Shatel: From Kings to 'King,' Civic has seen it all

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The door of the Los Angeles Lakers locker room flew open. And here came the legends.

Doug Hartner was in the group waiting outside for autographs. He was 12 or 13 then. He can't remember. He can't tell you the year. These are trivial matters when you come face-to-face with Wilt Chamberlain.

The Stilt pushed his way out of the locker room at the Civic Auditorium. Like parting the Red Sea. But young Hartner stood his ground, waiting to take the charge in the name of getting Wilt's signature.

"He stopped in front of me," Hartner wrote. "I had to look straight up. Wilt was wearing a fur coat that was taller than me.

"I got Wilt's autograph and he moved on. He just signed it 'Wilt.'

"What an experience."

I have a confession to make. I had no idea about the Civic. None.

I knew that this is where Tony Barone won some games. Where Creighton sagged under Rick Johnson and was revived by Dana Altman. UNO hockey was born here. I saw Martina Navratilova and a young Pete Sampras play tennis here.

Nice building, nice history, but nothing special.

You, dear readers, have convinced me that the Civic might need some kind of landmark recognition.

There is unbelievable history here. The NBA played here. Wilt and Jerry West and John Havlicek. Pistol Pete Maravich wowed them. So did Larry Bird. Joe Frazier fought here. To name a few.

Half of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performed here. Bill Haley. Elvis Presley. The Rolling Stones. Queen. Van Halen. Kiss. Yes. Genesis. Fleetwood Mac. Neil Young. Billy Joel. Doing it in their primes, too.

Politics? A 1988 vice presidential debate that spawned a famous line. An appearance by George Wallace that sparked riots. Our current president, Barack Obama, made a campaign appearance there.

All that, in a little building that sat nestled on Capitol Avenue like Rosenblatt Stadium's little brother, in the shadows.

The Civic, or "City Auditorium," isn't dead yet. But its days are numbered. The Lancers and Beef are moving to Ralston next season. Very few concerts show up there anymore. It will soon become too expensive to keep open.

If a building could talk, imagine the stories. But it can't. So I petitioned you, the readers, to give me your memories. Tell your stories. The response was overwhelming. And a heck of a lot of fun to read.

Elvis Presley in 1977

I divided the memories into three categories: sports, concerts and "other," which could be anything.

There weren't many stories submitted about the 1977 Elvis concert or the Ron Stander-Joe Frazier fight, which was both surprising and disappointing.

Most of the sports memories started with Creighton basketball. And one name. Rick Apke.

The brother of former coach Tom Apke may have hit the most famous shot in Civic history to beat maybe the most famous college player to play there, Larry Bird. It happened on March 5, 1978, a 54-52 CU win over Indiana State in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship game — the third game between the teams that year.

As reader Jerry Kratochvil recalled, "Indiana State fans brought along a giant banner featuring a hatching egg with a No. 33 on it over the words 'He is coming.' It was pre-shot clock days and with almost five minutes left, the score was tied and Creighton had the ball. Coach Apke went to his four-corners game. With a few seconds left on the clock, Randy Eckker got the ball to Rick Apke for a long jumper, which he nailed.

"Crowd goes nuts, students storm the court and someone jumps up and rips down the egg banner."

What a year. Earlier that season, Kratochvil recalled, Nebraska played CU in Omaha for the first time since 1932 (the series took a break from 1932 to '77). He said NU coach Joe Cipriano got two technicals and was ejected late in a close game. Dave Wesely made six technical foul shots, with the crowd counting off each free throw. CU won 78-61.

The Rolling Stones performed to 650 fans in 1964.

Matt Redle recalled that, on Feb. 1 of that season, coach Ray Meyer brought 13th-ranked DePaul into the Civic and won a triple-overtime game.

Vince Valentino brought up an interesting game. On Dec. 10, 1961, CU beat Notre Dame 73-71 on a 35-footer from Chuck Officer, who, Valentino recalled, "took the ball after a rebound and raced down the center of the court, falling down just past the free-throw line as he underhanded the ball up against the backboard."

What was interesting about that game was the 1961-62 season was the first year that the Jays played all of their games in the Civic Auditorium.

There were plenty of NBA memories, from the four seasons that Omaha shared the Kings with Kansas City (1972 to '76). Imagine that: Omaha, an NBA town.

