Memorial Gymnasium Dedication

Christenbury Memorial Gymnasium
Image source: https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22878

During WWII, East Carolina experienced the tragedies of war as never before: between 1942 and 1945, one faculty and two dozen former students died while serving their country. Earlier, during WWI, the Training School had raised funds for war bonds, knitted layettes for victimized European infants, and incorporated the ideals of democracy and the duties of patriotism into its curricula. Family members and friends were lost but none of the student body had fallen victim. WWII was profoundly different: 24 East Carolina students who joined the call to arms sacrificed their lives in the effort, as did a promising young professor of health and physical education, John B. Christenbury (1907-1944), one of the school’s most successful athletic leaders.

East Carolina remembered those fallen on January 6, 1953, with the dedication of its new gymnasium first to the memory of Christenbury, ECTC coach from 1940 until 1943 when he took a leave of absence to enlist in the Navy. Christenbury died July 17, 1944, in a horrific munitions explosion at Port Chicago, California, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring another 390. ECC also paid tribute to the 24 alumni who died in WWII, plus two others who fell in the years following while serving in the armed forces. Throughout the 1950s and well into the 1960s, the gym – its cornice labeled in stone, “Health and Physical Education” – was commonly referred to as “Memorial Gymnasium” rather than Christenbury. Only in the late 1960s as the center of ECU athletics moved to Minges Coliseum did the old gym, also known as “the college gym,” come to be referred to as Christenbury. Even then, many continued to use the older name.

An overflow crowd of 3,000 attended the dedication. ECC President John Messick presided while Dr. O. K. Cornwell, chair of the UNC Department of Physical Education and Athletics, delivered the main address. In it, Cornwell explained how athletics was a vital support of education, adding rather philosophically that “in sports, we learn to lose our identity in the interest of the team. This is a valuable lesson in our society.”

The ECC college band led by Herbert L. Carter and the Varsity Men’s Glee Club conducted by Kenneth Cuthbert provided performances for the occasion. Dr. Robert L. Holt, director of religious activities, offered the invocation. Gladys R. White, a faculty in the Music Department, concluded the dedication ceremony by singing the national anthem.

The following, all North Carolinians, were offered special remembrance:

  • Morris L. Abeyounis (1923-1943) Greenville, N.C.
  • O. D. Andrews (1919-1942) Rocky Mount, N.C.
  • Norman E. Best (1919-1945) Mount Olive, N.C.
  • Herbert Hemby Burnett (1914-1943) Farmville, N.C.
  • Leon M. Cannon (1923-1945) Ayden, N.C.
  • John B. Christenbury (1907-1944) Charlotte, N.C.
  • Edward Graham Coward (1919-1943) Ayden, N.C.
  • John R. Denton, Jr. (1920-1943) Raleigh, N.C.
  • William F. Ervin (1920-1944) Richlands, N.C.
  • Jesse B. Gray (1921-1945) Stokes, N.C.
  • Kenneth Lane Henderson (1921-1945) Greenville, N.C.
  • M. Francis Jennings (1915-1947) Elizabeth City, N.C.
  • John C. Johnston (1920-1942) Greenville, N.C.
  • William A. Lovett, Jr. (1922-1944) Elizabethtown, N.C.
  • Charlie H. Mayo (1919-1949) Greenville, N.C.
  • Thomas J. Meeks (1919-1943) Pitt County, N.C.
  • Henry Matt Phillips (1918-1944) Greenville, N.C.
  • Jesse Lyle Rollins (1921-1944) Winterville, N.C.
  • William S. Sledge (1915-1943) Louisburg, N.C.
  • Elmer L. Smith (1916-1943) Ayden, N.C.
  • James Fenly Spear, II. (1922-1944) Chapel Hill, N.C.
  • Claude Wayland Tucker (1919-1945) Greenville, N.C.
  • William C. Vaughan (1924-1945) Henderson, N.C.
  • Joseph H. Walker (1921-1945) Asheville, N.C.
  • George Lewis West (1919-1943) LaGrange, N.C.
  • James Stanley Woolfolk (1919-1943) Greenville, N.C.
  • Stephen Alvin Wooten, Jr. (1922-1943) Macclesfield, N.C.  

The new gym had first opened earlier, in July 1952, with an informal reception and aquatic show. Classes in health and physical education began during the second session of summer school. No sooner had Memorial Gym opened than the East Carolinian noted that some felt it was not nearly large enough for the growing school. Defenders explained that funding for a larger facility had not been available. Though “not the largest health and physical education building in the state,” the East Carolinian affirmed that “it is one of the best,” and one that “everyone at East Carolina should be proud.”

On its main floor, Memorial Gym included three classrooms, a suite of offices, three activity rooms, cross-courts for basketball, six badminton courts, and three volleyball courts. Seating capacity in the main court area was 2,397 (525 permanent balcony seats, 1008 stationary folding seats, and 864 removable folding seats). Synchronized scoreboards were located at opposite ends. The main floor also included six dressing rooms, a movie room with a built-in projector, and a first aid room. On the ground floor were dormitory quarters for visiting teams.

Separated from the main gymnasium by sliding metal doors was East Carolina’s first swimming pool, an indoor heated pool, 75’ X 35’, tiled in green, white, and black. Skylights above admitted natural light, while underwater lighting added to “its beauty.” The pool also included two diving boards. Spiral stairs provided access to and from dressing rooms in the basement.

Following the dedication, Memorial Gym hosted a uniquely historic basketball game pitting the Pirates against Frank McGuire’s (1913-1994) Tar Heel team. This occasion was the first and only time UNC and ECU competed in basketball. The Tar Heels, then number one in the Southern Conference, won, but not without a fight. ECC, a North State Conference team, played “surprisingly strong” ball and even pulled ahead briefly in the game’s final seven minutes. But ECC’s 56-54 lead soon dwindled as Tar Heel MVP, Vince Grimaldi (1930-2013), scored successive baskets, energizing the 79-66 Tar Heel rout that followed.

Critics of the gym were prophetic: fifteen years later, the once new facility was replaced by a far grander, architecturally innovative one, Minges Coliseum. Fittingly, the Health and Physical Education Building, now commonly referred to as Christenbury Gymnasium, has since become home to the Army ROTC offices and a campus center recognizing those who have served in the armed forces.

From the start, ties between the gym and military remembrance had been strong. During Homecoming of 1953, the ECC Veteran’s Club presented a “Victory Bell,” cast from bronze in 1855 and acquired from the U.S. Navy, to the college “in recognition of men and women of ECC who served in our country’s armed forces.” Additionally, the bell was “intended as a symbol of victory in East Carolina athletics” to be “rung following contests won by the college Pirates.”

The Victory Bell was rededicated on April 26, 2011, in conjunction with ceremonies surrounding the new Freedom Wall and Memorial Walk “honoring veterans of all wars.” An integral part of the Freedom Wall and Memorial Walk, the Victory Bell was moved from the eastside of Christenbury to its westside, facing the gym to the east. From the time of its 1953 dedication ceremony, the old gym, which still has “Health and Physical Education” chiseled on its cornice, thus continues to evolve as the campus’ most hallowed site of training, honor, recognition, and remembrance for those who serve in the armed forces.

Sources

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Citation Information

Title: Memorial Gymnasium Dedication

Author: John A. Tucker, PhD

Date of Publication: 5/5/2022

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