From Ken Burger at the
Post & Courier:
Someday you can tell your grandchildren you saw the College of Charleston play basketball in the "old" Kresse Arena.
Hopefully they will look at you with some sense of awe and appreciation.
If you live long enough you'll see venues like this old gymnasium on George Street relegated to the pages of history. Some of us remember the old "Blue Heaven" at North Carolina where the Tar Heels played, Reynolds Coliseum where the Wolfpack prowled and the Old Field House at South Carolina where Frank McGuire sparked his magical run with the Gamecocks.
The same can now be said of John Kresse Arena at the College of Charleston,
home court for the Cougars from the winter of 1982 until Saturday night when they played their last game here against Furman, winning 77-59.
It's only right that they closed this place with a victory because that's the way the Cougar faithful will remember it. All told, over all those years, the College logged a total of 342 wins with only 44 losses.
The credit for this legacy goes to John Kresse, a living legend in this town, for his remarkable run of 560-143, much of it accomplished in a building that Sports Illustrated magazine once described by saying it "looked like a high school gymnasium and smelled like a Chinese restaurant."
New York accent
Not only will this old gym be razed soon to make way for the "new" Kresse Arena on an adjacent property, but the oriental take-out joint next door is disappearing as well.
Cougar alumni who knew the College way back when can only marvel at how far the school and its fledgling basketball program have come in their lifetimes.
It seems like only a couple of decades ago that a young, energetic John Kresse came to this Southern city with his New York accent and bag of basketball tricks. Within a few years he took the Cougars all the way to an NAIA national title in the same year they opened play here in the F. Mitchell Johnson Physical Education Center.
Since then the program transitioned into Division I status and earned the reputation as a giant slayer during several appearances in the NCAA Tournament.
Some say Cougar basketball peaked in the late 1990s and suffered a setback when Kresse, the undisputed king of this homecourt, unexpectedly announced his retirement in 2001.
Since then the program has struggled to regain its dominant position in the Southern Conference and find a place on the national stage.
Few doubt, however, that former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins can find a way to bring the College back as it prepares to move into its new 5,000-seat arena next season.
Jittery genius
Regardless of what the future holds, there will never be a feeling at this school like there was on those cold winter nights when this little hothouse was rocking.
With Kresse, the jittery genius on the sidelines, this was the toughest ticket in town.
With students breathing down the referee's necks and a loyal, basketball-savvy home crowd, the Cougars turned this rather pedestrian place into a place of pain for opponents.
While it's doubtful this year's team (14-16, 9-11 in the SoCon) will capture America's imagination the way Kresse's teams did a decade ago, the future of Cougar basketball remains bright.
As today's players built a 20-point lead over the Paladins in the second half, they were celebrated by longtime fans and former players who came to give this special building a proper sendoff.
After the victory, the court was ringed by more than 120 former players dating back to the 1940s. In a special ceremony, they passed a basketball through the ages, ending with a handoff from Cremins to Kresse, who made the last layup to close the building for the ages.
Nice touch.
Nice shot.
(Photo courtesy of CofC Sports.com)
