PHILADELPHIA BIG 5: Palestra 'best in country'

"The conditions were ridiculous. Our treatment on the floor by the officials and off the floor by those damn, horn-blowing, hollering St. Joseph's fans was atrocious. It was a damn farce. I'd just like to get them out in Kansas once." Unfortunately for coach Gary Thompson, whose undefeated and No. 1 ranked Wichita State Shockers were shocked by the Hawks 76-69 back in 1964, there is no place in Kansas like the Palestra. There is no place in the world like it. "I've been all around the free world -- also the Big 10, Pac 10, Big 8 and all those different places," Big 5 Hall of Famer and Temple star Guy Rodgers said. "None of them fits the bill as the Palestra does. I can be in a filled Palestra or an empty Palestra, and the sound is still beautiful." Thompson may have disagreed and vowed never to return, but his disdain for "college basketball's most historic gym" is not universally subscribed to. The Palestra, throughout its 68-year existence on 33rd Street, has been home to more games, more teams and more NCAA tournament contests than any other arena in the country. The rich tradition now synonymous with the Palestra resulted from decades of great basketball in every sense of the sport. It resulted from rainbows of streamers. It resulted from the smell of soft pretzels wafting through the corridors. It resulted from banners that have read everything from "Temple tuition: 500 S & H Green Stamps" after the North Philly university first received state funding to "What's the difference between Chris Ford and a dead baby? A dead baby doesn't suck," to "Penn Basketball -- It's Frantastic," in celebration of coach Fran Dunphy's revival of the Quakers' program. It resulted from players like Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson and Bill Russell and Calvin Murphy visiting. It resulted from Guy Rodgers and Ken Durrett and Corky Calhoun and Matt Guokas playing their college home games there. It resulted from Big 5 coaches Jack Ramsay and Jack Kraft and Jack McCloskey and Dick Harter and Paul Westhead and Jack McKinney and Chuck Daly and Rollie Massimino and John Chaney roaming the sidelines. It resulted from the acoustical anomaly described by sports writer Joe Rhoads: "The Palestra has the acoustics of a big bass drum. It's a basketball echo chamber where every sound iS amplified, where every 100 people sound like 1,000, where 1,000 sound like 10,000 and where 10,000 sound like nothing you've ever heard before." It has resulted in countless mismatches becoming upsets.Wilt Chamberlain's Overbrook High suffered a shocking loss to West Catholic in the 1953 city championship game after the underdogs practiced all week with a defender standing on a table under the Palestra baskets. In 1962, top-10 Bowling Green fell to St. Joseph's on the Palestra hardwood. Two years later was the Hawks' upset of No. 1 Wichita State. In 1984, those same never-say-die Hawks toppled top-ranked DePaul in the 1980s' greatest episode of Palestra pandemonium. These are just a few of the upsets and buzzer-beaters that add a special quality to the air inside the Palestra and energize they fans as the walk into the dank arena. "It didn't have theater seats, just those bleachers with everyone crowded in," former Villanova assistant and USC coach George Raveling said. "You sat there rubbing shoulders with the guy next to you, and the human electricity got the place flowing." "It's absolutely the best college basketball arena in the country," Temple coach John Chaney said. "There's not a bad seat in the house." Like most gymnasiums, the Palestra had modest beginnings. The aura was not always there. The history could not always be smelled. The memories that provide enough stories to fill the national archives used to be just dreams. After years of discussion concerning the inadequacy of Weightman Hall as Penn's premier gym, the University finally bought several parcels of land to the north of Franklin Field with the purpose of building a new athletic facility. With the support of Penn Council of Athletics Chairman Sydney Hutchinson, construction began on the edifice in 1926. At the December 23 ceremony to formally dedicate the Palestra, Hutchinson said, "the rearing of this structure, the Palestra, is a fitting testimonial to the remarkable interest being evidenced in college athletics." The toughest part of the entire building process may have been naming the gym. After "Coliseum" and "Arena" were dismissed for their lack of originality, Ralph Morgan, the founder of the Intercollegiate Basketball Rules Committee and a Penn trustee, consulted Greek professor Dr. William N. Bates. "That's easy," Bates replied when asked what the gym should be named. "The Greeks had their gymnasia where their young men trained for their feats of prowess. And then they had their Palestra, a rectangular enclosure attached to the gymnasium where they displayed their prowess to the view of all who would come to view." Five minutes later, the arena had its name -- from the Greek palaistra and the Latin palaestra. The Palestra. The only difference between the West Philly version and its ancient counterparts was the roof. Philadelphia's Palestra has one. Athens' did not. A necessary addition to combat frigid winters, the roof was nothing shy of spectacular. Sunlight flows in through the skylights past a set of ten steel trusses. Princeton coach Pete Carril is sure his ancestors helped build those trusses at Bethlehem Steel several generations ago. The Palestra floor got its first official use January 1, 1927 as the Quakers defeated Yale 26-15. The echo of screaming Philadelphia basketball fanatics has not left the building since.