Celebrating 100 Years of Huff Hall: A Legacy of Tradition and Excellence

When it opened in 1925 on the University of Illinois’ campus in Urbana-Champaign, New Gymnasium, as it was called at the time, was described as “the greatest gym in the country,” a facility unlike any other, the Yankee Stadium of the college realm. Huff Hall was designed in the Georgian-Revival style by architect Charles A. Platt and University Architect James M. White. Its design harmonizes with other historic campus buildings, including the Armory, Main Library and the Illini Union. When completed in 1925 at a cost of $772,000, it replaced the Military Drill Hall (now Kenney Gym Annex) as the home of Fighting Illini basketball. An eight-foot-deep, 25-yard swimming pool was added in 1927. Following George Huff’s passing in 1936, the gymnasium was officially renamed in his honor.

Huff Hall is a versatile multi-use facility and the proud home of Fighting Illini volleyball, wrestling and men’s and women’s gymnastics. It is famed for its electric atmosphere, which helped foster the term “March Madness” when it hosted the Illinois State High School Association state basketball tournament for decades.

Beyond its role as a competition venue, Huff Hall houses essential athletic facilities, including a training room, weight room, equipment rooms and locker rooms serving the men’s and women’s track and field, volleyball and wrestling teams. Academic offices and classrooms span three floors, while an underground tunnel links Huff Hall to the Armory.

Host to a First Lady, Music Legends and Dance Marathons

In addition to athletics and academics, Huff Hall has been a community good, home to a visit by a sitting first lady and dance marathons. In 1942, during World War II, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited Huff to plead with local and state officials to speed up their work to aid in the conflict with Nazi Germany and its allies.

“War goods must be produced in a hurry,” Roosevelt said, according to the Daily Illini on Feb. 6, 1942. “We were not mentally prepared for war … now it is up to each and every one of us at home to build up a greater strength in people.”

For more than four decades, Huff was the primary venue on campus for national touring jazz and swing bands, hosting many a concert and dance.

A number of jazz legends played Huff starting with Duke Ellington in 1937 and including Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis and Count Basie, who appeared with his orchestra in October 1966.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, Huff was home to less-historic-but-also-impactful events: dance marathons. Starting in 1973, Huff hosted the Dance-A-Thon, a Friday-through-Sunday dance marathon that would test the endurance and arch support of wiggly Illini.

Organized by the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, the marathon was part of a nationwide collegiate fundraiser for muscular dystrophy research. The grand prize was a trip to Las Vegas, and the participants swayed to music for 52 hours, while sideshow acts such as fire-swallowers entertained the crowd. As the weekend wore on, some contestants even danced with textbooks in hand, studying for their Monday exams.

The last dance at Huff happened in 1989. A generation later, IlliniThon was born. The year-long fundraising endeavor, with St. John’s Children’s Hospital in Springfield as the beneficiary, culminates with a dance marathon in April at the Activities and Recreation Center on campus.

Academics

Academics always has been a vital component in the history of Huff Hall. In 1932, the Board of Trustees established the School of Physical Education with authority to award the degree of Bachelor of Science.In 1957, the board changed the name of the school to the College of Physical Education, which included the Department of Physical Education for Men; Department of Physical Education for Women; Department of Health Service; Department of Recreation, two divisions, a bureau and two clinics. It offered master’s and doctoral degrees.

In June 1975, the board renamed the College of Physical Education as the College of Applied Life Studies.The College of Applied Life Studies was composed of three academic graduate departments: Health & Safety Education, now Health and Kinesiology, Leisure Studies, now Recreation, Sport and Tourism, and Physical Education, now also part of Health and Kinesiology. Each department had a distinguished history and achieved national prominence.

In 1944 in Huff, Thomas K. Cureton became the director of the Physical Fitness Research Laboratory, one of the first of its kind in the nation. He developed methods to test motor and cardiovascular fitness and aquatic performance and to appraise the human physique. Cureton, who taught at Illinois from 1941 to 1969, is known as the father of physical fitness and played a major role in the development of the fitness movement in America.

Cureton was one of the first authorities in the 20th century to advocate regular exercise and has been credited with helping inspire Americans to take up jogging, a trend that began in the 1960s. What set Cureton apart from other exercise gurus was his large body of research, which established the health benefits of exercise, particularly for the heart.

