North Carolina State University Athletics
"It could have been much worse"
5/23/2005 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
May 23, 2005
BY Tim Peeler
RALEIGH -- When the news first started to spread that Reynolds Coliseum was on fire, a sense of dread immediately took over fans of NC State athletics, as they thought about the six decades of history encased in the brick edifice that currently serves as the home for the Wolfpack women's basketball team.
Calls immediately started pouring in from all over the country to find out how badly "The House that Case Built" was harmed during the 75 minutes it took the Raleigh Fire Department to contain the blaze.
But as the school begins to assess the damage done by the fire caused when an electrical transformer blew up Monday morning, there was an over-riding sense of relief. Things could have been much worse.
While there is general smoke damage throughout the building and some water damage in the basement - not to mention a wide black stripe between the two stairwells on the east side - the most extensive damage was done in two Air Force ROTC classes facing the Reynolds Coliseum parking deck.
Those are also the rooms that for years have been home to basketball and football press conferences, post-game interviews and media workrooms for men's and women's basketball games.
The damage there was indeed extensive. Firemen were still at work on the building late Monday afternoon, cutting out windows and making sure there were no flame flare-ups before turning the building back over to the university.
But nothing irreplaceable - from the trophies and other memorabilia stored in glass cases on the concourses to the women's basketball championship banners that hang in the rafters to the special red marble that was imported for the lobby - was irrevocably damaged.
There will be a massive cleanup effort needed to remove some of the soot and smoke damage, and the all the banners honor players and past championships will need to be steam cleaned a time or two.
But the wooden floor that is usually down during the summer was crated up and placed in the middle of the old tartan floor, stowed away for renovations that are underway at the arena. (The renovation project had nothing to do with the fire.)
There was some water damage in the basement, where the water used to douse the flames naturally gravitated, but not as much as school officials anticipated. Athletic department officials will spend the coming days determining if any equipment stowed in the basement and other parts of the building need to be replaced.
The upper regions of the arena will also need a good scrubbing to remove soot, though it may be difficult to tell what is new and what is left over from the many, many years of cigarette smoke that wafted there during the men's basketball games that made Reynolds famous, back when smoking was still allowed in the building.
What caused the greatest sense of relief was that so few people were affected by the fire. Monday was the first day of summer school, but fewer than two dozen people were in Reynolds with the transformer blew and started spewing sparks, according to NC State Campus Police spokesman Jon Barnwell.
All were evacuated safely, a job that would have been much more difficult and dangerous if a game or a summer basketball camp were being conducted in the building.
The other good news is that while some people will be displaced because of the fire, no events will have to be moved or rescheduled for the foreseeable future.
Because of renovations, both men's coach Herb Sendek and women's coach Kay Yow had planned to use adjacent Carmichael Gymnasium for their summer camps this year. The next scheduled athletic event for Reynolds is the start of volleyball practice in mid-August and a volleyball tournament on Sept. 3-4.
For now, the school begin investigating what caused the transformer to explode and begin assessing the full extent of the damage.
"I think in the end, we were extremely fortunate that no one was hurt and the damage so far doesn't seem to be that bad," said Senior Associate Athletics Director David Horning. "We were very lucky."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
