Bobby “Slick” Leonard thinks it’s time for a new basketball arena
I got the chance to talk to Bobby “Slick” Leonard of the 1953 national championship team last week before he and his teammates were honored at halftime of the Hoosiers’ win against Sam Houston State.
Leonard reminisced about his days at IU, including telling story after story of the season where he helped bring IU its second national championship, but he also had some strong opinions about the condition of IU’s Assembly Hall.
As any fan who’s been to a single game at Assembly Hall knows, the arena’s seats go very high up without taking up much space; simply put: the stairs are crazy steep. It’s amazing that no one (other than that one stripper) was trampled during IU’s upset victor over Kentucky last season with all the students charging down from the heights of Assembly Hall.
I know I’ve tripped, or nearly done so, more than my fair share of times going up and down those steps in Assembly Hall, and I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for someone like Leonard (80 years old) along with the rest of the elderly Hoosier season ticket holders to stay on their feet walking up and down those steep, tiny steps.
“Assembly Hall is Assembly Hall, but I’m all for building a new basketball arena, just for basketball,” Leonard said. “It’s a wonder, and maybe it has happened, but climbing down those babies, you better have something to hold on to; you better have something to hold on to, cause that’s really steep.
“A good basketball arena is round, and the seats aren’t so far from the floor, rather than taking them so straight up.
“Yeah, I’d like to see IU get a new arena.”
There of course have been rumors about the IU athletic department building a new Assembly Hall – at least since I arrived on campus in the fall of 2010, and quite possibly longer than that. I doubt that the words of Leonard alone will change the minds of Fred Glass and the IU administrators, but if more former Hoosier athletes and fans start clamoring, it would be hard to imagine IU not taking it into consideration in the near future, especially with the prospective success of both the men’s and women’s programs in the near future.
Nathan Brown is a junior majoring in journalism. A Noblesville, Ind. native, he is currently one of the men's basketball beat writers for the Indiana Daily Student. You can follow him on Twitter at @nathan_brown10.
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Posted by Diego Armando M. at 9:14 pm on November 24, 2012
Nathan, have you looked at the state of the economy lately? Since you report, the cost of tickets to IU basketball means little to you. And, in the last few years IU has added Mellencamp Center, is adding the new baseball diamond, probably needs to upgrade some none athletics facilities and, yes, probably some additional athletic facilities. Assembly Hall is generally acclaimed as one of the best basketball-game- dedicated facilities in the country. With its link to Mellencamp, surely one of the top 3-4 in the country if not the world. We also need to do many things for Indiana and US infrastructure.
And, you’ve got to know why the call ‘Slick’ Leonard, ‘Slick’. My first guess is he’s got shares in a public assembly hall construction company, a flooring company or a locker room sales brokerage.
He saw you coming son.
Posted by bruce at 11:57 am on November 25, 2012
She(God) said we need a new stadium.
Posted by heinsohn at 2:31 pm on November 26, 2012
Sorry Diego,Slick was right.Assembly Hall is obsolete.Have you ever been in a game at Conseco or Rupp arena?Huge Gyms with 23,000 + seats that are a joy to sit in with fabulous views of the game.I am 60 years old and have stopped going to live games because the steps are scary and the seats are miserable to sit in.No knee space at all!There are thousands of awful seats at Assembly Hall.