***
I really had no doubt that the BYU student body would come out in full force and support McGown’s freshman NCAA team but I still used some of my limited budget to run full page ads in The Daily Universe (the daily student newspaper that I was Sports Editor in 1981), three days prior to opening night. As I walked around the campus, in the shadow of BYU vs. Pepperdine posters that I placed everywhere, I could see students sitting together reading the school newspaper and talking about what they were going to do that coming Friday night. Everyone was talking up the Volleyball match against Pepperdine. The buzz was again on and I had a sure-fire winner.
So, let’s fast-forward to Opening Night ...
I had arranged for a group of 20 student ticket-takers and ushers coming to work that evening and I asked them all to come wearing white shirts and black slacks. Then I handed them all a clip-on black bow tie as well as a black cummerbund. They all looked great. Just like models right out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue.
When you are managing a sporting event that started at 7 p.m., you have to be there at least by 4:00 p.m. to “work the room”.
Think of being a Pit Boss that works a casino.
The Pit Boss will show up hours before “game time” to survey his turf. In other words, I was the BYU Pit Boss and was there to walk the competition court and to look at everything. Look at every wall, every seat; to look at every possibly minute item that a fan or a working journalist might look at.
Nothing passes the eye of this Pit Boss!
Now, one special thing that I created that I didn’t want anyone to know about, or even see, before the match began.
Before I flew up to Provo to meet with McGown, I had 8 x 8 vinyl banners made with, and in the colors, name and with the logo of each team in the WIVA – the West Coast Intercollegiate Volleyball Association conglomerate that included teams from the Big West Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Pacific-10 Conference and the West Coast Conference. The WIVA had the very best men’s Volleyball teams in America and was a league that included perennial powerhouses UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, Stanford, San Diego State and now Brigham Young. When deciding to join the NCAA, Carl McGown really had no other choice but to petition the BYU athletic administration to join the WIVA as there was simply no other league in the country that the Cougars could join.
So, on one side of the Smith Fieldhouse were banners depicting the six teams that made up the “Western Division” of the WIVA: UCLA, USC, Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara and BYU – with the “Eastern Division” being Loyola Marymount, Stanford, San Diego State, Cal State Northridge and the University of the Pacific. Each banner was in the primary colors of each school with each name in bold block letters.
Certainly nothing new on the BYU Campus as the athletics administration does the same for BYU Basketball in the 22,000 seat Marriott Center with every team of the West Coast Conference having the same style banners in the upper sections of that arena, so I figured it would be easily acceptable to the fans, administrators e when they first walked into the Smith Fieldhouse. It was my mantra to always ask forgiveness instead of permission – especially at a church-run university; and, if I’m allowed to say so, the banners really looked great and a variation of them are still up (as of this writing) at all BYU Men’s Volleyball matches in the Smith Fieldhouse.
With the building set and ready to go … and now about 90 minutes before the match was to begin, a truck pulled up just left of the front entrance and within moments fired up a Xenon 6, a well-known illumination addition to any Hollywood premier. The Xenon 6, unlike one single searchlight, comes equipped with four independent 5,000 watt searchlights. When these babies fired up, they lit up the entire Utah Valley and could be seen 30 miles away. Having lived most of my youth in Southern California, I knew these searchlights would not only pull people in from everywhere just to see what is going on but add to the exciting ambiance of the event. Curiosity is a wondrous thing as the entire lower campus of BYU was instantly transformed into Hollywood and Vine. You would not believe the number of people who were now clamoring to get into Smith Fieldhouse. When you work a special event, you want to keep people waiting as long as possible before you open the floodgates so on purpose we kept the doors closed as long as possible. Since it was open seating for this event at Smith Fieldhouse, once the door flew open it would be a title wave of thousands of people clambering to get inside.
A few other items to mention ...
During the 1950’s, Smith Fieldhouse, home to the BYU Basketball team was notorious for noise.
It is a confined space where the proverbial pin drop can be heard at the top of the stands when empty; but when you put 5,000 people inside Smith Fieldhouse, the building shakes to its foundation. At the top left side of the stands, on a platform, is an organ, with keyboard intact, still in place. I looked through some old athletic journals and found the name of the decades-long organist who played live music (including the BYU Cougar Fight Song) throughout each basketball game.
I called Ralph Zobell at BYU Sports Information, got his telephone number and personally invited the organist to return to the Fieldhouse and play the great organ music that for so many years added to the rich sports heritage at BYU. He quickly accepted and I made a point to greet him when he entered the workers entrance of the arena and we chatted away as I walked with him to the upper section of the Fieldhouse and his “long lost friend”.
Now, everything was just about set.
The final piece and most important person in the arena was that of Head Janitor, Stuart Randolph. A Janitor? Excuse me but did we have a spill of baby food on aisle eight?
Just what was his role in the mind of my madness?
Just wait.
You are going to love this …
***
You can’t believe the rush of energy that motivated sports fans bring with them. Once the doors of Smith Fieldhouse cracked opened, there were dozens, then hundreds of people running - running – to get their prime seat. Hey, in sports and as in life, when you snooze you lose. Fans that came in late were scrambling to the upper sections. Then the in-house organ fired up and it sounded so sweet. Just like being at a MLB baseball game but inside a sports arena. Both Pepperdine and BYU continued their warms up – now with about 15 minutes before the match was to start. Talk about tension – it was thicker than marmalade on a cold winter’s morning. The fans were buzzing. Pepperdine was and of this writing, today coached by the marvelous Marv Dunphy and seeing both him and Carl McGown on the same court was just great. Of course I wore my best dark suit, white shirt and tie and stood on center court chatting with McGown.
I love the game of Volleyball.
With the warm-ups over, both teams cleared the floor with the sweepers moving up and down to clear the surface.
And I was the public address announcer.
Why not? It was my event and I told Carl beforehand that I was going to do it and that was that.
So, I pressed the talk button and let it rip.
First up was the traditional welcome, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Smith Fieldhouse for the first NCAA Men’s Volleyball match between the visiting Pepperdine Waves and YOUR BYU Cougars”.
I might have mentioned before about the noise level in this building.
Just by my saying that, the crowd roared.
First up in the pre-game festivities was a barbershop quartet. I found these four guys singing in the hallways of the BYU Music Department one week earlier and they were really great. I put this no-name group in the requisite black tie and cummerbund and they came to center court to sing the National Anthem. The Star Spangled Banner never sounded so sweet