Mini 500 champs reflect on another era

Thirty-seven years ago, the crowd inside Assembly Hall roared for the girls in green.

The women raced up and down the court. They flew off their seat. They tried to defy gravity, turning corners as sharply as humanly possible.

They rejoiced.

They were champions.

Thirty-seven years ago, the women of Delta Delta Delta won the Mini 500, a tricycle race that took place in Assembly Hall the day before the men’s Little 500 race.

Three of the members of that team, Michele Borror Long, Bobbie Florea Alspaugh and Ann Knox, as well as Joni Blattner Friesen from the 1980 Delta Delta Delta winning trike team, joined more than 30 of their sorority sisters from other years this weekend in Bloomington for a reunion. Some said that they hadn’t remembered the sorority doing a large reunion for 20 years.

Women didn’t have a bicycle race until 1988. Before that, they had a trike race inside Assembly Hall.

“It was more of a fun thing,” Knox said. “We took it seriously, but it was all about having a good time and the competition.”

The team said the bike race wouldn’t have been interesting anyway. The members liked doing the trike race. They liked being in Assembly Hall.

“I had no desire to go out and ride on a cinder track, personally,” Long said.

All the women said that they never felt slighted by riding tricycles because it was still a competitive event. It wasn’t a bike race, but they didn’t feel like they were treated unfairly.

“We had a lot of fun,” Knox said. “I remember laughing a lot and just having a good time. It wasn’t like, ‘Why can’t we get on the bikes with the guys?’”

The race consisted of three teams on the court at once, racing up and down the court at Assembly Hall, making hairpin turns at the end to try to conserve time and stay within the boundary lines. Get outside the lines, and you scratch and are disqualified. Teams competed in a bracket-style tournament, with the winner of each heat advancing on to the next round, while the other two were eliminated.

The race consisted of two laps across the long track. At about half court sat a start-finish line where the four racers would perform a required exchange. Each rider pedaled for half of a lap.

“It was like you put one foot off,” Friesen said, “and you threw the trike forward and the other person would grab it and jump on.”

The team practiced as soon as spring break ended for the late April race.

Despite it being a recreational event, training still played a large role in the event.

Each sorority was paired with a fraternity, and the women said the men coached them.
 
“The key was the exchanges,” Knox said. “The track for the tricycles races was just really turning, doing a half loop. You had to go fast enough to get enough speed up to have a smooth exchange. It’s almost like a relay at a track meet. That’s what we worked on.”

They practiced outside Ballantine hall and in parking lots where they drew lines to simulate the lanes.

They also had at least one practice session when they could experience Assembly Hall.

That didn’t make a certain IU head basketball coach very happy.

“Bobby Knight was not too thrilled in ‘79 and ‘80 when we were in Assembly Hall and practicing,” Friesen said. “I just remember him not being happy. The body language was like, ‘I need the floor. This is a trike race and this is a basketball arena.’”

A week before the ‘76 race, Knox said she sprained her ankle jumping off of a ledge. The team almost went into a panic.

“All the practice, all the timing, it was kind of like, ‘what are we going to do?’” Long said.

But by the time the lights went on inside Assembly Hall, Knox was good to go.

The team said the entire lower bowl of the stadium was full of people cheering them on.

“It’s just such a frenzy,” Long said. “You’re in Assembly Hall, and there’s 11 others out there on the floor at the same time. And you think, ‘they play basketball down here!’ It’s kind of, you’re the center of attention. It was different than being out in Ballantine.”

During the trophy presentation, Knox said she couldn’t hear anything. For winning the race, each team member received a 12” black and white TV and a dozen roses.

“I remember, (IU President John Ryan) was asking me something about the race,” Knox said. “And it was so loud, I was leaning down going, ‘I can’t hear anything you’re asking me.’ Everybody was going nuts.”

The team said they have only been back to a handful of Little 500 races, and weren’t aware that the women didn’t have a trike race anymore.

For them, it’s just not the same.

But looking back on 1976, the year that IU also went undefeated in basketball and won the NCAA Championship, they said the year was one of their favorite collegiate memories. They all smiled and nodded in agreement when reflecting on the year.

“Especially winning,” Long said.