Memorabilia: Farewell to McGaw, Welcome to Welsh-Ryan Arena

Today’s Northwestern memorabilia post focuses on items given to fans at the last game at the old McGaw Hall and the first at brand new Welsh-Ryan Arena in 1983. People often have very negative things to say about Welsh-Ryan Arena today, but I think it has a lot of good points. Still, I have to admit that I suspect there have not been a ton of changes to Welsh-Ryan since McGaw was remodeled in 1983 and some areas of the building show that pretty prominently. The concourse being the most obvious.

First off we have a hard hat which was given to fans at the last game hosted at McGaw Hall in 1982. With the building getting remodeled, the hard hat was a pretty cool giveaway. I can imagine fans, at least in the student section, might even have enjoyed wearing those the next season as well.
Next up we have key chair in the form of a ticket which was given to fans at the first game NU hosted in the remodeled Welsh-Ryan Arena. You can see in the close up at this point the arena was being called Welsh-Ryan Arena in McGaw Hall. Now, despite the fact the building is still McGaw Hall, that full name has been dropped. I also want to say I have no idea why NU chose Section 103 Row H Seat 11 as the seat for the key chair. I suspect some reason must have existed, perhaps it was the first seat installed.

News and Notes: Chicago College Baskeetball named 1931 hero Joseph Reiff the fourth best player in Chicago Basketball history. Here the link: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-college-basketball/2009/08/top-10-greatest-chicago-college-basketball-players---4.html