Other faculty who made their names known in Huff include:

• Aurelio E. “Joe” Florio started the first traffic and driver education program safety program for the schools of the state of Illinois.
• William H. Creswell, Jr. played an integral part of the national School Health Education Study that involved 1,460 schools and 840,832 students in 38 states from 1961-65. Results of the first stage of this study evidenced the “appalling” lack of knowledge and prevalence of health misconceptions among students at all levels. The second stage involved developing a comprehensive curriculum package using an innovative conceptual approach that still influences school health curricula today.
• Howard S. Hoyman developed the “Ecologic Model of Health and Health Education” that served as the forerunner in the field and influences contemporary thought to the present.

Due to the university’s reputation as a prominent contributor to the role of education to address the smoking and health issue, Donald Stone, Thomas O’Rourke and Creswell were invited to contribute chapters to the Adult Education for the 1979 Surgeon General Report on Smoking and Health. This was the first time since the initial 1964 Surgeon General Report on smoking and health were included.

Reflecting the growing and evolving mission of the college and its departments, Huff Gym was renamed Huff Hall in spring 1984. In March 2006, the Urbana-Champaign Senate approved a proposal to rename the college to the College of Applied Health Sciences. This was done to reflect the college’s research, instructional, and outreach programs as well as the structure of the college.

Today, Huff is the nerve center to AHS, housing the dean and administrative offices, as well as faculty office, labs and classrooms.

A Storied Athletic Tradition

Huff Hall is named in honor of George Huff, a pivotal figure in Illinois athletics. Serving as Illinois’ athletic director from 1901 to 1935, Huff guided the Fighting Illini to an era of unparalleled success and played a key role in the construction of Memorial Stadium in 1923. Prior to his tenure as athletic director, he coached Illinois football (1895-1899) and baseball (1896-1919) before managing Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox in 1907 (for all of eight games, in which the team had a record of 2-6).

From 1925 to 1963, Huff Hall was the home of Fighting Illini basketball, witnessing an incredible 339 victories in 418 games (.811), eight Big Ten championships and two NCAA Final Four appearances. Though it was more than twice the size of its predecessor, it quickly became evident that Huff Hall could not accommodate the ever-growing demand for basketball.

For nearly 40 years, the Illini played before raucous, sellout crowds at Huff Hall, making it one of the most formidable venues in college basketball.

Over the years, Huff Hall has hosted numerous prestigious collegiate and high school championships:

Wrestling Championships: NCAA Wrestling Championships (1940, 1947); Big Ten Wrestling Championships (1930, 1933, 1946, 1948, 1958); IHSA State Wrestling Championships (multiple years in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s).

Gymnastics Championships: Big Ten Women’s Gymnastics Championships (1991, 1995, 2003); Big Ten Men’s Gymnastics Championships (1992, 1995, 2004); NCAA Men’s Gymnastics East Regional (1993, 1999).

Volleyball and Basketball Tournaments: Huff Hall has hosted numerous NCAA Volleyball Tournament matches, dating back to 1992, including multiple first and second-round matchups in the 1990s and 2000s. The gymnasium also served as a host site for the 1997 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament first and second rounds.

In the past decade, Huff has undergone large-scale renovations, including the addition of the Khan Annex, which opened in 2011, thanks to a $10 million donation from alumnus Shahid and Ann Carlson Khan. The Khan Annex provided more than 24,000 square feet of state-of-the-art laboratory, instructional and collaborative space. In 2014 the basketball court was replaced by a more springy volleyball surface to protect the student-athletes’ joints, and in 2018, locker rooms received a full upgrade and a new Taraflex volleyball floor came in August of the 2019 season.

As we mark the 100th anniversary of Huff Hall, we celebrate not just a building, but a legacy—a place where history has been made, champions have competed and the Fighting Illini spirit has thrived from its early days as a basketball powerhouse to its continued role as a premier athletic facility. The academic accomplishments that have occurred in the building, in its laboratories and classrooms, are just as important a part of that legacy. Huff Hall remains a symbol of tradition, excellence and Illini pride.

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