This autumn, first-year students at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire are passing by a flat open space along the south side of Garfield Avenue, west of the Stowe Family Arch. The last students to be able to see unobstructed along this stretch would likely be no younger than their mid-90s. The preponderance of the institution’s living alumni would find unrecognizable this central part of the campus.

From the early 1950s until this past summer, that space was marked by Brewer Hall, the Kjer Theatre, and Zorn Arena. Students were taught, practices were learned, and memories were made in this complex. For most of the public, Zorn Arena occupied the most prominent place in Chippewa Valley culture. It hosted Blugolds basketball, the university’s graduations, concerts, speeches, and much more.

With many of these events now based in The Sonnentag about a mile down the Chippewa River, and the old facility now a mix of rubble and recollections, an encapsulation seems appropriate for the decades when Zorn Arena was where area audiences primarily congregated. This is the story of Eau Claire’s first arena.

As older alumni know, the building was not always named after W.L. “Bill” Zorn; he was the men’s basketball coach from the 1928-29 season through 1967-68, in addition to serving as Athletic Director, football coach, and more. The ultimate name was adopted in 1987 following Zorn’s passing; University Arena had been the moniker since 1969, and University Fieldhouse prior and back to its 1952 opening.

Around 1946, then-president W.R. Davies had funds available to expand what was then Eau Claire State Teachers College. Sarah Beer, an Associate University Archivist at the university, shed light on the institution’s evolution. “We had not had a new building on campus in more than thirty years (Schofield Hall in 1916), and it was painfully evident. Our enrollment boomed in the post-World War II era and we were hoping to transition to a liberal arts college, both of which called for increased space.”

That November, student-led university newspaper The Spectator published an article detailing plans for a fieldhouse constructed from surplus army aircraft material. “Mr. Zorn says it’s all here, all 231,000 pounds, ready and waiting in the fifteen crates originally intended to carry it overseas. It will be a valuable addition to the college, as a building 160 x 147 feet can prove helpful in easing dormitory or recreational difficulties. Plenty of other colleges are making efforts to get such hangars, too, so Eau Claire State is right up to date in this welcome project.”

“For the first 35 years of our university’s history, we only had one major building. In the 20 years following Zorn’s construction, we built 16 more… It was the starting point for change.”

Sarah Beer,

Associate University Archivist, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Construction on the complex was underway in the early 1950s; Dec. 6, 1952, marked the first game in the fieldhouse, a 91-49 men’s basketball victory over the University of Chicago. Says Beer, “For the first 35 years of our university’s history, we only had one major building. In the 20 years following Zorn’s construction, we built 16 more — 12 in the 1960s alone. It was the starting point for change.”

The fieldhouse at the renamed Wisconsin State College at Eau Claire primarily hosted coach Zorn’s teams through the 1960s. His successor’s tenure brought Blugolds basketball its greatest performance, and he too would have his name permanently honored in the venue, adorning the basketball court starting in 2012. That coach was Ken Anderson.

The Blugolds men’s basketball team never had a losing conference or overall regular season in Anderson’s 27 seasons as head coach. Tim Petermann served as the university’s Sports Information Director (SID) from 1971-2007. “The Blugolds once had a 33-game home court win streak. Anderson’s record in Zorn was 387-44, an .897 winning percentage. During his 27-year tenure, six times the Blugolds were undefeated at home and another 10 times they lost only one home game.”

As SID, Petermann was tasked with accommodating increased media attention for a much more successful team that then played in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). “With the caliber of players in the league in the 1970s and 1980s, there wasn’t a lot of room when I would have scouts wanting to get in,” Petermann recalled. “Sports Illustrated came for the 1971 Holiday Classic when Eau Claire and Kentucky State were the No. 1 and No. 2 small college teams in the country. Tough to find space for them.”

The more-frequent wins led to more passionate fans. Mike Johnson starred for the Blugolds during three NAIA postseason tournament runs from 1989-91; he is now Superintendent of the Eau Claire Area School District. “Zorn was special due to the crowds. We have learned that from the eras prior to us, where students had to be in line by 4pm. in the afternoon to get a seat for tipoff at 7pm Our roommates and friends knew they had to be there by around 6pm for a 7pm game to get a seat.”

“The atmosphere was second to none during a big game, as you could hear the crowd and feel the vibration in the locker room below the balcony.”

Mike Johnson,

Superintendent, Eau Claire Area School Disrict

During games, the fan intensity could be physically felt, Johnson said. “The atmosphere was second to none during a big game, as you could hear the crowd and feel the vibration in the locker room below the balcony.”

