It wasn’t much to look at, but it did the job.
A utilitarian workhorse, the Field House fulfilled a host of functions over its 70 years: gymnasium, practice facility, concert hall, Commencement stage, finals pressure cooker, class registration hub … the list is long.
From the start, the structure was intended to be a very temporary solution to the College’s need for a gym. In 1945, advisers to Holy Cross President Rev. William J. Healy, S.J., noted that a new gym would serve two purposes: “Father Healy’s advisers pointed out that a gym would enhance the school’s popularity with students and help safeguard their moral lives because, he reported, there was ‘an astonishing drop in temptations and sins of impurity’ after a gymnasium opened at another Catholic college,” wrote the late Rev. Anthony J. Kuzniewski, S.J., in “Thy Honored Name: A History of the College of the Holy Cross.”