
Where Beavers Gather
By Kip Carlson
By Kip Carlson
For Mary (Ayotte) Law, ’82, it’s a sensation she can’t shake. “When I walk into Gill Coliseum — and it can be empty — I hear people cheering for me,” said Law, a national champion OSU gymnast from 1978 to 1982. “I just have this vivid memory of hearing people cheering and clapping and being happy, and it rings in my ears.
“There’s something about the way the sound of that happy cheering just kind of remains in there. It lives in there.”
The silent shouts lingering amid steel girders could be for hundreds of Oregon State athletes throughout the decades, or for the wide range of events that have populated Gill Coliseum’s 75 years. If the Memorial Union lounge is Oregon State’s living room, then Gill Coliseum — or simply “Gill” to many — is its rumpus room. From basketball to bachelor’s degrees, turtle races to takedowns, dismounts to duets, the venerable arena has seen it all. This winter marks the diamond anniversary of the building’s opening in November 1949.
“If other buildings have produced the same kind of usage that building has over 75 years, let’s bring them on,” said Erin Haynes, ’72. A football player in his student days, Haynes witnessed more than 30 years’ worth of the coliseum’s activities, as he remained on campus until 2005, working in the OSU athletics department, admissions office, OSU Foundation and OSU Alumni Association.
Building Bigger and Better
Oregon State broke ground in June 1948 for the $1.8 million, 10,200-seat building. At the time, it was unusual for a structure of that size to have no interior posts blocking spectator views. The coliseum took over the role of Beaver gathering place from the old Men’s Gymnasium (now Langton Hall), which could seat only about 2,500. From the start, the building, officially known as the OSC Coliseum, was commonly referred to as Gill Coliseum in tribute to alumnus (class of 1924) and longtime men’s basketball coach Amory “Slats” Gill. It was his popular winning teams, after all, that helped spur the need for a larger arena.
The coliseum’s first event, a concert by the Vienna Boys Choir, was on Nov. 18, 1949, when the building was still under construction. The first athletic event was Oregon State’s 53-41 win over Utah in men’s basketball on Dec. 16, 1949. “Those who were here for the dedication game were astonished by the size and comfort of this massive arena,” wrote Don McLeod of The Oregonian, noting it compared favorably with the “ultra-modern emporiums” Madison Square Garden and the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium.
The Scene of the Action
The initial events foreshadowed the wide variety of athletic and non-athletic events that would soon be available for Oregon State students, the Corvallis community and even wider audiences. Gill was the spot for Oregon State graduations from 1950 through 2000, as well as the annual Beta Theta Pi Turtle Derby from the 1960s into the 1980s. In 1957, the university constructed KOAC’s first TV studios in the building. The Horner Museum, a collection of curiosities from around the world, was housed in Gill’s basement from 1950 until 1995. The Oregon State Junior-Senior Prom was held there during the 1950s and 1960s.
It was [Coach Gill’s] popular winning teams, after all, that helped spur the need for a larger arena.
Native American students organize an annual powwow — now in its 45th year — at the site. It’s been host to concerts ranging from Marian Anderson to the Grateful Dead to Garth Brooks to military bands; a Model United Nations convention; interfraternity/sorority and all-campus group singing competitions; high school graduations; Corvallis-OSU Symphony performances; high school state tournaments in basketball, wrestling and volleyball; and speakers including Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Alex Haley and Ogden Nash.
Gill has provided a forum for not just speeches but also social change and awareness. On Feb. 25, 1969, at a time of racial tension on campus and around the nation, Oregon State alumnus and two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling was delivering an OSU Centennial Lecture in Gill when OSU’s Black Student Union staged a “walk-in.” With Pauling and OSU President James Jensen on the dais, approximately 70 students approached the stage. Eventually, football player Rich Harr and BSU President Mike Smith were allowed to speak to a crowd estimated at 6,000 about discrimination in student rights, housing and social activities, according to the next day’s Daily Barometer.
In December 1970, Oregon State students took to the court during a basketball game against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-affiliated Brigham Young University. The protesters urged OSU to join other schools in stopping competition with BYU because of the church’s policy of not allowing Black men into the priesthood. In 2015, a Students of Color Speak Out event invited students, faculty and community members to share their experiences with racism on campus and in Corvallis.
Big and Little OSU Moments
Other visits to Gill were for reasons more mundane. Until class registration became computer-based, it was held in Gill Coliseum, with students scurrying from instructor to instructor to secure their classes.
Sometimes academics took over the coliseum at the end of a term: Tony Vandermeer, ’82, remembers the sections of his freshman chemistry class being so large that the final exam was held in Gill.
“I remember the basketball team coming out in the middle of our finals to practice,” Vandermeer said. “I could have sworn I saw Ray Blume sitting down there laughing at us getting stuck taking the final while he got to go play basketball.”
Most Beavers have more than one vivid memory from Gill. Larry Landis, former director of OSU’s Special Collections and Archives Research Center, remembers when OSU men’s basketball player Earnest Killum Jr., a highly regarded sophomore guard, died suddenly on Jan. 20, 1992, from a stroke. His memorial service was held in Gill a few days later and, according to the Daily Barometer, was attended by about 1,500 people. “It was a very moving service,” Landis said, “and having only been at OSU for a year, I was very impressed with this outpouring of both sympathy and support.”
