There's No Place Like Dome

First appeared on October 1st, 2008
in The Lebanon Reporter

A penny for the thoughts of those dignitaries gathered for the deflation of the Hoosier Dome last week. In a moment of extreme peculiarity, former Indianapolis Mayor Bill Hudnut emphatically commanded the fans supporting the dome’s dome to be shut down as if what was to follow would be a thrilling sight. What we saw instead was an anti-climactic moment best compared to watching the instant replay of a three toed sloth running the 100 yard dash; in slow motion. It literally took the dome’s roof hours to deflate.
In building the Luke Indianapolis got it right, in deflating the dome they didn’t. She deserved more. If they had put us in charge of bringing the world’s largest swim cap down, we’d of sent her out in style. Imagine a trio of A-10 Tank Killers coming in from Grissom Air Force Base to bomb that concrete cereal bowl back to the Stone Age. At the very least we would have asked those Big Bang scientists in Switzerland (since they are evidently bent on flirting with the end of the world anyway) to trigger an explosion that would alter the course of the Earth just enough to send an asteroid the size of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan careening into the Dome.
Alas the death of the Dome is upon us. After four Final Fours, countless state finals in both high school athletics and marching band competitions, 1 NBA All Star game, and professional football memories that run the gamut from fans chanting “Lord Help our Colts” with grocery sacks on their heads to the interception that sent those same laughable losers to the Super Bowl, the Dome has seen it all. Where else could Rowdy Roddy Piper, auto mechanics dressed in star wars garb, car flattening monster trucks, rodeo clowns, the Rolling Stones and the sight of Bobby Knight and Gene Keady thumbing their noses in unison at the Big Ten by agreeing to an unscheduled game come together outside of one long, strange and admittedly complicated dream?
We’re talking about the Hoosier Dome. She was supposed to last forever. An awe-inspiring architectural achievement on the same level as the Sydney Opera House or Notre Dame- a testament to longevity, not unlike the pyramids of Giza, John McCain or China’s Great Wall; OK so maybe not. But it was still cool.
One of the clearest memories we have of the Dome is Damon Bailey and Bedford North Lawrence High School winning state in front of a record crowd of 40,000 plus fans (rest in peace single class basketball). Some may remember, upon her dedication, the first event was a football game between the Boilermakers of Purdue and Notre Dame. Purdue fans will surely recall that 1984 game because, as far as we know, it marks the last time they beat the Irish.
In that same year 67,000 Hoosiers saw an Olympic exhibition featuring Indiana legends Steve Alford and Larry Bird playing in a game coached by Bobby Knight. Hoosiers everywhere suffered a collective punch in the gut as, just like Prince, the Dome experienced an identity crisis in the 90’s when RCA purchased the naming rights to their beloved Hoosier Dome. Reportedly the lucrative deal included two hundred dollars and 11,000 Betamax VCR’s and, in retrospect, who really could have turned that down?
Now with the roof gone Indy suddenly finds itself home to the world’s largest concrete planter and fans are left with no choice but to turn the page. We are told the Luke is bigger, better, more expensive and has twice as many urinals, but a part of us will always long for the refreshing, albeit artificial, breeze of the Hoosier Dome. In the words of someone else there is, and always will be, no place like Dome.