This also led to a special Zorn welcome for Blugold opponents. “When the visiting team was introduced, Blugold students would open newspapers in the stands. This ritual continued until the fire marshal deemed the practice a hazard and it was banned,” Petermann shared.

Similar scenes came from women’s basketball games, particularly beginning with the Lisa Stone era, primarily in the 1990s, including the hosting of the 1994 NCAA Division III Final Four. Her successor still helms the team: Tonja Englund.

The top Zorn memory for Coach Englund is the 2002-03 season, with the 32-2 Blugolds setting a team record for victories and making another Final Four appearance. The climax of a run of NCAA Tournament games at Zorn was in the Elite Eight against No. 1-ranked Hope College; fans camped outside the building to get tickets. “It was a close game at halftime and it was so loud in there in the second half, I’ll never forget it, but the home crowd definitely helped us win that game.”

Rebecca (Spaeth) Bestul was a center on that team; the victory over Hope to send the Blugolds to the Final Four also stands out to her. “That memory is still vivid, with that huge crowd, many people who came to see me specifically, as Chippewa Falls is my hometown and right up the road.”

For Johnson, a February 1991 win over UW-Platteville is his favorite Zorn Arena memory, as it marked Coach Anderson’s 1,000th victory. “I was honored to contribute toward it,” he said.

Petermann noted how placards printed with “1,000” were distributed among fans towards the end of the game to be raised at its conclusion. Johnson also recalls a couple instances that year with late game steals. “I was trailing the play and just remembered the crowd rise on either side as both of them broke toward the bucket. Couldn’t hear myself think because the crowd was so loud.”

Matt Siverling coached the men’s basketball team for its final 12 seasons in the venue; his top Zorn memory is more personal. “It would be walking into the gym after a hard-fought game and seeing my family waiting for me, ready to support me regardless of the outcome.”

Arenas are like homes. They may have similarity, just like houses in a given neighborhood, but subtle differences and the usage by the inhabitants give each building a story.

Arenas are like homes. They may have a similarity to one another, just like houses in a given neighborhood, but subtle differences and the usage by their inhabitants give each building a unique story.

The home court advantage developed at Zorn Arena was significantly derived from the fans. Siverling felt the electric atmosphere. “When Zorn was packed, the roar of the crowd and the shared pride created momentum that inspired the Blugolds and rattled the opposition,” he said. “It was a place where passion met tradition, and that made all the difference.”

In Petermann’s view, “(T)he proximity of the students to the court was intimidating in addition to the limited space behind the end lines.” A similar observation came from Englund: “It was a great place to shoot as a basketball player, because the walls were so close behind the hoops.”

“It was really one of the true ‘old-school’ arenas still standing,” Bestul said. “Some of the guys at the table during games had been there for longer than I had been alive, and remembered every win, back to the Ken Anderson era.”

Johnson recalls that “Community members, boosters, and many professors were all interested — they had their seats since the 1970s.” Englund recalled seeing the same decades-long season ticket holders, as well as the feeling similar to gyms in the movie “Hoosiers.”

“I always will love that Zorn Arena sat right in the middle of campus… For our players, it was just a part of their academic day,” Englund said. “It was: you go to your classes and then you head right over to Zorn, and it was right there.”

Some of the advantages were perhaps better termed as disadvantages for visiting teams. “(H)aving visited other courts, Zorn’s lighting did not seem as bright as other school’s until there was an overhaul of the lights,” Petermann said. Bestul adds, “The opposing locker room was a dump.”

More a quirk than an advantage was the arrangement of two locker rooms on one side of the building with a shared shower location, presenting challenges during multi-team tournaments.

“A staff member would have to physically open and lock the doors on either end of the shower depending upon who needed to use them,” Petermann said. “This problem was compounded when the women’s basketball team started playing in Zorn and also when the Blugolds started (playing) men’s and women’s doubleheaders.”

While most of us experienced Zorn from its narrow hallways, the smell of popcorn, and the wooden benches, team personnel encountered more — including beneath the court. Johnson did team laundry for work-study, hauling a 50-gallon bucket for washing and drying at the laundry room. “That room had a small door that actually got you under the Zorn raised floor, if you wanted to crawl and explore.” According to Bestul, “There were times when animals got in and needed to be removed.”

The heart within the home was the locker room. A mural had been painted in the women’s locker room by one of Lisa Stone’s teams; Englund and Bestul (by then an assistant coach) added to it to maintain program continuity. “Our locker room was our own special place, and Coach Englund did everything she could to make it special,” says Bestul. “There was history all over the walls, in pictures, posters, and memories.”

