As an Evansville native( Greg VanLeer) I attended many events at Roberts Stadium the first being the Shrine Circus at about 5 or 6 years old. I went to many basketball games as grade school teams received free passes for Evansville Aces and high school games . I witnessed both the 1964 and the 1965 undefeated season championship with Humes, Sloan Watkins and Williams against the great Walt Frazier. NCAA finals brought Earl Monroe and Winston/Salem College. One of the great individual performances was Harrison vs Bosse; Larry Weatherford single handedly took down an outstanding Harrison with Vaughn Wedeking a team that could have won state. I blessed to also play high school games at the stadium for Central High. I started as a freshman and played in the 1968 Sectionals for Central High School. We played Holiday Tourney games there. They even moved some of our games to Roberts Stadium because the expected crowd was larger than the gyms could hold. I played my last game in 1971 sectionals. We also held graduation at the stadium. Ed Cole was my journalism instructor at Central.(really like him) Disappointed no Black performers were mentioned especially James Brown who made numerous appearances and the great Jimi Hendrix also played there along with Dionne Warwick and others. Glad someone is documenting in video my home town history.
True story my great grandfather heard over the radio that he had escaped so he left work early in mount carmel to get my gpa uncle and great gma that lived on the river road in gibson County and take them to stay in town "mount carmel" for the night and when they came back home in the morning state police were all over the property they said he's blood was in the barn and he had been staying the night there they said it was a good thing my great gpa got them out of there because he could have been watching them
Am so sorry Ice skating was not part of your review. It played a huge part of Evansville's recreation. Hundreds, if not thousands of young people took lessons from Miss Lydia during the Evansville Figure Skating Club's sessions. Lydia Herron had a weekly sketch article in the paper, "Skating With Miss Lydia" done by Larry Hill, that introduced Evansville to ice skating. The Evansville Figure Skating Club and Press Club's New Blades Ice Show each year was a huge professional production entertaining thousands over the years with their New York costuming and production lighting. Ice Capades, Holiday on Ice and other national shows made stops at Roberts Stadium. Many of the talented students continued to Regional, as well as National competitions. At a very young age, Jimmy Disbrow (and others) were headliners and Jimmy became an international competition judge representing the US. Later Jimmy and another skater from Ohio started Buffalo Wild Wings.
Will always remember all the college and high school games there. Packed full during Regionals and Semi-State games. My friends and I would go to every High School tournament held there. Then Indiana went to Class basketball and Cable TV came along and destroyed it. Such a shame it wasn't saved . Great venue
BTW - Can't forget all the great shows and actors during Shriners Thanksgiving. Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, Batman and Robin, Daniel Boone, etc. Also the great battles between Ky.Wesleyan vs. Evansville Aces. Cigarette smoke so thick above the scoreboard it looked like rain clouds !
Sad to see Roberts Stadium no longer standing. I saw the majority of my rock/music concerts there growing up as a kid in the 80's.....groups ranging from Van Halen, to AD/DC, to KISS, to Judas Priest, to Dio/Dokken, to Loverboy, to REO Speedwagon, to Cinderella, etc. Thanks for the memories!
