The Shadow
Growing up in the small unincorporated community of McDowell in Eastern Kentucky during the 1940s and 1950s, I had no large structures to enter other than the local theaters and gymnasiums.
My first large structure to enter was Memorial Coliseum, 8,500 seating capacity, in Lexington, Ky. when I attended the 1956 Kentucky High School State Basketball Tournament where the late “King” Kelly Coleman from nearby Wayland High School scored 68 points in his last scholastic basketball game to set a state tournament record yet to be broken.
During McDowell High School’s senior trip in 1959, I entered an even larger structure in Washington D.C., Griffith Stadium. There, Mickey Mantle hit the game-winning home run, a three-run shot over the right-field wall, to give the Yankees a 4-3 win.
Griffith Stadium (1911-1965) was much larger than Memorial Coliseum, and its seating capacity was 32,000. It served as the home of the Washington Senators till 1965.
While visiting New York City, our senior class was able to enter the Statue of Liberty and reach the crown to view the city. Repair work on the arm and torch area limited our climb, but the structure continues to provide an impressive view from its perch on the eleven-star pedestal upon which it is situated, one that once was Fort Wood before Lady Liberty’s arrival.
Bedloe Island where Lady Liberty stands vigil was renamed Liberty Island in 1956.
While attending Morehead State College, I attended the Eagles’ basketball game in the NCAA tournament in Memorial Coliseum in 1961 to watch the University of Kentucky’s Wildcats come from behind in the last two minutes to defeat the Eagles 71-64.
While completing my student teaching during my senior year at Morehead State College’s Breckinridge Training Center High School, Coach Sonny Allen, my mentor, led the Eaglets to compete in the state tournament at Freedom Hall, 18,749 seating capacity. I retain indelible memories of sitting on the bench as a student, assistant coach, and watching our Eaglets go down to defeat at the hands of the future NBA star, Clem “The Gem” Haskins, of Taylor County High School.
Haskins went on to play nine seasons in the NBA for three teams, the Chicago Bulls, the Phoenix Suns, and the Washington Bullets. A knee injury ended his career in 1976 after he had scored 8,746 points during his NBA career.
As a first-year varsity basketball coach at Lewis County High School in Vanceburg, Ky., I drove to the Butler Fieldhouse at Butler University in Indianapolis to watch Kentucky vs. Indiana High School All-Star game in that 15,000 seat facility where Indiana’s all-stars prevailed.
My basketball and baseball coaching career led me to the Detroit, Michigan area and to the Los Angeles area.
In Detroit, I attended games at Tiger Stadium, 41,083 capacity. One night as I arrived late and was climbing toward the centerfield bleachers, a huge roar greeted me. My first view of the diamond revealed Al Kaline rounding second base. He had just hit a home run into the centerfield bleachers where my seat awaited me.
While coaching and teaching at Fraser High School in Fraser, a suburb of Detroit, I attend a concert in Cobo Hall where James Brown had the capacity crowd screaming for more as cheering fans stood in the 12,000 seat arena, home of the Detroit Pistons from 1961-1978. Brown introduced Little Stevie Wonder who was in attendance at the concert and asked him to stand for recognition.
During the 11 years I taught in the Huntington Beach Union High School District in Calif., I frequented the Forum to watch Jerry West and the Lakers. Also, I attended the Dodger games at Dodger Stadium that opened in 1962 with a 52,000 seating capacity.
The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. near the 405 Freeway seats 17,505, and I especially enjoyed watching Elgin Baylor and Jerry West take on the late John Havlicek and his Boston Celtics.
The largest stadium I have ever entered is the Rose Bowl Stadium, 92,542 seating capacity, in Pasadena where I saw Mark Harmon, the UCLA Bruins’ quarterback, lead his team to victory over the University of Michigan.
Harmon went on to become a movie star and gain fame as Tom Harmon, his father, had done before him as a halfback, football star at the University of Michigan, and as a professional sports announcer.
While living in Calif., I attended the International Karate Championship in the Long Beach Arena, 15,600 seating capacity, and the NCAA Basketball Tournament in 1975 at the San Diego Arena where John Wooden coached his last collegiate game, a 92-85 victory over Joe B. Hall’s Kentucky Wildcats. The San Diego Arena seats 16,100.
I have a vivid memory of talking to the late Lute Olson on the steps of the arena, and he guided me to where I could get tickets for the game. I coached freshman basketball for Olson at Marina High School before he went on to coach the University of Arizona to an NCAA National Basketball championship in 1997 by defeating three number one seeds in the tournament. He has been enshrined in both the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Many memories remain from entering the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles to watch musicals. The seating capacity is 3,156.
Also, memories stem from watching musicals at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco which has a 1,600 seating capacity.
At the 1970 World Fair in Suita, Osaka, Japan, I entered the World Fair Pavilion that held the world’s first exhibit of the Moon Rock and the first public display of the world’s first mobile phone. The Expo Pavilion still stands, and its height is 25.4 m. and its diameter is 40 m.
I was one of 64,218,770 visitors to the 1970 World Fair, the first to be held in Japan. The theme was “Progress and Harmony for Mankind,” and the World Fair was hailed as a symbol of Japan’s recovery from World War II.
Other memorable structures I have entered are some of the buildings in the abandoned city that Emperor Akbar built on 60 acres on a hill that provided a good defensive position during the second half of the 16th century. After taking 15 years to build, Akbar lived in the city that he designated as the capital for only a decade due to the water source drying up.
One large room in Akbar’s palace was for his bejeweled harems, and a pool of water for diving exhibitions was maintained for the emperor’s entertainment.
The red sandstone structures peppered with marble remain as a tourist attraction.
I will never forget entering the Great Pyramid of Giza where I climbed inside and down the stairway where mirrors were once positioned to reflect light from one to another and so on until the light reached the burial chambers that were constructed for the king and queen.
The Great Pyramid of Giza stands 481’ and 4” above the desert sand, and it measures 756’ and 4” at all four of its base.
Another structure in Egypt that I have retained vivid memories of is The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities which houses 120,000 items in its 810,000 square meters of floor area, including the solid gold sarcophagus of the boy-king Tutankhamun who was removed from his resting place in the Valley of the Kings where I visited on a day that 120 degrees Fahrenheit motivated me to chug down five bottles of Coca Cola once I reached civilization again.
Everyone who enters structures leaves those structures with memories based on what happened inside, and one’s life could be charted by the series of structures entered beginning at birth.
Having ridden a camel to the Great Pyramid of Giza after having ridden an elephant to Akbar’s abandoned city, riding a mule down the narrow path into the Grand Canyon, the largest natural structure I have ever entered, was as the saying goes, “a piece of cake.”
