Reusse: Schoenecker Arena gives way to the next step up at St. Thomas

Any thought that the University of St. Thomas was going to dive into Division I athletics and simply hope for the best will be dismissed officially when the Lee and Penny Anderson Arena is unveiled for the public later this year.

The Andersons have been tremendous donors to this university of grand history crowded into two areas on each side of spectacular, tree-lined Summit Avenue. The university has been part of St. Paul since 1885, giving it some seniority even as neighbors have offered lawn signs and attempted legal action against the arena.

The new arena is in the smaller southwest campus, kitty-corner across Summit from the main campus that already features the Anderson Student Center and the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex.

The Andersons donated $75 million — an enormous gift — to make the new arena. The full tab will run nearly $200 million, and construction is winding up on a facility with a main arena for basketball and hockey games, with individual basketball practice gyms for the men’s and women’s teams, and also a practice ice sheet.

The arrival of “the Andy” has made this the last week of basketball games at Schoenecker Arena for Ruth Sinn’s women’s team and John Tauer’s men’s team. The midweek results were optimum:

On Wednesday, Sinn’s team upset Oral Roberts, the Summit League’s second-place team, behind 28 points from Jo Langbehn and 25 from Jade Hill. This was it at Schoenecker, where Sinn’s teams — 11 seasons in D-III, the past four in D-I — compiled a 168-38 record.

On Thursday, Tauer’s team used its tremendous ball movement to defeat North Dakota 86-71. The Tommies finish up at Schoenecker on Saturday vs. Kansas City.

Steve Fritz coached the first season in the second Schoenecker. The Tommies won the 2011 national title in D-III. Fritz gave up basketball and remained athletic director. Tauer took over; the overall home record at this Schoenecker is 159-31.

The retired Fritz was in attendance, as usual, on Thursday night. He was thrilled to get the arena and fieldhouse built in 2010 as the new home for Tommies athletics and thrilled to be the coach when the first Schoenecker was opened in 1981.

Yet, to become nostalgic, Fritz can talk about the incredible O’Shaughnessy Hall — the third-floor “Hot Box” in the ancient athletic building — in which he was a Tommies star in the 1960s.

That third-floor gym held 900 people, if everyone squeezed together, and occasionally received visits from St. Paul’s riot police if things became particularly heated when St. John’s was the visitor.

Sinn smiled in remembrance of that odd little gym and said: “I played there my first season. The weight room was below on the second floor. They’d be banging the weights down there as we practiced. The thump would come through the walls and the basketball floor would bounce.”

Hill looked through her large civilian glasses with wide eyes and said: “I’ve seen photos. It must have been incredible.”

Sinn was a standout player at North St. Paul as Ruth Opatz. “One reason I came here was they were building the new place,” she said. “The first Schoenecker … that was state of the art as far as we were concerned."

Three decades later, the second Schoenecker became the true state of the art for D-III athletics, and now the arena on the other side — 6,000 seats, a practice gym — will set a new standard of arena excellence.

This will be the fourth St. Thomas gym in which Sinn has played or coached. And No. 5, if you want to count Concordia’s Gangelhoff Arena, where the Tommies played as the new fieldhouse was being built in 2009-10.

Sinn had six freshmen arrive in 2021 to start the Division I era: Hill, Langbehn, Phoebe Frentzel, Sammy Opichka, Jordyn Lamker and Gabby Johnson.

“I’m so proud of these players,” Sinn said. “They came in at 18, 19 to dive into Division I. They were going up against teams with players that had been at that level for three, four, five years.”

Hill smiled again and said: “We were still kids. They were full-grown adults. Myah Selland from South Dakota State, she had muscles. Trying to defend against her … you’d finally say, ‘Well, this isn’t going to work.’ "

The freshmen stayed. They fought. They are 9-6 in the Summit going into the regular-season finale at South Dakota State — underdogs, but no longer kids.

“The Summit is very tough in women’s basketball, and we have a chance to be the 3 seed in the tournament next week,” Sinn said. “Jade and her classmates made us Division I.”