Here’s a partial list of entertainers who performed at Gill Coliseum over the years, from crooners to comics.
1950: Marian Anderson, Nelson Eddy | 1971: The Constellations, Dionne Warwick, The Temptations | 1990: Clint Black, Lorrie Morgan |
1953: Spike Jones, Arthur Rubinstein, Woody Herman | 1972: Rare Earth, Manassas, Little River Band | 1991: Alabama |
1957: Mantovani | 1973: Blood, Sweat & Tears | 1992: Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks, George Strait |
1958: Les Elgart | 1974: B.B. King, Fleetwood Mac, Triumvirat | 1994: Sawyer Brown, Diamond Rio |
1963: Victor Borge | 1975: Gordon Lightfoot, Country Joe McDonald, Loggins and Messina, Stephen Stills | 1998: Meredith Brooks, Floater |
1964: The Smothers Brothers, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mathis | 1977: Wendy Waldman, Al Stewart, Jimmy Buffett | 1999: Sugar Ray, Orgy |
1965: New Christy Minstrels | 1978: Eddie Money, Heart, Pablo Cruise, Darryl Hall & John Oates | 2000: Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, Bill Cosby, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall |
1966: The Beach Boys | 1979: Little River Band, The Knack | 2001: The Wallflowers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bob Dylan |
1967: The Doors, Bob Hope | 1983: Willie Nelson, The Tubes | 2002: Wayne Brady |
1968: Mint Tattoo, The Grateful Dead, Simon & Garfunkel, Lou Rawls | 1985: Huey Lewis and The News, Toto, Howard Jones | 2003: Jay Leno, David Spade |
1969: Peter, Paul and Mary, The 5th Dimension | 1987: Gordon Lightfoot, Jay Leno | 2004: Rita Rudner, Drew Carey’s Improv All-Stars |
1970: The Grateful Dead, Neil Diamond, Country Joe and the Fish, The Youngbloods, Steve Miller Band, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Jethro Tull, The 5th Dimension | 1989: Nu Shooz |
In the mid-2000s, OSU organizations that had brought big-name entertainers to Gill began focusing their resources on other activities, and the heyday of Gill performances came to an end.
Haynes participated in IFC Sings at Gill and camped out for tickets to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert in 1969. Later, as senior class president in 1972, he got to introduce singer and actress Helen Reddy to the crowd. “I saw Karen Carpenter when the Carpenters came,” Haynes said. “I saw the Temptations. All those things you can go back to in your mind.”
Marc Andresen, who attended OSU from 1967-69, remembers that after the Peter, Paul and Mary concert, the singing trio sat in the bleachers to talk with students. This wasn’t long after the group’s Paul Stookey had embraced Christianity, “so when he comes out and he’s talking about that with the students,” Andresen said, “it shocked the heck out of us because it hadn’t gone public … that was pretty cool.”
Andresen, later a pastor of Calvin Presbyterian Church in Corvallis, recalled 27 local churches combining to rent Gill for a service on Easter Sunday in 2000; they estimated the attendance at about 10,000 and the offering collection of approximately $60,000 went to local charities. “I was profoundly moved to watch the place fill up,” Andresen said.
Here are some of Gill Coliseum’s most memorable moments in athletics.
A member of OSU’s pep band, Andresen said Gill’s architecture facilitated one of the band’s routines. The group split in half, with one group going upstairs and one downstairs. Playing, one half entered single file through one tunnel and exited through another; as soon as the last member left, the other half would enter through another tunnel, continuing the tune.
Filling Gill
That was still part of the band’s antics in the late 1970s and early 1980s — the heyday of the Orange Express. There were 71 straight regular season crowds of at least 10,000 from the 1978-79 season into the 1984-85 season. With their seating limited to the north balcony, students camped on the ramps to get the best seats. (See a 1981 Ralph Miller Show clip about the ramps below.)
Once inside, those 10,000-plus people made their presence felt.
“The volume of the fans during that era of men’s basketball — it was loud, it was so loud,” Law said. “It was just so much fun. And, of course, the basketball was so phenomenal and fun to watch.” (Get a taste of the sensory overload in a video from 1982.)
Law compared it to the current atmosphere at Beaver women’s basketball games. Gill, she said, plays a big part in that: “When you walk in Gill, it’s like it’s a family. There’s people [seated] on the floor. You walk in and it’s just this kind of warm family feeling that we’re in this together,” she said. “If you’re a fan, you’re a competitor, whatever — you’re part of this.”
Gill’s appeal goes beyond Oregon Staters. After OSU beat Oregon in a nationally televised women’s basketball game in 2019, broadcaster Kara Lawson tweeted, “Gill, you stole my ❤! If you’re a fan of hoop, you HAVE to check out that place.”
After 75 years, Oregon Staters’ rumpus room remains a classic.
“I’m really glad that it’s still there,” Law said. “And I hope it will always be.”
Email to share your Gill memories.
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