If a basketball gym could cry, you may see tears rolling down the bricked walls of Tiger Gym tonight.
The final home Hopkinsville High School basketball game in history is scheduled to be held there tonight as the Tigers fittingly play Christian County for the Boys’ District 8 Tournament championship.
Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. and there will be many in attendance who remember the first year the beautiful gym opened its doors to fans for the first time.
The season was 1968-69 and Roy Woolum was the head coach for the Tigers. William Falls was the top assistant and Carl Yahnig was the Hoptown JV coach.
Yahnig actually would get the first Tigers’ victory in the gym over Earlington. Later that night, Hoptown defeated the No. 5-ranked Earlington Yellow Jackets behind the play of William “Bird” Averitt.
Yahnig said it’s a memory he will always carry with him.
Wendell Lynch, who was a member of the 1968-69 Hopkinsville team, said the Tigers had played the year before in the Attucks High School Gym while Tiger Gym was being built. That year, the Tigers struggled and not much was expected of them the next season.
However, history tells us that the Tigers claimed their first Region 2 championship in the same year that Tiger Gym, which seats 4,800 fans, opened in 1968-69. The “Black and Decker” team went on to fall to powerful Louisville Central in the state quarterfinals in Louisville.
Lynch said the gym was so beautiful and large, it quickly became known as, “The Palace.”
It seemed the gym was made especially for the 1968-69 Tigers’ team, which quickly earned the name, “Black and Decker.” The starters on that team were Lynch, Averitt, Henry Parker, Melvin Woodard, and Richard Decker.
Lynch said playing in the gym brought huge crowds to their games and galvanized the community.
A youngster at the time, future Hoptown star Tommy Wade, was introduced to the gym before any team took the floor. His father, Tom Wade, and the Superintendent Gene Farley, were friends, and the younger Wade was allowed to get a tour of the facility and get up some shots before the gym even opened.
In his senior year, Wade’s Tigers’ team played in one of the most memorable games in the gym’s history against Christian County in the 1974 district championship. Before a packed house, the Tigers missed three front-ends of one-and-one free throw opportunities and the Colonels converted. Victor Jordan eventually hit a late shot to give the Colonels the win in double overtime.
Along the way, the gym was the home of the city’s first KHSAA Sweet 16 State Basketball Tournament championship team. The 1985 Tigers had to hold off Christian County in front of a standing-room only crowd in the Region 2 title game to advance to the state tournament. Once there, Hoptown dispatched Greenup County and edged Paintsville in overtime. A semifinal win over former Christian County coach Bob Hoggard and Oldham County sent the Tigers to the state championship where they beat Richie Farmer and Clay County.
Wendell Quarles was the Most Valuable Player of the Sweet 16 and said Tiger Gym always was an advantage for the home team.
The gym offers fans a unique view of the game with chair back seats at balcony level behind the goals.
Yahnig remembers watching Quarles’ Tigers and seeing a play he won’t forget.
There were other moments for the Tigers in the gym as well. Terry Hayes’ 2003 team went 33-3 and advanced to the state semifinals.
Tim Haworth’s Tigers dominated the region, claiming region titles in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017.
Home to many district and region tournaments, the gym also was much more to the community.
According to Lynch, the first game played in the gym was an exhibition played by the Kentucky Colonels in the summer of 1968 before the high school season started. Ironically, Averitt would later become a member of the American Basketball Association champion Colonels, coached by Hubie Brown.
The gym also played host to several University of Kentucky Seniors basketball traveling tour games. Some will remember when former Wildcats’ guard Jay Shidler and the Kentucky Seniors came to Hopkinsville. Shidler showed up for the game the next day with a black eye after a night on the town.
The Harlem Globetrotters made several stops to delight the community children and basketball fans at Tiger Gym in the 1970s.
The Atlanta Rhythm Section even played a concert there in the early 1970s.
Tiger Gym also was the home of many wrestling matches, volleyball matches, homecoming dances, graduations, and pep rallies.
Students in 1984 may remember when former football coaching legend Fleming Thornton was seated in the balcony seats behind the basketball goal on the Eastern side of the gym during a pep rally for the Tigers’ football team. The Tigers were about to head off to the Class 3-A state title game against Danville.
Emotion overcame Thornton, who had long-since retired. But age didn’t’ stop him. As the cheers continued, Thornton climbed over the railing, stepped out on the orange post that holds up the basketball goal and tiptoed out toward the backboard. The gym grew stone quiet as students waited for what might be a terrible fall.
Instead, Thornton stepped off the bar, grabbed the bar with one hand and slung himself out into the center of the paint under the basket. As his feet hit the floor, the gym erupted into a level maybe never heard before or since.
So as the cheers and noise of the gym fade to a dim and finally silence tonight after the Tigers and Colonels meet one more time, forgive “The Palace” if it weeps just a little.
It’s been a fun ride.
Photos provided by Carl Yahnig and Wendell Lynch