Memories of the hub from which small town life radiates: The gym

The school is the heart of any town in the Midwest.And the gymnasium is the heart of almost every school.It is the place everyone gathers. For assemblies, games, phys ed, pep rallies, banquets and graduations.The gymnasium is the place in the school with the most memories for most people.Saturday in Monroeville, a thousand people created their first memory in their fabulous new gym — the Monroeville Athletic Complex (MAC).Everything about the MAC is wonderful. … From its genesis in the mind of a single anonymous individual who felt the need for a new gym so passionately that he or she contributed $1 million toward its construction. … To the several hundred other donors and volunteers who contributed another $1.5 million and countless hours of loving labor to make the building a reality.It may be the nicest such facility to ever be built in this state without taxpayer funds.With a playing floor as big as any college, a parquet surface that pays homage to the fine old gym it replaces, modern scoreboards and lighting, dedicated space for the wrestling team and a wall of fame that honors past state champion teams, individuals and one entire epoch — The Ringholz Era — the MAC has the makings of a real memory maker.But then, it has a lot of catching up to do to match the memories accumulated in the other two gyms in the same school complex. I have plenty of them myself, so I can only imagine what it is like for people who grew up there.My first-ever visit to a Monroeville gym was in 1959. We couldn't believe how big and modern it was. We had never seen a gym with glass backboards. Our team, Townsend-Wakeman, beat Monroeville by a single point for the championship of Huron County that night.Two years later, I played in the eighth-grade county tournament on the same floor.My high school games there were forgettable, but the same old locker rooms are still in use. And the original 500 bleacher seats now have a dark brown patina created from six decades of stains, scuffs, dirt and spills.I was a teacher in Monroeville from 1969 to 1972. And I covered a lot of games for this newspaper there, as well. One night I was stationed under the basket at the stage end of the floor, taking pictures and making notes. At the end of the half a player made one of those desperation half-court heaves toward the hoop. I was looking at my note pad, but the entire crowd emitted one of those collective "ooooooooooo!" sounds, as when it looks like the ball might go in the basket. But it was not even close — to the basket, that is. Apparently — because at least 30 people told me so — the ball whizzed by my head so close that I should have felt the breeze. I never saw it but 500 people witnessed the near-miss that might have put me in the hospital.I played in a fund-raiser game — faculty vs. Arkansas Lassies, a women's team — in that gym in 1971. I was the emcee for football banquets for a Sam Fornsaglio football team and a Steve Ringholz football team and at the best basketball banquet ever for the 1984 state champions in the same venue. I saw Debbie Burns (now Mrs. Bob Jones) and Sue Opper (now former Mayor Sue Lesch) crowned homecoming queen, helped the juniors decorate for prom and chaperoned one of the many Helen Payne/Pat Pickens sponsored "jabberwockies" right there, too.Yes, the old gym in the elementary building overflows with memories. Of Jerry Everhart and Joe Andrews and Harry Garverick and Dave Augspurger. Of Laurie Watkins and Laurie Clayton. Of Paul Roeder and Garry Schaffer and Burl Nesbitt. Of Liz Tyler and Sandy Stieber. Of Mike Landoll and Chris Ott and Don Farmer and Don Beck and Eric Adelman ("Eeeeee!") from the '84 state champs. Of Jeff Stieber and his amazing wrestling boys. Of the night Steve Moore hit for 45. Of games with St. Paul where players could not hear their coaches above the din. Of Bob Leber and Ken Leber. Of Delbert South and Doggie Palmer. Of a hundred others whose names I do not have room for here.There is also a gym in the old high school building itself, right inside the front door. It was built 81 years ago in the middle of The Great Depression. It still has the old wooden theater-style seats, elevated a few feet above the gym floor, fenced off by steel railings. Stairs on each side have been run by young athletes throughout the years in the name of fitness or punishment.This is the gym where I coached junior high basketball for three years, where Steve Ringholz and Helen Payne taught physical education, where we held assemblies, gave awards and conducted the first Earth Day program. It is where Jim Davis broke his neck in a tumbling accident and died, where we cheered Charlie Poths at a pep rally before a St. Paul football game and where we eulogized his son Jason when he died from cancer.A gym in a little farm community, you see now, is not just a gym; it is a crossroads, a meeting place, a nerve center. It is the hub from which all the spokes of town life radiate.In Monroeville, they decided it was time to update that all-important space. So they did what Monroeville people always do when something is important to them: they gave their time and money and skills to do it right.May the memories generated in the future be as rich as those from the past.Jim Busek is a free-lance writer who lives in Norwalk. He can be reached via e-mail at jimbusek@hotmail.com.Jim Busek