The Barn’s Last Official Athletic Event
A 125 lbs. "Battle of the Sexes" match highlighted the dual
Situated in the center of South Dakota State University’s campus sits the Intramural Building, affectionately—and more appropriately—known as “The Barn.”
Built in 1918 for $85,000 ($1,677,550 factoring in today’s inflation), the Barn was the centerpiece for SDSU’s athletic department, hosting basketball, wrestling, gymnastics and intramural activities. It also hosted the Little International and the South Dakota High School Basketball Tournament in the 1930s.
With seating for 3,000, fans packed on top of each other, making for an exceedingly challenging environment for opposing teams. By the 1970s, North Central Conference foes hated winter nights in Brookings. Loud, raucous fans. Dead coyotes on the floor. Overserved student sections. There was enough incidents in the Barn that most newspapers referred to it as SDSU’s “infamous” basketball gym.
In the winter of 1973, the Barn hosted what everyone thought would be its final athletic contest with some run of the mill NCC contest. After some minor delays, Frost Arena was completed and the athletic department picked up and moved a half mile east. The Barn went out with a whimper.
The building itself remained. The Barn began a transitional period, from athletic to academic facility, in which the bleachers behind each of the baskets were removed and dressing rooms transformed into classrooms and office space. Teams used the barn sparingly, mainly for practice, camps or shootarounds when Frost Arena was occupied. It was rumored that sometimes local high school kids would sneak in for pickup games when the door was just cracked enough (again, just a rumor—I definitely was not a part of any alleged games).
But in in the winter of 2004, the Barn came out of retirement for one last hurrah—a wresting dual with Princeton.
It was December 2004 and Jason Liles, SDSU’s wrestling coach at the time, had a problem. Princeton was scheduled to fly in for dual meet in a few days but, at the moment, there was no place to wrestle. Frost Arena was booked for graduation ceremonies so Liles began looking for a backup venue. The Swiftel Center was the obvious choice, as it was the longtime host of the Daktronics Open and loads of high school matches. Unfortunately, the Rainbow Play Systems holiday party had already booked the venue.
Liles then turned his attention to an on-campus location. The Performing Arts Center was open and available, so Liles asked if they could hold the meet in the main theater, with the mats located on stage. While that would have been a unique scene, officials declined the offer, citing they didn’t want to host an athletic event.
“Finally, I said what the hell, let’s go the Barn,” Liles explained.
It had been over 30 years since the Barn had hosted its final athletic contest so it would take some work to create a suitable venue. The wrestling mat had to be moved (carried) from Frost Arena and old metal bleachers from the baseball field were brought in. Curtains were also added to create a more “intimate” setting. Liles even invited former Jackrabbit wrestlers to attend the dual.
“Obviously, we would rather wrestle in Frost Arena,” Liles told the Argus Leader in 2004. “But the way it worked out, it’s going to be a unique event.”
The night of the match—December 11—a healthy crowd of 300 showed up for the dual. You might be thinking, “300—that’s nothing.” Three hundred in attendance in a couple metal bleachers in the Barn is significantly different than 300 in Frost Arena. The atmosphere was electric and the crowd was buzzing—I know because I happened to be there that night. While my memory of that night isn’t crystal clear—it was 18 years ago—the event was significant enough (“uniquely different” might be a better phrase here) that a few core memories from that night have remained implanted in my brain.
Now there was a few different elements to this match that made it “uniquely different.” First, it was at the Barn, and this dual meet was more than likely to be its final athletic event ever (there’s always a chance the Barn could host another athletic event but I think there’s less than a 0.1% chance now).
Second, it was Princeton, an Ivy League school, coming to wrestle. This was in the very early days of the Division I transition and Princeton was a “name brand” Division I school—people wanted to see how well SDSU could compete with the “big boys.”
The match came to fruition because of an assistant coach for SDSU—Josh Hardman—had been college teammates with an assistant coach at Princeton—Kevin Lake. Liles and Princeton’s head coach Chris Ayres had agreed to a home and home. The year before, SDSU had made the trek to New Jersey and now Princeton was returning the favor.
“We were always try to schedule DI competition who we felt like we could compete with,” Liles explained. “Princeton fit the bill perfectly.”
The third interesting element to the match was Princeton’s lineup. At the 125 lb. spot, the Tigers had Audrey Pang slated to compete. Now, this was a different time. Today, women’s wrestling is an emerging NCAA sport and even schools in the region—Dakota Wesleyan —sponsor women’s wrestling. Then, women’s wrestling was not really a “thing.” To this point in 2004, Liles had been coaching for more than 20 years and never had an athlete wrestle against the opposite sex. To put it bluntly, a female wrestler—at the collegiate level—was rare and people were definitely curious to see how she would fare.
