Home > News & Public Affairs > Indiana University to Rename Intramural Center, Considers Renaming Other Buildings
WFHB Correspondent Braydyn Lents spoke to Chuck Carney, Indiana University spokesperson about the decision to rename the intramural center. He also talked to Megan Campbell, an activist who started a petition to rename Jordan Avenue, Jordan Hall and the Jordan River. (Courtesy of The Indiana Daily Student).

Indiana University to Rename Intramural Center, Considers Renaming Other Buildings

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Indiana University is among a list of schools to rename statues and buildings of alumni whose pasts are clouded with racism. 

On Friday, the IU Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve a resolution to rename the intramural center. The center is located on the Bloomington campus and will be renamed ‘The William Leon Garrett Fieldhouse,’ in honor of Bill Garrett, IU’s first black basketball player.

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The center was originally named after Ora L. Wildermuth in 1971, a former IU trustee and judge from Lake County. The board approved the removal of Wildermuth’s name from the center in 2018. This was because of his opposition to racial integration and racist comments he made in the past. 

After Rachel Graham Cody was publishing her findings in a book about Bill Garrett, she found letters Wildermuth wrote to then- IU President Herman B. Wells. 

In a letter he wrote to Wells in 1948 he said, “The average of the black race as to intelligence, economic status and industry is so far below the white average that it seems to me futile to build hope for a great future.”

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Garrett was a Shelbyville native who led the Shelbyville High School basketball team to win its first state championship in 1947, he was named Indiana’s Mr. Basketball but was never accepted to a major college.

 In the late-40s there was one black student who played Big Ten basketball, he was Dick Culberson from the University of Iowa who played limited action during his first season due to World War Two. After I.U. didn’t allow Garrett to participate on the team due to his color, black leaders including Faburn DeFrantz protested for him to be on the court.

Garrett had no other black players on his team but he became a catalyst of change. After graduating from college in 1954 and being drafted to the Boston Celtics, there were six black players on five Big Ten teams.   

After leaving the Celtics, Garrett served a stint in the Army during the Korean War. Coming back home to Indianapolis he played for the Harlem Globetrotters before coaching the all-black Crispus Attucks High School to the 1959 State Championship. 

 

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