Additionally, “The athletic training room had a REALLY small ice-bath that we used to cram as many people as possible into. There were some really interesting conversations in that training room!”

Englund recalled being in the team room when the 2011-12 squad found out it had qualified for the NCAA Tournament. “(I)t was in that room that we built a lot of like pride and memories, and it was my goal that any player that was on a championship team was acknowledged someplace in those two rooms.”

As a replacement for Zorn Arena began to be discussed in the 2010s, a quote was often referenced from the 1971 Sports Illustrated story derived from the aforementioned top-two match-up against Kentucky State. The line: “Not too far in the future the Blugolds hope to be playing in a new 10,000-seat arena, but for now they will have to make do with their tiny, 3,500-seat fieldhouse…”

From 1971 until Zorn’s closure in 2024, UW-Eau Claire had the oldest basketball venue in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and its predecessor conferences.“ As the facility began to show its age, it started to impact the experience for coaches, players, and fans,” Siverling said.

“There were parts of that building being held together by duct tape (that’s not a joke),” says Bestul. “The scoreboard was on its last leg and frequently stopped games when something shorted out. The popcorn maker triggered the fire alarm during a game and the building had to get cleared by the fire department. If the lights went out, it took 10 minutes for them to come back on.”

Coach Englund observed differences while recruiting high schoolers in the Twin Cities, too. “A lot of those big schools, many of them have 18 to 20 baskets (compared to six in Zorn), they have eight to 10 wood floors at their high school.”

The passage of generations was growing in significance, as well. “(T)hose of us that have been around… really, really appreciate history and tradition, but our newer generation, they don’t understand those things. And so you have to continue to move with the times.”

Bestul adds, “Of course I thought it was the best when I played, but in later years I could see the truth, that we were being passed up.”

In October of 2015, a replacement was announced, on the Eau Claire County Materials site along Menomonie Avenue east of Clairemont Avenue. After years of efforts to secure funds, what became The Sonnentag broke ground in the spring of 2022. While some other universities have used replaced facilities for other purposes, Zorn Arena was now essentially obsolete to the university.

Feb. 17, 2024, marked the final game at Zorn Arena, an 83-70 men’s basketball victory over UW-La Crosse. Demolition began sixteen months later.

The tearing-down of a sports venue is not common around the Chippewa Valley. Such ends are a part of national sports lore: the baseball-painted wrecking ball that began to break the walls of New York’s legendary Ebbets Field; the Y2K-era implosion videos of the “cookie cutter” multipurpose stadiums.

Between Zorn Arena and Carson Park, the Eau Claire area has had a constancy to its primary sports venues for over a half-century. Watching Zorn disappear via photo and video was an unusual sight this past summer. The arena gradually opened from east to west as July passed to August; capturing the progress, area photographer Tina Ecker found a basketball hoop on the ground, its brace compressed between a steel support beam and chunks of concrete, newly illuminated in sunlight.

Some tangible aspects of Zorn have been saved. Parts of the bleachers are displayed in The Sonnentag’s lobby. Coach Englund removed all that she could from the women’s locker room to return to alumni, and made a point to establish a recollection of Zorn and Blugolds history in the new locker room.

The legacy is intangible, and lives in spirit and the memories of those who went in the building. Almost every student passed through, during their time at the university. As Beer notes, “(H)istory students likely wouldn’t have gone into the nursing building; music students might not have stepped foot into Phillips; kinesiology students may never have gone into Schneider — but at some point or another, most will have been in Zorn.”

Those who never attended UW-Eau Claire will have their own recollections. Future presidents and high profile political figures spoke to packed rallies, nationally known performers sang and spoke. This author was one of many who danced… in “Dancing With The Eau Claire Stars.”

“I think the best way to describe the evolution of Zorn is to say that it went from another building on campus — something constructed to fill a need — to a community hub,” Beer said.

Of course, much will be missed. “I miss having Blugold Basketball right on campus, and I miss the energy that was felt in Zorn Arena during games,” Siverling Johnson adds. “I’ll miss that campus feel. The Sonnentag Center is amazing, but Zorn was much more than a gym.”

Yet, much is to be gained. For Bestul, his own nostalgia-baked memories made it sad to see Zorn torn down. “But I’m VERY excited about the future in The Sonnentag… what an amazing facility!”

Coach Englund compares the transition to the move from an old house to a new house. “I loved it genuinely, and now we’re into our next phase, and our goal here is to win a national championship… I can look back and say Zorn was a pride point, and so is Sonnentag.”

The University Fieldhouse, University Arena, or Zorn Arena — by whichever name one remembers the venue, is cemented in Eau Claire history. Zorn Arena, forever a Blugold.