Knight Time Rewind: December 3, 1960

ON THIS DAY: On this day in 1960, IU tips off against the Indiana State Sycamores in front of 9,236 fans, becoming the first game played in the “New Field House”, Located on 17th Street (next to Wilkinson Hall today). The new venue was meant to serve as a rather temporary home for the basketball team, but the expansive cost of the new facilities turned out to be too much for the university to bear at once. It didn’t help matters that the basketball program was in a state of decline for much of the 1960s, with Branch McCracken tendering his resignation in 1965. Football was unequivocally the cash king at the time (anticipated football revenues were more than 10x that of basketball), so the construction of Memorial Stadium was prioritized over the future Assembly Hall. Ultimately, this would be the home of IU basketball for 11 years.

The ticket stub featured here is from the first game, where the Hoosiers would defeat the Indiana State Sycamores handily 80-53 behind future NBA Hall of Famer Walt Bellamy’s 20 points. The game also featured the highly anticipated debut of sophomore Jimmy Rayl, who pitched in 12 points.

Also pictured is a portion of the bleacher seating that was once installed in the venue and later flipped over and repurposed for seating in the newly constructed Assembly Hall.

It wasn’t until 1997 the New Fieldhouse was renamed. On June 6, 1997, a ceremony was held to name the facility the “Harry Gladstein Fieldhouse” after Harry Gladstein, who was a former alum that served as a student manager for the track team and generously supported the track program for a number of years.

This venue would be host to two of the greatest scoring performances in Indiana University basketball history, with Kokomo native Jimmy Rayl scoring a standing record of 56 points — twice.