Rick Bettger remembers seeing Maravich score 20 points in the first quarter of a game, "floppy socks and all." Tim Schmad had this scene stuck in his head: "The legendary Bob Cousy, then our coach, leaving the auditorium all by himself, head down, in the distance."

On Valentine's Day of 1974, the Boston Celtics (who would be NBA champs in a few months) beat the Kings 104-101 in front of a record crowd of 9,736 fans. Back then, before chartered jets, the teams flew commercial. And that meant spending the night after the game.

Yano Mangiameli remembers the game. He also remembers seeing Celtics players Havlicek and Henry Finkel at a postgame spot called Mickey's after the game.

"I congratulated Havlicek on hitting the winning basket, and he mumbled something about almost losing it on a bad call near the end of the game," Mangiameli wrote. "They drank up and left without fanfare."

The band Kiss came to Omaha in 1984

The Celtics evoked memories in their stops here. Ralph Forbes told the story of watching former Boston center Dave Cowens stretching beneath a basket before the game. He said Cowens began talking to two young kids in wheelchairs, next to the basket.

"This probably went on for five minutes or so, and when he got up to go on court, he went over and shook their hands," Forbes wrote. "From my seat across the court I could see the excitement in those kids' faces. I'm sure they were blown away that a superstar would take the time to talk to them. No photographers, no TV commentators around. Just Dave Cowens being a super nice guy. I'll never forget that."

It wasn't a game, but Ann Walters told a story of meeting Bill Bradley of the New York Knicks. While in high school in Council Bluffs, Walters had admired Bradley for delaying his NBA career to become a Rhodes Scholar. She wrote him a letter while he was still at Princeton.

They began a correspondence that would lead to a meeting before the Knicks came to the Civic in 1972. After the game, Walters got to meet her hero. She said Bradley led her back into the arena, took several photos with her and talked for about 20 minutes about work he was doing with underprivileged youth and his political aspirations.

Jacob Eckley remembered watching the Metro holiday basketball tournament, and Kenya Crandell pulling himself up and sitting on the rim after Benson won it.

Logan Schere talked about the time he and his dad went to the first Omaha Beef game, sat next to the opposing bench and literally struck up a conversation with one of the players for the entire game.

Hockey tales? The UNO-Bowling Green play-in game in 2000, of course. One reader told a poignant tale of seeing legendary coach Herb Brooks, scouting for the Pittsburgh Penguins, in the top row of the Civic at a UNO game in 2003. Brooks chatted up the fan and signed his shirt, "Herb Brooks '80 Gold, '02 Silver."

A few months later, Brooks died in a car accident.

Even pay-per-view events were memorable at the Civic. John Beltzer recalled going to watch a Muhammad Ali fight "in the early '70s" at the Civic, with the crowd "dressed to the nines in mink coats, fedoras, gowns ... all chanting "ALI ... ALI ... ALI."

Tom Byers wrote that the Civic already had planned a viewing party for the 1963 Oklahoma-Nebraska football game in Lincoln. The game, and the viewing, went on as planned even after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated the day before.

"It was still pretty full," Byers wrote. "It was surreal in many ways, with the crowd very subdued and many no doubt feeling guilty for attending."

How many of you remember Bill Haley and the Comets playing Omaha? Byers does. He recalled attending the concert, at the Music Hall, on March 6, 1956. He wrote, "Although not allowed, there was much dancing in the aisles."

The Rolling Stones' June 13, 1964, appearance at the Music Hall was their fourth in the U.S. that year. Mike Dreves wrote, "Mick Jagger wore a green jacket and danced around like a wild man. I do remember they started a song and had to turn around and to give (drummer) Charlie Watts a glare because he was late on his drum intro."

I heard from only a few readers who saw Elvis at the Civic. They say it was pure screaming girl mania, but noted that Elvis by 1977 had gained weight, and because of his failing eyesight, certain colored lights were flashed on stage to let him know where he was.

My favorite concert story from readers might be when Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks played a sold-out Civic and left the stage in what seemed like the middle of the concert. They played a video of the band leaving in a pink Cadillac. The car breaks down. The band pushes the car down the road.

The band never came back. The unhappy crowd left in disbelief.

This year might be the Civic's encore. I'll leave you with a tribute from reader T.J. Harris: "I won't miss the Civic. It served its purpose. We're a better community for having had it. But a fantastic one now that we have other options."

Contact the writer:

402-444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com

twitter.com/tomshatelOWH

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