From the night Jackie Robinson played Illinois State, to the birth of an ISU Athletics legend, historian Tom Emery explores this month in Illinois State University history.
December 7
On this date in 1941, the campus at Illinois State University was gripped by the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. This dominated the next two issues of the Vidette, which was filled with reactions from students and faculty alike.
The United States declared war on December 8. Eleven days later, the Vidette devoted a four-page special section as reprints of stories, photos, and advertisements from the newspaper during the 1917-18 school year. The U.S. had been involved in World War I during those years, and the editorial staff was well aware of the significance.
“Only six days away is America’s first Christmas of World War II,” lamented the Vidette. “When America had her first Christmas in World War I, the Vidette was in its thirtieth year of publication. Now it is in its fifty-fourth.” The special section was “dedicated to the memory of journalism of two decades ago,” which was also a time of war.
On December 12, the Vidette had offered comments on Pearl Harbor from many faculty members at Illinois State. A few days later, the director of selective service advised ISU students in an assembly at McCormick Gymnasium to “stay in school” and “apply themselves to the completion of their college careers while they have the opportunity denied to so many.”
Some ISU graduates, mainly men, were already in service. The Vidette reported that their names and addresses were posted on the bulletin board at the Dean of Women’s office for “any person desiring to send letters or gifts to these men during the Christmas holidays” to “help cheer former Redbirds who may not be able to come home for Christmas.”
No ISU alums are known to have died on December 7, though one, Ensign Carl Wene, had attended ISU in the late 1930s and was stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7. Wene’s plane went down on a patrol out of Pearl Harbor a few weeks later. He is considered the first of 78 men from ISU who gave their lives in the conflict.
On February 20, 1942, the Vidette reported on a letter from Harvey Freeland, a 1908 ISU graduate and former assistant superintendent of public instruction in Hawaii, who was then a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve.
Freeland was having a “leisurely breakfast” on December 7 with his wife when “we heard planes passing overhead and soon after we heard firing.” He wrote that “the morning of December 7 is one that will remain long in my memory.”
Freeland’s feelings were shared by many in the ISU community. In summarizing the year of 1941, the Vidette declared that “national unity such as no one could have conceived emerged strong and determined on that one quiet, sunny day when news came from Pearl Harbor.”
December 9
On this date 71 years ago, in 1953, Emmy-award winning actor John Malkovich, an Illinois State graduate, was born.
A distinguished actor in stage, television, and movie productions, Malkovich won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series of Movie in 1985 for Death of a Salesman. Malkovich played Biff Loman, the older son of tormented salesman Willy Loman, in the movie, which aired on CBS on September 15, 1985. The movie was an adaptation of the 1984 Broadway revival of the play, which also featured Malkovich as Biff in his Broadway debut.
Malkovich has been nominated for two other Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actor, including in 1999 for his role in RKO 281, a film on the chaotic production of the 1941 classic Citizen Kane. RKO 281 premiered on HBO on Nov. 20, 1999. In addition, Malkovich was nominated for the French miniseries Napoleon, which aired on A&E in April 2003.
He has also earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, with the first in 1984 for Places of the Heart. His other Oscar nomination was for In the Line of Fire in 1993.
Malkovich has appeared in highly respected roles on the stage in New York, Chicago, and has directed other acclaimed productions in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico.
Malkovich’s many choice film roles include the 1987 adaptation of The Glass Menagerie, directed by Paul Newman; Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and Of Mice and Men (1992). On the humorous side, Malkovich has hosted three episodes of Saturday Night Live.
His most famous role, though, may be his namesake Being John Malkovich (1999), a satirical comedy that received three Academy Award nominations and starred Malkovich alongside John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Orson Bean, and Charlie Sheen, with cameos by Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Winona Ryder.
A native of Christopher, Malkovich grew up in Benton and enrolled at Eastern Illinois University in 1972 before transferring to Illinois State.
Malkovich returned to Illinois State on April 4, 2005, to receive his diploma for a B.A. in theater.
December 21
On this date in 1940, the Illinois State University men’s basketball team defeated UCLA 37-21 at McCormick Gym, the former home of the Redbirds. One of the top players for UCLA was Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947.
Though he is best known for his baseball career that changed American culture, Robinson was a four-sport letterwinner at UCLA, the only athlete in that school’s history to hold that distinction. In addition to basketball and baseball, he also participated in football and track.
The Illinois State-UCLA matchup was highly anticipated, as it featured two of the top African American athletes in the nation in Robinson and the Redbirds’ John Scott.
Scott arrived at Illinois State from the hoops hotbed of Centralia and head coach Arthur Trout, who led the Orphans to 811 wins in a storied 37-year career. At Illinois State, he was a three-sport standout and collected 14 championships in his three years as a Redbird.
The basketball program reeled off a 35-7 record in conference play with Scott, a four-time all-conference pick. The Redbirds’ basketball captain in 1940-41, Scott was also a two-time captain of the Illinois State cross country team. In addition, he was a top member of the school’s track team.
Though he was far less known nationally than Robinson, Scott dominated the game, scoring a game-high 21 points. Robinson was held to just two baskets, but his appearance in Normal remains a legendary moment in the history of ISU athletics.
December 31
On the last day of the year in 1892, Clifford “Pop” Horton, the namesake of Illinois State’s legendary Horton Field House, was born. In many ways, he was the original Redbird.
That’s because Horton is credited with creating the nickname “Redbirds” for Illinois State athletic teams. The director of health and physical education for men at ISU from 1923-61, Horton still casts a formidable shadow on Redbird Athletics.
Born in Shelton, Washington, on December 31, 1892, Horton attended a variety of schools in his academic career. He graduated with a degree in physical education from present-day Springfield College in Massachusetts, the same institution where James Naismith invented the game of basketball.
At Springfield, Horton became enamored with the school’s philosophy that physical fitness improved not only the body, but also the mind and spirit. He also developed a love of gymnastics that he carried through jobs at various YMCAs, as well as early teaching positions. He earned a master’s from Clark University in Massachusetts in 1923, the same year he was hired at Illinois State.
For a while in the early 1920s, Horton coached every varsity sport on the ISU campus, including football, basketball, and baseball.
In 1929, Horton founded the Gamma Phi Circus, a unique part of the fabric of ISU, and a reflection on the prevalence of circus performers who hailed from the Bloomington-Normal area. Gamma Phi quickly became known for its talent in gymnastics and tumbling and has performed across the area to excited crowds for decades. Horton himself often performed with the students as well.
Gamma Phi held its first circus at ISU in 1932, and except for the World War II years of 1942-46, the event has been an annual, and beloved, tradition.
A civic-minded individual, Horton was a charter member of the American Legion post of Normal. He also established the annual summer camp for disabled children at Lake Bloomington, a cherished part of the culture of Central Illinois.
In 1974, Horton was inducted into the Illinois State Athletics Percy Hall of Fame. He died in Normal on April 14, 1981. As part of the tradition of the Gamma Phi Circus, each year the performers venture to East Lawn Memorial Gardens, where Horton is buried, to pay tribute to him.
Today, Horton Field House, which opened in 1963, is the home of several ISU sports, including indoor track and field, gymnastics, and swimming and diving. The home of Redbird basketball from 1963-89, Horton also houses vital practice space for Illinois State’s 19 varsity sports, as well as classrooms for the Kinesiology and Recreation Department.
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher who, in collaboration with Carl Kasten ’66, co-authored the 2020 book Abraham Lincoln and the Heritage of Illinois State University.
