Published: August 16, 2008 07:58 pm            

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Before Lovellette, Bell and Dischinger, there was Ivan Fuqua

TERRE HAUTE — When Purdue University sophomore Terry Dischinger was introduced as a starter on the 1960 U.S. Olympic basketball team, Wabash Valley residents swelled with pride.

Before it played a game, the 1960 U.S. squad was hailed as the best amateur team ever assembled. Nothing has happened in the last 48 years to alter that appraisal. Dischinger, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Walt Bellamy and Jerry West, all college All-Americans, dominated the opposition.

Dischinger’s 1960 Olympic accomplishments rekindled boastful local sentiment but much of the pride should be assigned to previous successes by Terre Haute athletes.

After all, Clyde Lovellette led the 1952 U.S. team to the Olympic gold after dominating college basketball at the University of Kansas. “Man Mountain” led the nation in scoring while spearheading the Jayhawks to the 1952 NCAA title.

Greg Bell of Indiana University succeeded him. At Melbourne in 1956, Bell won the Olympic gold in the broad jump, now known as the long jump.

Lovellette, Bell and Dischinger were Garfield High School graduates. Both the school and the city justifiably could claim they were “The Home of Olympic Champions.”

Plaques honoring the three gold medalists were anchored near the south entrance of Hulman Civic-University Center after a gala presentation dinner Dec. 14, 1973, preceding the first game in the new facility. Years later, the plaques were removed and placed in storage.

Thanks largely to Pizza Hut, Miller-White, Union Hospital and the City, Gold Medal Plaza at 12 Points Park is being created to put them on permanent display.

Lovellette was not the first Wabash Valley resident to win the Olympic gold. That honor belongs to Ivan Fuqua.

Fuqua was a national track legend while still attending Brazil High School. As a sophomore in 1928 he anchored the school’s record-setting mile relay team in 3:29.6. A year later he set a new state schoolboy standard of 49.4 seconds in 440-yard dash.

As a senior, Fuqua established an international high school record in the 100-yard dash (9.7 seconds) and ran the 220-yard dash in 21.6. He also long jumped 21 feet, 8 1/2 inches and was a state class hurdler.

In the 1930 IHSAA state finals, Fuqua won the 100-yard dash; won the 440-yard dash in 50.2 (bettering the existing state record by 1.4 seconds); finished second in the 220-yard low hurdles; and placed third in the long jump. Gary Froebel won the state title but Fuqua, individually, scored more points for Brazil than third place Kokomo.

At the National Interscholastic Track and Field Meet in Chicago in late May 1930, Ivan earned coast-to-coast recognition by winning six blue ribbons as Brazil finished second to Froebel once again.

While at IU earning All-America laurels, Ivan continued to set records. He won the Olympic gold in 1932 by running the fastest leg (47.1 seconds) of the 4x400-meter relay team in front of 75,000 cheering fans at Los Angeles. The U.S. team shattered the world record in 3:08.

Fuqua became the track coach at the University of Connecticut in 1935. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he begin a long and successful career as track and cross country coach at Brown University in Providence, R.I. He retired in 1974.

Fuqua often returned to the Wabash Valley to visit family and friends. Sisters Bonnie Powell and Donnie Bray resided here. He died Jan. 14, 1994, at age 84, having been inducted into the Helms Foundation Hall of Fame, the Rhode Island Sports Hall of Fame, the IU Sports Hall of Fame and the Indiana Track and Field Hall of Fame.

Phil “Pinky” Powell, Ivan’s brother-in-law, died July 21, 2008.

Since 1960, Bruce Baumgartner and Larry Bird — two superb ISU athletes — have accumulated gold medals. A super heavyweight, Baumgartner won two gold medals (1984 and 1992) and is America’s only four-time Olympic medalist in wrestling. He won the silver medal in 1988 and the bronze in 1996.

A member of the first professional “Dream Team,” Bird won a gold medal in basketball at Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, announcing his retirement from the NBA at its conclusion.

Benita Edds of Sullivan was a member of the U.S. women’s archery team in the 1984 Olympics but failed to medal. Baumgartner, Bird and Edds are enshrined in the ISU Athletics Hall of Fame.

III

In 1910, the New York Dramatic Mirror — “The Bible of American Theater” — referred to Valeska Suratt as “Vaudeville’s Greatest Star.” Cosmopolitan called the Terre Haute actress “The Belle of the Boulevards,” a true personification of a “Gibson Girl.”

An overnight sensation on Broadway in 1907, Suratt perfected vaudeville song and dance routines with husband Billy Gould and wrote a syndicated beauty and skin care column.

With success came money. Oscar Hammerstein paid her $2,500 a week and Valeska utilized the money to create a massive wardrobe, spending as much as $25,000 each time she appeared in a different show.

In 1910, she built a spacious home at 1634 N. Ninth Street in Terre Haute, where her parents resided and where she stored her wardrobe. Her mother Anna died there on May 21, 1914. Housekeeper Elizabeth Lauer reported that the attic and bedrooms at the residence were stacked to the ceiling with Valeska’s theatrical finery.

Valeska opened a boutique in the new Hotel Deming, managed by her sister Leah. She made her first silent motion picture, “The Immigrant,” for Paramount Studios in 1915. It was such a success that Fox outbid Paramount for her services and gave her the chance to remain in New York. Next to Theda Bara she was America’s leading cinema “vamp.”

During World War I Suratt made $5,000 a week and gave $500 of it to the American Red Cross. When she came to Terre Haute home, crowds gathered around her home to catch a glimpse. Father Ralph Suratt, a blacksmith, inexplicably moved in about 1920.

Valeska’s career went into a tailspin after she sued Cecil B. DeMille and others for stealing material from her script, “Mary Magdalene,” for use in the movie, “King of Kings.” The case went to trial in 1930 but was settled. She starred at the Winter Garden in “The Frolics of 1929” before retiring. Some say she was blacklisted.

Valeska died July 2, 1962 in a Washington, D.C. retirement home. Her ashes are buried at Terre Haute’s Highland Lawn Cemetery.

Unfortunately, the historic residence at 1634 N. Ninth St. is scheduled to be razed very soon. Remnants of the home may be purchased through the Union Hospital Service League.

        

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