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Visit Memory Lane with 50th-Year Recollections of ULM's Fant-Ewing Coliseum

Visit Memory Lane with 50th-Year Recollections of ULM's Fant-Ewing Coliseum

Men's Basketball Dec 06
By ULMWarhawks.com Online Columnist Paul Letlow

Each time he visits Fant-Ewing Coliseum, former ULM men's basketball coach Mike Vining feels a tinge of nostalgia.

"It's a good feeling to me," said Vining, who now provides color commentary on ULM home basketball game telecasts for ESPN+. "When I walk in there, I just feel comfortable. I'm at home.

"You look around and you're always thinking of something. You see this and it reminds you of something. Or I'll see somebody and it reminds me of something. Or something happens and it reminds me of something that happened before. It's just full of memories."

A former player, assistant coach and now the head coach for the ULM men, Keith Richard feels the same connection to his home arena.

"Between the two of us," Richard said, "we've covered almost the whole span of it."

Dec. 1, 2021, marked the 50th anniversary of the first basketball game played at Fant-Ewing Coliseum, which opened in 1971. On that date, the former Northeast Louisiana squad dropped a 71-70 decision to Sam Houston. L Club Hall of Famer Henry Steele scored 28 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in defeat.

The building was originally christened Ewing Coliseum in honor of a local newspaper publisher named Wilson Ewing, who was active in city and community endeavors. ULM later honored former head coach Lenny Fant after his death by adding his name to the venue.

The coliseum's original floor was a synthetic rubberized tartan surface, which was popular in the 1970s and remained at ULM until 1997. Another notable feature of the vintage arena is the multi-colored seating.

"Gosh, I can still remember the very first time I walked in here on my official visit as a senior in high school," Richard said after ULM's 104-67 win over Centenary on Dec. 1. "It might be hard to believe, but this building is one of the reasons I came here. I was impressed and this building made a major impact on me.

"Fifty years later, it needs some tender loving care. (ULM Athletics Director) Scott McDonald has some plans for future renovations, but the game atmosphere is still good. When you get a lot of people in here, it gets loud and you can feel the energy on the floor."

Since its opening night, the facility has served as the stage for many memorable games in school history. Calvin Natt called the place home during his career and won an unforgettable battle against Centenary and future Basketball Hall of Famer Robert Parish on January 15, 1976.

"Our defense did a great job,'' Fant said that night. "We didn't allow Parish to get off his outlet pass, so they weren't able to get their fast break going."

NLU claimed a 59-57 victory over the No. 18 Gentlemen before a record crowd of 7,000 Centenary's 7-foot-1 All-American Parish scored 22 points to go along with 27 rebounds, but the freshman Natt scored the winning basket with four seconds remaining.

Sophomore center Carl Kilpatrick tussled with Parish and scored 10 points with 10 rebounds while blocking two shots. Top scoring honors went to Jerry Jingles with 21 points and Natt with 17 and seven rebounds. For Fant, it marked the first win against his own alma mater. His team averaged a school-record attendance 5,451 during that watershed 1975-76 season.

Richard was a freshman on the basketball team during Natt's senior season and marveled at the Bastrop native's talent. Natt developed into a first-round NBA Draft pick while playing in front of huge home crowds during his career in Monroe.

"Watching him play at home here was special to me," Richard said. "He was a great, great player. I had the best seat in the house there on the bench."

Richard's top memory as a player comes from his senior year in 1981-82, when Vining in his first season as head coach won the conference championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

"That celebration afterward and the feeling of accomplishment that we were finally going to the NCAA Tournament," Richard said. "I remember it like it was yesterday."

The 98-85 win over Centenary gave ULM a Trans America Athletic Conference Championship and sent the team to its first NCAA Tournament.

"That was really big," Vining once recalled. "That was the first year and there were people, like today, who wanted to go out and get a big name coach. It was rewarding to do something the university had never done."

Beginning in 1984 and continuing into 1986, ULM's women won 32 consecutive games in the facility and drew four crowds of more than 7,000.

The rivalry with nearby Louisiana Tech produced great synergy as the ULM women emerged as a formidable opponent for the powerful Techsters. Fant-Ewing was the scene of several great rivalry bouts.

"A couple of the biggest games there were when the women beat Tech during the Final Four year," Vining said.

Led by basketball legends Eun Jung Lee and Lisa Ingram, No. 4 ULM defeated No. 6 Tech, 80-67, on Feb. 11, 1985, before a school-record crowd of 8,155.

