Darby Gym (1943-2004)

by Colin Sollitt

After responding to extraordinary demands put on the current facilities, an enormous building complex, in an architectural style incongruous with the rest of the campus, was being constructed on the northern half of the Grinnell College campus. Named after some of the largest donors in Grinnell history, it had the latest in modern amenities. Was it the East Campus building campaign of 2003? No, it was the Darby Gymnasium building campaign of 1943.

Darby hosted its first collegiate game on Dec. 7, 1942, one year to the day after Pearl Harbor. (Grinnell beat Iowa State, 37-30.) Since its official completion the following year, the facility has been the site of commencement ceremonies, lectures, conferences, dances, concerts, and a speech made by Martin Luther King, Jr. Moreover, it has been a center for the entire town.

Darby came into being when the women’s gymnasium burned to the ground in 1939. When the women took over the men’s old gym between ARH and Noyce Science Center and the men demanded another gymnasium for themselves, the College swung into action. They built an Art Deco gymnasium with the best “modern equipment, training resources, and recreational areas.” The Athletic Director’s Administrative Assistant Patty Johnson, who was “born and raised in Grinnell” and “has spent all but five years” of her life here, reminisces about the amenities.

“There were plenty of locker rooms,” she said. “The southern end of the gym used to have reserved seating. The seats looked like they were speckled marble.”

With World War II well underway, Darby provided “physical education resources and an assembly area for the hundreds of men on campus in the Army Specialized Training Program in 1943-44,” according to the Grinnell College website.

When the Army left Darby after the war, the College and Grinnell High School moved in.

“From the ‘50s to 1963, the Grinnell High School would use the building for basketball games,” said Johnson. “The high school games would be on Fridays, sometimes Tuesdays, and the college games would be on the weekend.”

Sometimes, though, certain college officials wouldn’t like Grinnell inhabitants to intrude too much. “My husband, who played on the Grinnell High School basketball team, would be chased out of the gym by [Grinnell coaching legend] John Pfitsch,” explained Johnson, “and then my husband would just run around the building and rush back in the other side… It was great of the College to share.”

Darby has not been a stranger to celebrity either. On Oct. 29, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in the gym, urging Grinnell College students to “stay awake during the revolution.” Nationally known college basketball coach David Arseneault, the fabled Pfitsch, and countless commencement speakers also have walked the floor of Darby Gymnasium.

When the PEC was completed in 1971, many of the athletic functions were transferred to the new facility, so Darby’s functions were reduced to hosting basketball and volleyball games. But although it was no longer the sole athletic hub of the College, Darby was also rejuvenated as Grinnell’s technological center when ITS moved in in 1974. Since then, the Craft Workshop and the KDIC studio and office have been added, attracting a host of non-sports-playing students into the building.

In May of 1994, Darby entered its golden afternoon with the re-emergence of the men’s basketball team and their crowd-pleasing full-court press

“One of the greatest moments that I remember is our first big win against Cornell College, when they were still in the Midwestern Conference,” said head coach David Arseneault. “The crowd was half students, half came from the community. We won on the buzzer shot, and the students rushed the floor. It was a sign of things to come.”

With the upswing in the men’s basketball team’s fortunes, the students’ zeal for the team grew enormously, and the crowd became among the most intimidating in the Midwestern Conference.

“The crowd’s support in here for the basketball team is the best I’ve ever seen,” said men’s basketball manager Marie Liska ’07.

“It’s all about the crowd and the game,” fellow manager Katherine Sparks ’07 concurred. “The Darby experience is all about the crowd and the treys.”

Much like that first win over Cornell 10 years earlier, the final win was just as dramatic, with Steve Wood ’04 hitting the game-winning shot at the horn. Only this time, the fans stormed the floor not once but twice, first after the shot, and, after officals put 0.6 seconds back on the clock, again after visitng Knox failed to score.

“I would have liked to keep the 18 point spread,” said Arseneault, “but that game was just extraordinary.”

Though the crowd has played its part in the Darby experience, Arseneault emphasizes the facility’s charm.

“My favorite moments in Darby is taking my two kids over there and watching the snow fall,” he said. “I love shooting baskets with my family and hearing the echo off of Darby’s walls with every bounce. It feels like the ‘Hoosiers’ movie.”

Despite renewed enthusiasm in the facility, Darby is no longer as modern and innovative as it once was. “The facility has outlasted its usefulness,” said Arseneault.

As part of a sweeping plan to modernize the facilities and to bring the campus closer together, the College accepted a deal to tear down Darby to make way for the Rosenfield Campus Center, which should be finished in two years.

Protective of their stadium, the students and community members alike started wearing “Save Darby” t-shirts and protested the imminent demise of the Gym, saying it was an integral part of the Grinnell experience. However, Patty Johnson looks ahead.

“It’s just progress you know,” she said. “You can get swept up in the emotion, but it’s just progress.”