The Private Tour and a Trip Back in Time

On Monday of this week, I was fortunate enough to be given a private tour of Indiana University’s new Cook Hall by an associate AD. Boys and girls, we finally have facilities. Given what has already been done at Memorial Stadium, the new basketball practice facility will take IU Athletics to a new level.

I’ll get to the description in a minute, but first, let me just acknowledge there are many worse places to be on a sunny spring afternoon than Bloomington, Indiana. The campus looked incredible, and the ahem, scenery was tremendous. God bless north Jordan. Thank God I was wearing dark sunglasses.

My friend in the athletic department works in the new football complex, so I went to see him over there. We walked over toward Cook Hall, and three times he declared that I “wouldn’t believe” what I was about to see. He was right. He unlocked the front doors (it was a private tour…just me. How cool is that!?), letting me walk in first to bask in the new surroundings. I was completely blown away, and thought to myself “how could a recruit not be impressed by this?” As you walk in the building, you go up some very short limestone stairs and a concrete plaza complete with a modern lighting system. It’ll look cool for night games…trust me. The poles look almost like those tubular shaped cookies or an open lipstick case, very “mod” and art-deco. The building itself is all limestone, and fits perfectly in its surroundings.

Walking in the front lobby, you’re struck right in the face by 5 NCAA National Championship trophies, encased in a very tall and well lit circular glass chamber. Looking up, there are posters of Indiana greats from years gone by. Walt Bellamy, Quinn Buckner, Calbert Cheaney, Quacy Barnes, Eric Gordon, and many others are enshrined; and yes…there’s plenty of room for more. One thing that’s obvious from the beginning is the attention to detail. Every corner is clean; the wood décor is highly polished; and the lines are all perfect.

At the back of the main foyer sits a large trophy case adorned with relics from Indiana Basketball. Kent Benson’s 1976 uniform complete with warm-up jacket and candy-striped pants are there. An autographed Cheaney jersey sits on the far south end. Several balls, programs, and various trophies are displayed, and for some reason, a Jim Wisman jersey. All in all, a really cool display case and a terrific reminder of what Indiana Basketball is. Also at the rear of the foyer is an interactive smart board with a touch screen so the user can take a trip back in time merely by moving a slide-bar on the screen. Want to read about Bellamy, Archie Dees, or Jimmy Rayl? Scroll back to the 1970’s, ‘60’s, and ‘50’s. Want to read about the 1981 NCAA Title Game? Scroll to the year. It’s incredible, and again, a reminder of the days when Indiana was king of college basketball. The most pleasing thing to me though, was the obvious and plentiful inclusion of Bob Knight. His image and influence are all over the building, and fittingly so. Here's hoping he stops by sometime.

The first thing a visitor sees as he walks upstairs is a balcony of sorts overlooking the lower level, but also a beautiful wooden “reading rail” done by Kit Klingelhoffer and Bob Hammel. Congratulations to those two, as the rail consists of a tremendous number of historical facts and stories from Indiana Basketball. Compiling the information for the reading rail had to take an incredible amount of time, and the end product is a job very well done. IU fans can easily spend 20-30 minutes reading the material, and not get through half of it. Purdue fans would spend 2 minutes and get out as fast as they could.

At the rear of the upper level, there are offices and an only sometimes-accessible observation deck overlooking the two basketball courts. Yes, I said two. The men and women each have their own side; complete with court, locker rooms, training rooms, and offices. For the first time, the Indiana women can practice at a “normal” time, rather than noon-3:00P. The men’s court has the men’s lines, and women’s likewise. The similarities start with the painted white state of Indiana at center court and continue with “INDIANA” painted on each end, exactly like Assembly Hall. The floors are identical to the game floor at the Hall; and each gym has 6 baskets, scoreboards, and plenty of room to spread out. The locker rooms aren’t quite done, but each have hot and cold pools, huge special areas, training facilities, and study cubes.

All in all, I was completely impressed with the new digs, and the Hoosiers should be very proud of their new practice home. Time will tell if it correlates to wins on the floor, but IU is no longer at a disadvantage from a recruiting standpoint. And from what I can tell, the scenery has only improved since I was in school. God bless north Jordan.

RT Brightman