITERATED GORDONS POINT ABOUT THE FRENZY FOR SEATS IN ZORN ARENA. HE SAID GAMES BACK THEN WERE MUCH DIFFERENT FROM BLUGOLD BASKETBALL GAMES TODAY. SOT: Kirk Ausman. 58 secs. Well, back from when we were at Eau Claire, the basketball team was very big on a national level. It was ranked one or two nationally all the years I was in college, and if you wanted to go to a basketball game, you had to be there for the JV game to get a seat, because it was packed from the floor to the rafters, and so all those games were really exciting, and it wasn't the type of basketball you have now. It's more of a defense game now. Back then, it wasn't unusual for the score to be over one
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Sally Gordon. Interviewed by: Adam Wimberly. Oct. 8, 2012.

hundred points by the end of the game, and usually the Blugolds were the winners because they were one heck of a team, and so that was fun.2 12:16-13:14 THE GAMES AFFECTED MORE STUDENTS THAN JUST THE DIRECT SPECTATORS AT THE EVENT. STUDENTS HAD A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY WHEN THE BLUGOLDS MADE THE NATIONAL TOURNAMENT IN KANSAS CITY, MISS. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DECADE. JIM SPIEGELBERG SAID HIS FAVORITE MEMORY AT UW-EAU CLAIRE WAS RUNNING TO SEE THE TEAM.

SOT: Jim Spiegelberg 130 secs. I guess one of my favorite memories would be...umand its kinda related somewhat to running but its also related touhum to the basketball team at Eau Claire. The Eau Claire basketball team qualified foruhto participate in the Nationals. I think it was down in Kansas City that year. And I dont remember if it was m y junior or senior year at Eau Claire. But they were always a highly ranked basketball team and they made it to Nationals. And a couple of our accounting professors decided touhorganize an event where we would run a relay race where we would run from Eau Claire all the way down to Kansas City, which was about I dont know 450 or 500 miles. So we had to line up people touh to carry the baton all the way through. So they got bunch of people from the girls track and cross country team and the boys track and cross country team andum these two professors were runners. And they found a bunch of other students to do it and uh so then we ya know we took a chunk of it and we did it during the night. So we ran wed run 10 miles at a time in the middle of the night and the car would have the headlights on over on the side of the road, on a major highway and we were just running for 10 miles. Youd get back in the car and the next person would go. We had it I think we had to run about 80 or 100 miles that night and um into the next morning, in order to get the baton to a certain place so that we could hand it off and they could keep it going. And then when they got down to Kansas City the local TV stations made a big deal about it and they interviewed the um two professors, who had put this...you know this whole thing together and a lot of PR upup at the school, but I thought it was kind of a unique idea. I mean they were actually able to pull it off. So I would say thats I would put that one down as my favorite.3 3:40-5:50 UNITY AMONGST STUDENTS WAS EVIDENT WITH THE BASKETBALL TEAM. ALONG WITH THE RUNNERS WHO WENT TO KANSAS CITY, 72 GRADUATE KEITH PITSCH SAID ALMOST HALF THE SCHOOL WENT TO SEE THE TEAM PLAY. SOT: Keith Pitsch 109 secs.

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Kirk Ausman. Interviewed by: Laura Kawleski. Oct. 25, 2012. Jim Spiegelman. Interviewed by Jessica Riege. Oct. 14, 2012.

One of the things, the whole student body here, and for the most part a great majority it seemed like, were unified around certain things, and one of them was the basketball team in those days. I came in, like I said, the first year with Coach Anderson. And his first year, we had a mediocre team over the years. This first year he brought in some young guys. They did fairly well. They were a winning team. They were building. There was Mike Radliff, Frank Shurf, Mike Radliff, James Lindsey, Steve Johnson, and Tom Jackson. The next year Frank Shaney transferred in and suddenly my sophomore year we became a national power. For the next three years. These guys were all in my class, that was the coolest thing. Shaney, started in the Dakotas somewhere. So senior year, we went for the third straight time to the national tournament, in Kansas City, we were ranked number one in the nation among small schools. We took, there were 8000 students at the time, 4000 of us, during the course that week would gather in this, there is an open block, a park, an open block outside the arena down there. We would be there all day and all night, except game time when we would flood the arena. It was just one big love fest I guess, and party for the team. It was just the greatest time, just fantastic. Unfortunately we lost the championship game to a team we had beaten by twenty points earlier year. That was really I think a thing that gave us a sense of unity here at UW Eau Claire, in those days.4 15:04-16:53

EVEN STUDENTS WHO WERE NOT AS ALLEGIANT TO THE BASKETBALL TEAM AS SPIEGELMAN WAS WERE AFFECTED BY THE BASKETBALL TEAM. KEN ANDERSON, THE MAN WHO ZORN ARENAS COURT IS NOW NAMED AFTER JOINED THE TEAM IN THE EARLY 70S. 1973 GRADUATE SUE MILLER SAID SHE TUTORED SOME OF THE PLAYERS SO THEY WOULD NOT BE KICKED OFF THE TEAM. SOT: Sue Miller 44 secs. Helen Sampson was approached by then UW the basketball coach, Ken Anderson, to come up with a couple of tutors for several members of his basketball team. Because he wanted to make sure that their academics stayed up well enough because they were good basketball players. I ended up being one of the tutors to one of the basketball players. She only agreed if Ken Anderson would agree that if they still didnt pass her class [laughs] then they were to be pulled off the team.5 38:44-39:28 THE MENS BASKETBALL TEAM IN THE 1970S BROUGHT BLUGOLD ATHLETICS TO A HIGHER LEVEL IN SOME TIME. STUDENTS RALLIED AROUND NEW COACH KEN ANDERSON AND HIS TEAM. THE CAMARADERIE AND PASSION RESOUNDING IN THIS TIME PERIOD CAN BE DIRECTLY CORRELATED TO ONE TEAMS SUCCESS THROUGHOUT THE DECADE.

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Keith Pitsch. Interviewed by Matt Honer. Oct. 18, 2012. Sue Miller. Interviewed by Alaric James Huls. Oct. 20, 2012.

REPORTING FOR HIST 386, IM DAVID HEILING.