November 27, 1965: Pauley Pavilion, and Kareem's Career, Open

November 27, 1965: Pauley Pavilion opens, on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles.

Following their 1964 National Championship -- they would win it again in 1965 -- UCLA coach John Wooden wanted a suitable arena for his ever-growing program. He got it in time for the 1965-66 season, and it has hosted 9 more National Championships, making for 11 banners, 10 coached by Wooden.

But they would not win the 12,829-seat Pavilion's opening game. In fact, the 1st game was between the UCLA varsity and the UCLA freshman team. Until 1972, the NCAA did not allow freshmen to play on varsity teams, with rare exceptions. (For example, due to the manpower drain of World War II, it was allowed for the duration.) The freshman team won, 75–60.

How could this happen? Had UCLA been hit that hard by graduation? No, they were hit that hard by Wooden's prize recruit: Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. Better known as Lew Alcindor, the Harlem native had been the top high school player in the country. Every college coach in the country wanted him, thinking he would be the next Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain. Wooden told him that he could be the first star of a big new building in one of America's biggest cities.

Alcindor justified that faith, starting in the 1st game: Against the 2-time defending National Champions, he scored 31 points and grabbed 21 rebounds. Against junior colleges and 4-year schools' freshmen teams, the UCLA frosh went 21-0.

As a sophomore in 1966-67, Alcindor led the Bruins to a 30-0 season. As a junior in 1967-68, they went 29-1, losing only a nationally-televised regular-season "Game of the Century" to Elvin Hayes and the University of Houston at the Astrodome. That loss was solidly avenged in the NCAA Tournament Semifinal. In 1968-69, they went 29-1, losing only a meaningless conference finale to their arch-rivals, the University of Southern California (USC).

In his 3 seasons on the varsity, Alcindor led UCLA to a record of 88-2, and 3 National Championships, winning the NCAA Tournament's Most Outstanding Player all 3 times. Counting his freshman record, he went 109-2.

In 1971, just after leading the Milwaukee Bucks to the NBA Championship, Alcindor, having converted to Islam 3 years earlier, publicly announced that he had changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. There were 2 people he allowed to continue to call him "Lew": His father -- after all, it was his name, too -- and Coach Wooden. He went on to win 5 more NBA Championships, back in Los Angeles with the Lakers. The greatest player in the history of college basketball became one of the Top 10 players in the history of professional basketball.

Pauley Pavilion was named for an oil magnate who was also a Regent of the University of California system, whose donation to its building went a long way toward making it possible. Edwin Pauley was a friend of, and appointee to several offices by, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, but the student protests of the 1960s led him to switch parties and support Ronald Reagan for Governor.

Speaking of politics, the Pavilion was the site of the 2nd debate of the 1988 Presidential campaign, where CNN anchor Bernard Shaw asked the question that shattered the campaign of Governor Michael Dukakis – not that the Duke helped himself with his answer. Oddly, Dukakis chose to hold held his Election Eve rally there, despite being a Bostonian. (In contrast, Boston's JFK held his Convention in the Los Angeles Coliseum complex, but his Election Eve rally at the Boston Garden.)

Pauley Pavilion was renovated during the 2011-12 season, which the Bruins spent playing home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. They had won the National Championship game there in 1968 and 1972. Ironically, until 2006, it was USC's home court, until USC opened the nearby Galen Center.

With the Pavilion renovated and modernized, the Bruins now play in a 13,800-seat venue, on the Nell and John Wooden Court, named for the old coach and his wife. The 11 National Championship banners hang overhead: 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975 and 1995.

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November 27, 1965 was a Saturday. It was a big day in college sports, as it was the end of Thanksgiving week, and thus rivalry week in football. These games were played, not all of them rivalries:

* Rivalry: Number 5 Alabama beat Auburn, 30-3 at Legion Field in Birmingham. 'Bama won the Southeastern Conference title.

* Number 6 Notre Dame and Miami played to a 0-0 tie at the Orange Bowl in Miami. This late-season game, in a stadium named after the New Year's Day game played there, was as close to a bowl game at Notre Dame would come: From the 1925 season until 1969, they refused all bowl bids.

* Number 8 University of Southern California (USC) beat Wyoming, 56-6 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Rivalry: Number 9 Tennessee beat Vanderbilt, 21-3 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Rivalry: Army and Navy played to a tie, 7-7 at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Quantico Marines beat Memphis State, 20-14 at Butler Stadium in Quantico, Virginia. The Marines were a 2-touchdown underdog. Memphis State University became the University of Memphis in 1994. The Quantico Marines had a team from 1919 to 1972, and the NCAA counted them as a "college football team." The program was canceled due to rising costs. 

While graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy can become officers in the U.S. Marine Corps, the closest thing the Marines have to their own academy is the Quantico Marine Base in Quantico, Virginia -- the town that is also home to the FBI Academy, and to the headquarters of the CID, which investigates crimes involving the Army and the Air Force, and the NCIS, which investigates crimes involving the Navy and the Marines (though the TV show NCIS still shows the agency headquartered at the Washington Navy Yard).

* Rivalry: Boston College beat Holy Cross, 35-0 at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts.

* Rivalry: Georgia beat Georgia Tech, 17-7 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

* Rivalry: Florida beat Florida State, 30-17 at Florida Field (now Ben Hill Griffin Stadium) in Gainesville.