Then on March 24, 1985, NCAA Midwest Regional host ULM defeated the Techsters again 85-76 with 7,023 in attendance. The victory sent ULM's women to the Final Four in Austin, Texas.

The 1984-85 team finished 30-2 and is considered the greatest in school history. ULM defeated Missouri, Auburn and Louisiana Tech in the NCAA Tournament before losing in the Final Four to eventual National Champion Old Dominion, 57-47.

"We had great team chemistry," former women's coach Linda Harper once said. "Each player understood how she could best help our team."

Lee would finish her career with four-straight victories over the Techsters. She averaged nearly 28 points a game against Tech her final two seasons.

"It was unbelievable," Lee once recalled. "I didn't want to disappoint them. There was pressure, but it was an unbelievable feeling."

As an assistant coach for Vining, there were notable games for Richard too. On March 8, 1986, Arthur Hayes hit a buzzer-beater in a 59-57 win over McNeese State in the Southland Conference Tournament Championship Game.

"The one in 1986 when Arthur Hayes hit a half-court shot in the finals of the conference tournament here to send us to the NCAA Tournament," Richard said. "That was a special memory here. That shot sent us to the NCAA Tournament."

Vining's team played host to a televised NCAA Tournament play-in game against Florida A&M on March 6, 1991. Dick Vitale alongside former ULM student Tim Brando called the game for the ESPN broadcast.

"Of all the games we played on TV, Dick Vitale was the most thoroughly prepared," said Vining, who won 402 games as ULM's coach. "He came to practice and he came to shoot-around and asked me to sit with him. He would ask me questions about different things."

With a raucous crowd of 5,576 attending, Anthony "Greyhound" Jones scored 21 points as ULM beat Florida A&M, 87-63, and advanced to play eventual National Champion Duke in the Midwest Region first-round game in Minneapolis.

"With Dick Vitale and Brando here, this place was going nuts," Richard said. "It was phenomenal."

During the 1999-2000 season, Vining tied Fant with his 326th career win in a matchup against a Houston team coached by Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler A crowd of 3,198 saw a thrilling game won by the home team at the end on an electric evening at Fant-Ewing Coliseum.

"That win tied me with Coach Fant," Vining said. "It was a big game with a big crowd with Clyde Drexler as their coach."

Mike Smith poured in 36 points and snared 10 rebounds and center Wojciech Myrda nailed the game-winning free throw with 2.9 seconds. Remarkably, the former NBA star Drexler hung around for an hour after the loss to sign autographs.

"He was very accommodating," Vining said. "He stayed forever and they practiced the next day. We went over and watched them and he sat with us and talked."

Myrda's pursuit of the NCAA career record for blocked shots produced excitement during the 2001-02 season. As he closed in on Adonal Foyle's mark in February, 2002, crowds gathered at Fant-Ewing Coliseum.

"Wojciech breaking that record was great," Vining said. "We played Thursday and he needed five to break it and he got it to two. We had almost 6,000 people there Thursday and then Saturday, we had (6,822). We got two crowds instead of one."

Myrda became the NCAA's all-time leader in blocked shots on February 16, 2002, when he registered the 493rd rejection of his career in a 90-73 win over Nicholls State. The 7-2 center, who finished the game with 11 blocked shots, concluded his career with 535 overall. The late Myrda's total currently ranks second all-time

"The impact he has had on our program has been tremendous," former ULM Athletics Director Bruce Hanks said on the night that Myrda broke the record. "He has generated interest and excitement at a time when our university really needed it. He has been a great representative for our university both on the court and in the classroom."

Richard chuckles about spotting a jogger on the upper concourse during a sparsely attended game during his first season back as ULM's head coach.

"This was his daily jog," Richard said with a laugh. "It didn't matter to him that a game was going on. He was jogging."

But he can also contrast that humorous scene with the wild "White Out" College Basketball Invitational home games in 2014-15. ULM hosted four CBI games, beating Eastern Michigan before a road win at Mercer and then topping Vermont to reach the best-of-three finals against Loyola Chicago. On April 1, 2015, a crowd of 4,460 saw ULM fall to Loyola Chicago to close out the CBI Championship.

"Walking in this building in 2015 for the finals of the CBI Tournament and seeing this place full again was special for me," Richard said. "It almost brought a tear to my eye before the game."
 
50th Anniversary Fant-Ewing Coliseum

 
 
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