Sweet Charlie, Dike, Cazzie, and Bobby Joe: HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL IN ILLINOIS

Chapter 6: The 1990s

6 The 1990s Move to Peoria: March Madness Finds a New Home Nobody thought it would happen.Even Steve Kouri,the Peoria lawyer who conceived of the plot to steal the prize, had doubts that the heist could be pulled off.After seventy -seven years, why would the boys state basketball tournament leave ChampaignUrbana ? “I was at a Super Bowl party, and a friend whispers to me that he heard someone in a bar in Bloomington say that Illinois State was going after the state tournament,” he said.“I thought it was ludicrous that it would move. But I also thought the prize is so big that I at least had to make an inquiry. Maybe there is something to it.” That’s how it all began, as a rumor, like on a soap opera.When the final episode of the drama had finally played out, on May 2, 1995, the IHSA announced that its showcase events,the boys Class A and Class AA tournaments,would move to Peoria in 1996. There was anticipated outrage from traditionalists who reminded us that the tournament had been conducted on the University of Illinois campus since 1919, first at the Men’s Old Gym Annex, then at Huff Gym, and finally at Assembly Hall. “The announcement came as a kick in the stomach to thousands of basketball traditionalists,”wrote Loren Tate of the Champaign News-Gazette.“The Assembly Hall was the dream, the goal, the obsession of every Illinois youngster who bounced a dribble off his foot in the family driveway,of every teenager pretending he was Kenny Battle or Kendall Gill competing in the Elite Eight.” Could anyone ever feel the same about Peoria? The Assembly Hall, it was argued, is an architectural masterpiece. Opened in 1963, it remains a one-of-a-kind facility, a Rembrandt among so many watercolors. By comparison, Carver Arena, the new site of the state tournament, is just another gym. As it turned out, tradition wasn’t a factor; it was all about the money. But IHSA officials, who began looking for ways to rekindle interest in the tournaments and address complaints about price-gouging by Champaign-Urbana merchants and hotel owners in the early 1990s, never anticipated a change. “I didn’t dream of what we could do differently,” said David Fry, then the IHSA’s executive director.“Yes,there were proposals out there.But it will be hard to beat what is available [in Champaign-Urbana]. I didn’t think the proposals that would come in would be significantly advantageous to the IHSA. But Peoria really wanted it.” Kouri arranged for a meeting in Peoria with Jim Flynn, an assistant executive director of the IHSA. He wanted to see if the rumor had any truth to it, if there was 176 / Sweet Charlie, Dike, Cazzie, and Bobby Joe even a scant possibility that the state tournament might be moved. He expected the meeting to last fifteen minutes. Instead, they talked for three hours. “Let me get this straight: You don’t feel appreciated in Champaign?” Kouri asked Flynn. “No,” Flynn said. “What would you say if I said our community would give you a financial incentive to come here?” Kouri asked. Flynn smiled. “Are you saying what I think you are saying?” Kouri asked. “Yes,” Flynn said.“But is your facility available for those two weekends?” “Yes, we have the dates,” Kouri said. In truth, Kouri didn’t have them at the time. In preparing for what he expected to be a brief meeting, he never thought the issue of dates would come up.“But I knew we could make it work if we got the tournament,” he said. “I felt dramatically different when I walked out of the room than when I walked in,” Kouri said.“This thing might move, I thought. No one will believe it. I felt, hey, we can get this thing if we do it right.” Flynn thought so, too. Unlike other IHSA officials, he thought that the tournament would move. Champaign-Urbana and the University of Illinois, which owns the Assembly Hall, were taking the IHSA for granted.“They never believed the tournament would leave the town,” Flynn said. So nobody blinked when the Assembly Hall raised its rental fee, demanded a higher percentage of merchandise sales and gross receipts, and began charging for parking. For years, tournament visitors had been complaining about rising prices for...