RIP Hoosier (RCA) Dome

That Arizona-Kentucky '97 final was something.

 

Great stuff, both of you. The weird thing about both MSA and the Dome coming down is not just that I spent so much time at both, but also that both were younger than I.

Of course, you can't list memorable moments at the Dome without mentioning it as the place where, during the 1994 NBA draft, Jalen Rose emerged with the best draft suit ever:

 

Nothing terribly fascinating. I helped away from my beat and covered one of the myriad prep football Saturday's they had there, it was the last game of the day. When it was over, at about 10:30 p.m., I was told I had to leave the press box in five minutes. It worse than any crusty custodian who boots you from a real high school press box.

I protested and they gave me five more minutes. I asked why I was getting the boot and they said the conference didn't pay to have the lights on past a certain time. I shot back and said I didn't the damn field lights, I just needed to be in the press box to file my story (pre-air card days). No dice. Clearly, they just wanted to get out of Dodge.

When my five minutes was up, they made me fold up my laptop and escorted me from the building. I went off on all of them, which wasn't cool. I ended up filing my story from astride one of the bushes by the railroad underpass on the south end of the Dome.

Two days later, I covered a Colts game and saw the same people I had been yelling at. I sheepishly apologized, but they laughed with me about it, implying they thought I had been kind of screwed over. It was a running joke with them for the rest of the Colts season.

Other memories:

-- The 1991 Final Four was very exciting. My dad got corporate seats on the floor on the baseline. As a Ball State sophomore at the time, it was especially sweet to watch Tark walk off the floor in defeat one year after Ball State very nearly took UNLV out.

-- I remember my buddy and I trying to figure out at halftime how many points the Colts could score in their 1988 MNF blowout over the Broncos.

-- This same friend had season tickets in the upper deck and I went to a lot of games in the late 80s and early 90s. Before Colts fans started to give a shit about the NFL (it took a while), one of the biggest pastimes was to fold up the posterboard-like program material into a paper airplane and let fly from the upper deck in the second half of games, when the Colts were probably getting skull-fucked. You'd see 10, 20 paper airplanes at a time. I don't really know when that phenomenon stopped.

One time, some dude landed one on the Colts helmet logo at midfield. Greatest toss ever.

-- Before they started pumping music in, the Dome could get extremely loud. One notable exception to the late 80s rule above was when the Colts played the Bills on the last day of '88 with a long-shot chance at a playoff bid. Albert Bentley scored a late touchdown to give the Colts the win and the roar was one of the loudest I've heard. Market Square Arena was like that too during Pacers playoff games.

They really kind of ruined the organic loudness that place could have when Ray Compton, or whoever, was hired to "pump up" the atmosphere in the late 90s. By the end, it felt like a damn NBA game with all of the forced music and scoreboard-led chants.

-- I covered a lot of Colts games and some basketball there, but I really don't have a memory that stands out from coverage. I saw Dan Marino's last comeback in '99, I saw the Colts-Patriots game last year.

I suppose the indelible memories are surgical Manning-to-Harrison and Manning-to-Wayne touchdown connections along with Eric Dickerson with his big shoulder pads, barreling in for touchdowns. Oh and Billy Brooks. He was the shit.

 

OK, cool. Thanks for the info, Bubbler. I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten locked into stadiums and arenas while trying to finish filing. Had to climb a few fences to get out, too.

 

Those old high school hoops finals may've been the Dome's most unique legacy.

Plenty of other stadiums have hosted final fours, NFL playoffs, mega-concerts, etc. But there's only one place in this entire world ever filled with 40,000 attending high school basketball games. And I don't think any other place ever will--a unique combination of time and place that made that happen.

 

Same thing's true about RFK Stadium vs. The Jack (I refuse to call it FedEx Field. Suck it Dan Snyder!).

RFK was a dilapidated piece of shit, but for an open air stadium, it could definitely hold in the crowd noise. I went to many a D.C. United match there. The first one I ever went to had just about 16,000 there and my ears were ringing after the game. And when the stands would rock ...

I went to the outside of The Jack once. It's no RFK.

 

Did you see someone wearing a short skirt exit the dome in front of you?

Being a Colts fan, I'd have to echo the post about the AFC championship. We're on pins and needles waiting for Brady to work his magic on the last drive, and then the ball is intercepted.

The most deafening roar I'd EVER heard goes up around me, about 60,000 strong. Leftover beers are flying in the air. Everyone's looking around at each other like "We're going to the Super Bowl!"

Not the best place, yes, but indoor ball late in the football season isn't overrated. RIP.

 

I was there and I agree. I had never heard anything like that roar when Marlin Jackson picked off that pass and fell to his back.

A friend of mine had DVRd the game and we must have watched that play 100 times, mostly just to hear that deafening sound. It really did sound like a jet had taken off in those seconds.

 

That and Duke-UNLV are my two biggest memories of that place.

 

I watched my high school football team win a state championship in that dome. It was a way better experience than sitting through some of those Jeff George-led Colts experiences I saw there.

