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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

No Place Like Home Smaller Crowds Make Home Gyms Economically, Psychologically Preferable

Mike Vlahovich Staff Writer

When it comes to high school basketball games, Central Valley School District coaches, administrators and fans say there’s no place like home.

Changing interests, expanded opportunities for high school athletes and declining attendance have made the Spokane Coliseum less attractive and less profitable as a prep basketball venue.

As a result, more games are being played in high school gymnasiums. Until three years ago, nearly all were in the venerable building at Howard and Boone.

This year both Central Valley and University high schools play six of 16 Greater Spokane League basketball games in their own gyms.

For years, many Valley partisans have been promoting just such a move. It is senseless, they said, for gyms that can seat 2,800 fans at CV and about 1,800 at University to sit idle when a Coliseum visit would routinely draw only small crowds.

It is a way, added University activities coordinator Bill Ames, to regain community interest.

“Personally,” said Ames, “I think we have to get to the grass roots again and build the crowds.”

Young parents, said Ames, are returning to raise their families in the school districts they grew up in. If those families can be lured to the gyms, even if it means admitting youngsters free, the schools will build followings.

“When our gyms are so overcrowded they can’t hold any more, then we can move,” he said.

Attendance at the Coliseum for high school basketball is a third of what it was three decades ago. Attendance peaked in 1964, when 14 dates drew 84,834 fans. In 1991, the last year of boys tripleheaders, 18 dates drew just 34,927 spectators.

When the new arena opens next year, there will be even fewer available dates. The GSL will get 10 dates, compared to 17 this year. Just six of those dates will be on Friday nights, when high school games draw best.

“You’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” said CV basketball coach Terry Irwin. “The (city) gyms aren’t built to accommodate crowds, yet people don’t show up at the Coliseum.”

Even though they seat fewer people than the Valley gyms, gyms at the city high schools can handle most audiences.

Some Valley fans, however, would prefer to see more rather than fewer games at the Coliseum.

O.L. “Dick” Dickinson has followed Central Valley and University basketball ardently for 30 years, sitting through as many as four games a night back in the Coliseum’s heyday. Now he must watch one Valley team at one site then drive to watch the other if he can.

“If you can drive to town to see two, three, four or five games (at one site), I think that’s got all the advantages.” he said.

But economics make home gyms more attractive to Valley schools.

The CV district paid $6,045 from general fund money last year for its share of Coliseum rent. There, fans must pay a $2 parking fee to attend a game. Concession prices, which are considerably higher than at schools, go to the vendor.

“The Coliseum is still a nice place to play a game,” said CV activities coordinator Jay Rydell. “The problem is they shaft you on parking and concessions because they have all that overhead.”

Admission prices are the same whether a game is played at the Coliseum or at a school gym and all basketball ticket revenue goes into a common pot.

However, home schools get to keep concession revenue. Wetzel pointed out that with the money it takes to support different activities, any additional revenue that a school can make is important.

Coaches, parents, students and administrators also dislike some of the Coliseum game starting times.

“The most ridiculous is the 3:45 game; it’s a disservice to the team and parents,” said Wetzel.

Central Valley student Mark Hann said the Tuesday games are “way too late for a lot of kids. You get home after 11 o’clock and it’s real tough to get to school the next day.”

CV coach Irwin prefers playing games at home.

“For me as a coach and for the kids and players, I think it creates more of an atmosphere you would like to be in,” Irwin said.

Wetzel concurs.

“I don’t know what the fair thing is, but I’d much rather see a game in any school gym than in the Coliseum,” he said.

Irwin played at Central Valley between 1962 and 1965 and remembers it as an exciting place to play.

“But it was a big deal,” said Irwin. “A lot of people were there.”

That isn’t the case today and the reasons are myriad.

“Kids are more mobile with more interests,” said Ames. “They’d rather ski in Canada than see their team play.”

Gender equity and added activities have meant an end to pep club, lettermen’s club and underclass sections that helped fill the Coliseum.

“No question girls athletics had a real impact,” added Irwin. “It’s now a participatory atmosphere and there are fewer kids with time to make it a spectator atmosphere.”

Hann calls it a matter of attitude.

“With MTV and highlight films, you lose interest in sports,” he said. “More kids are working and we’re more cynical. You can tell that at our pep assemblies.”

He said that the true student fan will attend a Coliseum game but agrees with Ames and Rydell that more kids attend games played in their school’s home gym.

It is there, say the activities coordinators, that community interest in high school sports can be re-instilled.

“Things have changed,” Ames said. “We have to work at it a bit.”