* Rivalry: Mississippi (Ole Miss) beat Mississippi State, 21-0 at Scott Field (now Davis Wade Stadium) in Starkville, Mississippi.

* Rivalry: Texas Christian University (TCU) beat Southern Methodist University (SMU), 10-7 at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas.

* Baylor beat Rice, 17-13 at Rice Stadium in Houston.

* Brigham Young University (BYU) beat New Mexico, 42-8 at University Stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

* Rivalry: Arizona State beat Arizona, 14-6 at Sun Devil Stadium (now Mountain America Stadium) in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Arizona.

* Two days earlier, on Thanksgiving, there were 6 games, including Texas beating Texas A&M, 21-17 at Kyle Field in College Station. But only 1 involved a ranked team: Number 3 Nebraska beat Oklahoma, 21-9 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, to clinch the Big 8 Conference title.

* Idle that week, but not yet finished with their regular season: Number 4 UCLA, Champions of the Athletic Association of Western Universities (which became the Pacific-Eight in 1968, the Pacific-Ten in 1978, and the Pacific-Twelve in 2011); 

* Having finished their schedules the week before were the entire the Big Ten Conference, including Number 1 Michigan State; the entire Southwest Conference, including its Champion, Number 2 Arkansas, and Number 10 Texas Tech; Number 7 Missouri; and New Jersey's teams, Rutgers and Princeton.

At the time, the final Associated Press (AP) sportswriters' poll was taken after the regular season, but before the bowl games. So Michigan State were named National Champions in that poll. Entering New Year's Day, the top 3 teams were all 10–0, but all lost: Number 1 Michigan State lost the Rose Bowl to Number 5 UCLA, Number 2 Arkansas lost the Cotton Bowl to Number 14 Louisiana State (LSU), and Number 3 Nebraska lost the Orange Bowl to Number 4. Alabama. So the post-bowl United Press International (UPI) coaches poll named Alabama the National Champions. (Number 6 Missouri beat Number 12 Florida in the Sugar Bowl.)

There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Cincinnati Royals, 132-129 at the old Madison Square Garden. Oscar Robertson scored 44 points.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 101-95 at the Boston Garden. Bill Russell scored 28 points, and had 35 rebounds.

* The St. Louis Hawks beat the Baltimore Bullets, 136-110 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

* And the Philadelphia 76ers beat the San Francisco Warriors, 124-117 at the Civic Auditorium (now the Bill Graham Auditorium) in San Francisco. Wilt Chamberlain, who had played for the Warriors in Philadelphia, scored 38 points and had 31 rebounds.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 1-0 at the old Madison Square Garden. Yes, the Garden hosted an NBA game and an NHL game on the same day.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

October 13, 1988: Bernard Shaw's Killer Question

October 13, 1988: For the 1st time, a Presidential debate is held in a sports arena, rather than in a theater in a big city or on a college campus. The venue is Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, home court of UCLA basketball. The combatants are the Republican nominee, Vice President George H.W. Bush, a former 1st baseman at Yale University; and the Democratic nominee, Governor Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts.

As the Number 2 man in the Administration of President Ronald Reagan, one of the most lawless in American history, Bush was on shaky ground to accuse Dukakis of being "soft on crime." Indeed, the very law he'd been ripping Dukakis for, a prison furlough program, was based on one that outgoing President Ronald Reagan had signed into law as Governor of California in the late 1960s.

CNN anchor Bernard Shaw was the 1st black person to moderate a Presidential debate. He decided to use his 1st question to ask Dukakis about crime: "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

Shaw had asked Dukakis to imagine his wife as the victim of a horrible crime. He did not know that Panos Dukakis, the nominee's father, had been badly beaten during a robbery. He seemed to ignore the fact that the death penalty is essentially a State-by-State issue, and that the President, aside from appointing federal judges and the power to grant clemency -- in federal cases only -- has no say over it. And what Shaw's own wife thought of that question has never been recorded.

Dukakis could well have become the 1st person to say, "Fuck you" on live prime-time American network television, and he would have gotten more votes if he had. Instead, he said, "No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent." He said it so calmly that it was, to borrow the words from a similar incident on the TV show The West Wing 14 years later, "an answer so soporific, it's barely even human."

Shaw's indecency did not stop there. He had every right to ask Bush if his Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, just 41 years old and clobbered a week earlier in his debate with Dukakis' running mate, Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, was ready to be President:

Shaw: "If you were to be elected, and then die before the election -- "

Bush, cutting him off, with a fake look of shock on his face: "Bernie!"

Shaw: "Dan Quayle would then become the 41st President of the United States. How do you respond to that?"

Bush: "I'd have confidence in him. And I have never seen a candidate for public office take such an unfair pounding... "

Given all the crap that the Bush campaign had hurled at him, this was Dukakis' moment to say, "The hell you haven't!" But he didn't. Instead, his rebuttal gave only the slightest of mockings of Bush and Quayle.

Quayle didn't hurt Bush in the election at all. If Dukakis still had a chance on the afternoon of October 13, he had none on the morning of October 14.

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October 13, 1988 was a Thursday. Baseball was between its League Championship Series and its World Series. Football was in midweek. And the NBA season wouldn't start until November 6.

There was 1 game played in the NHL that night: The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Minnesota North Stars, 7-6 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. It was a rough game: There were 3 separate fights, and 10 of the game's 13 goals were scored on the power play.