 

Some of those Jeff George moments were high unintentional comedy. Like the day George started to rip Kirk Lowdermilk after a botched snap near the end zone, and Lowdermilk ripped off his helmet and just about shoved it up George's anus.

 

Much of what I'd say has already been said, but a few tidbits ...

The Duke-UNLV & Arizona-Kentucky games played there were two incredible games, but it was also the site of Princeton's upset of UCLA in the second round (a game I had tickets to, but my uncle decided to take the 5-year-old cousins home after the first game, and I had to watch Princeton-UCLA on TV instead of in the 22nd row).

The Dome helped make Indianapolis a big-league city. In the five years before it opened, the city had lost its WHA team (folded mid-season in December 1978 ... not even teenagers Wayne Gretzky & Mark Messier could put people in the seats) and nearly lost the Pacers (they had to hold a telethon to save the team once, and Sam Nassi nearly moved it to Sacramento). The year before the Dome opened, the Pacers went 20-62 and were often outdrawn head-to-head by the local minor-league hockey team. After the opening of the Dome and the arrival of the Colts, the city's psyche changed rather tremendously. No longer was Indy "Naptown," the city was starting to think of itself as a big-time city. Within a couple of years, it was actively pursuing an MLB team (there were discussions with the Pittsburgh Pirates) and retrofitting the Dome to accommodate baseball. With the Dome, Indy was able to basically become the home of the Final Four and see itself not as the little cousin of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, St. Louis and Detroit in the Midwest, but as a player in that group. The Colts were horrible for much of their first decade and a half in Indy, but they put the city on the map.

A few things I remember ...
*-The first NFL game was between the Bears and Bills -- scheduled before the Colts announced their move.
*-The first regular-season Colts game. I remember the fan mag had something on the cover about a QB controversy between Mike Pagel and Art Schlichter (can we pick none of the above?), while the Jets started Pat Ryan instead of Ken O'Brien. The Jets won 23-14 ... the fans had no clue what they were doing. Did the wave and made tons of noise when the Colts were on offense ... it was nuts.
*-Colts 17, Steelers 16 in 1984. Ray Butler catches a tipped pass on the final play of the game and runs it in for a TD. The most improbable finish for a game.
*-The Halloween game in 1988 ... the best game of the early Colts history. But the day they clinched the AFC East in 1987 was pretty loud, and pretty special. Most of the early games were pretty comical -- watching a usually-inept team fall all over itself.

I started covering Colts games in 1997 -- the year before Peyton Manning showed up. It was somewhat interesting to see the change in the fan base over the ensuing 4-5 years. In 1997, most of the ticketholders were people who had grown up following someone else, and there was very little interest or passion for the team in Indianapolis. Whenever the Dolphins, Cowboys, Redskins, Raiders, 49ers, Bengals or Bears would come, it would feel like a home game for the visiting team (there is an incredible amount of Dolphins fans in Central Indiana). In about 2001-2002, when the Colts began their run under Manning (and after they replaced Jim Mora with Tony Dungy), the number of people who had grown up following the Colts grew to a point where they were able to afford tickets, and the decibel level of the Dome (and the football knowledge) grew exponentially. Suddenly, every fan in the stands was wearing his favorite player's jersey (seriously, in 1991, would you really be seen in public wearing a Clarence Verdin jersey?), and there was some passion and energy in the crowd. The place was so small, it could get *really* loud, even with the canned music/crap. Now, the city pretty much shuts down when the Colts play -- you can go to any restaurant in town you want and get right in.

It is probably as much a basketball venue as anything -- and for a dome, it wasn't a terrible basketball venue (that's like saying, for disco, it wasn't a bad song, but alas ...).

The sight of 40,000 people at a high school basketball game is mind-boggling. The combination of the NCAA Tournament's growing popularity, a bit of a dry-spell in Indiana HS basketball talent in the mid-1990s and the eventual onset of a class tournament made sure that wasn't repeated, but that was pretty cool (the State Finals were drawing 20,000+ for most of their run there). The year after Damon Bailey's title, Alan Henderson & Glenn Robinson's teams matched up for the title in front of about 31,000. The 1994 game between Valpo & South Bend Clay was incredible (Bryce Drew's Valpo team loses to a Clay team led by the Nailon brothers, and IIRC, future Purdue star Jaraan Cornell). The 1992 final between Richmond and Lafayette Jeff was an OT game with another incredible late-game comeback. Jeff Poisel's 3 at the buzzer gives Ben Davis an improbable title in 1996 ... also saw my alma mater win the first of its three state titles there in the first year of class ball (it was the big class ...). I'm glad someone else mentioned the Lafayette Central Catholic-Alexandria game in the 1998 Tournament of Champions (in front of about 2,000 people ... turnout was depressing but the game was incredible).

As a structure, it won't be missed. But the press-level seating wasn't bad (especially pre-renovation, when the box was at the top of the lower deck). The sightlines were pretty good -- there weren't any bad seats in the house. The big roof could kill the atmosphere at times (I hated watching indoor football ... except in December and January ), but the Dome did a lot for Indianapolis.