Lining up against Pang was a redshirt freshman by the name of Marcus Waters. A walk-on from Leavenworth, Kansas (home to the United States Penitentiary Leavenworth), Waters was talented but somewhat inconsistent. When he wrestled opponents who he felt were at a similar level to him, he did well. When he wrestled opponents who he felt were better than him, he struggled.
Among the 300 in attendance was a healthy student section, dressed up as nerds (the theme for the match was “Revenge of the Nerds”). The best dressed would win a prize at the end of the match. The metal bleachers that surrounded 3/4ths of the mat were packed full and the other 1/4th was full of people standing. More people could have jammed into the Barn that night but unless they were 6’ 8” or taller, seeing anything would be difficult. Looking back, it kind of resembled what happens when a fight breaks out in a crowded bar—people surround the fighters on all sides.
Prior to the fight—ahem, match—Liles and Ayres met to decide which weight class to start on. They both agreed to start with the heavyweights followed by the 125 lb. weight class which meant Waters and Pang would be the second to go.
“Marcus (Waters) was really nervous, I could tell from his demeanor,” Liles said. “I brought them back in that old locker room for a talk. I focused on Waters because I wanted him to set the tone for the match.”
The heavyweight match saw Princeton’s Kristopher Berr win a 2-1 overtime decision. It was then time for the match of the night.
My memory of this night is a little spotty but I remember this part of the match well. From my recollection, here’s the play-by-play of the 125 lb. dual:
Waters and Pang approach the mat, shake hands, whistle blows and they’re off. Waters has fire in his eyes and comes out uber aggressive. Within seconds, Waters had shot for Pang’s leg and had a takedown. After some slight maneuvering (my only wrestling experience is from being tossed around like a rag doll during the “Wrestling Unit” in sixth grade so maybe “maneuvering” is the wrong word here but bear with me), Waters had Pang in a tight pin up near her neck. 29 seconds into the match, the umpire was slapping the mat and it was over. A first period pin, worth six points, was huge for the Jackrabbits chances that night.
The SDSU bench erupts with excitement but Liles has to calm everyone down. While Waters got up victorious, Pang stayed down. A hushed silence fell over the crowd and it was clear that Pang was in significant pain. After a few minutes lying on the mat, she was stretchered off and the dual resumed (Pang ended up being fine, the stretcher was primarily a precautionary measure).
The rest of the match featured a back and forth affair between the Tigers and Jacks. In the end, SDSU eked out a tight victory, 18-15, primarily because of Waters’ early pin, thus concluding the final athletic event in the Barn.
I was curious to see what Pang and Waters were up to nowadays, 18 years later. Pang appears to have done well for herself. At Princeton, she was the first women to letter in wrestling and was profiled by the New York Times. After graduating in 2005, she continued with wrestling, just missing out on the Olympic Team in 2008. She then turned to MMA, where she finished with a career record of 4-1 (Below is a video from Pang’s MMA career. Fair warning, it’s kind of a tough watch). Today she is the head of an investment management firm in Austin, Texas.
Waters on the other hand is far more elusive. With Pang, a simple Google search revealed pretty much every step in her career, from 2004 to 2022. Waters not so much. After the 2004-2005 wrestling season, he disappeared from SDSU’s wrestling roster. According to Liles, they recruited another guy in the 125 lb. weight class and Waters left the team. He has basically no internet trail after that. I had one lead—Water’s Feed Company in Leavenworth—but I couldn’t discern if it was “Waters Feed Company” or “Water’s Feed Company” (big difference there). I sent a message on the company’s Facebook page but noticed that the last post was in early 2019. I would be shocked if I get a message back there.
There was also a phone number but I decided against giving what could possibly be Marcus Waters a call. I figured in today’s world, if you are pretty much non-existent on the internet, the last thing you probably want is some (admittedly) crazy guy calling you about a random wrestling match 18 years ago. While it’s not great “journalism” to not go that extra mile and seek out somebody, I decided in this case, its probably best to leave it alone. I hope Marcus is doing well though.
Lastly, I have a story that I’m looking to crowdsource some information on. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, inmates in the South Dakota State Penitentiary competed against each other in weightlifting competitions. I have some information on the meets from newspaper archives but I know there has to be some wild behind the scenes stories out there. If anyone has any information, leads, stories—whatever really—on these competitions, shoot me an email at dehavenwriter@gmail.com.