celebration of life at university of daytion arena

When construction began in late 1968, Frericks maneuvered behind the scenes to win UD and its new arena one of the early round NCAA tournament games. Eventually he used political connections to secure State of Ohio backed bonds.

The team’s eventual NIT championship helped ease some of these troubles, but the brewing tensions between campus and community over student protests further complicated Frericks’ efforts. The racial conflict at the root of the team’s poor play indicated how much the broader social issues were impacting events on campus. Despite creative attempts to raise money, his efforts were slowed by an unexpectedly bad opening to the 1967-1968 season. As a result Frericks faced significant problems in seeking funding. Having spurned the city’s proposed downtown location, some in the city government became less interested in aiding the university. Identifying land across the Miami River and nearer to the campus, Frericks fashioned a land swap deal that the city could not refuse.įrericks spent much of 1968 finding the financing and finalizing the design of the building. Thanks in part to the success of UD teams and growing importance of the college to the city’s economy, in 1967 Athletic Director Frericks saw himself in a position to force the city’s hand. Administrators wanted a venue closer to campus that it controlled. However, the plan proposed by the city did not entirely fit the interests of the university. Even if the building did not improve the economic fortunes of the city, the reasoning went, then at least the hardwood heroics of the Flyers might serve as a balm to these wounds so that the starkly divided city might come together.Īrchival sources indicate President Roesch and other UD administrators were deeply concerned about these local problems. City planners proposed the multipurpose arena as a means to address these issues. Under these conditions in 1966-the year before the Flyers’ memorable run-the region’s long history of racial tension bubbled to the surface when the city’s West side exploded in protest against school and housing segregation, neglected public services, insensitively designed urban renewal programs, and the loss of jobs. Trapped by segregationist policies, black Daytonians were the first to suffer from the decline in jobs and spread of urban blight.

The decay of the city’s center was intertwined with the flight of white Daytonians to the city’s suburbs. City officials proposed a downtown multipurpose arena that it hoped would help address underlying economic issues, but the city also faced a number of social problems. Blue-collar jobs were starting to disappear. Once a proud manufacturing center that was home to Delco Labs, Frigidaire, General Motors, and National Cash Register, by the last 1960s Dayton had begun to feel the effects of deindustrialization. Authorized to spend up to $4 million dollars on a new Arena, Frericks sought to forge a partnership with the City of Dayton.įor the city the proposed Arena was a much-needed economic asset. An impressive venue was needed in order to have a successful basketball program. As the 1960s ushered in a period of growing competition for students across the country, attention-grabbing sports programs were becoming important to making the university competitive. School administrators were coming to see that a successful basketball program made good business sense for the school. Just as he anticipated, however, the team’s victory that night changed many minds inside the school. At the time the university’s basketball team played in the Fieldhouse but it could only seat half of those wanting to see the games. Before that night in 1967 Frericks had worked with limited success trying to drum up interest in build a larger venue for the team. In the locker room Frericks exultantly declared, “I just want to announce, here and now, tonight, we just built the UD Arena” .įrericks was talking about the yet to be built University of Dayton Arena. Coach Don Donoher remembered that Frericks was “ecstatic” . Defensive specialist Dan Sadlier later recalled that it was when he walked off court and saw the happiness in the face of the school’s taciturn Athletic Director Tom Frericks that he knew they had done something special.

Celebration of life at university of daytion arena