{"id":759,"date":"2015-02-23T20:00:59","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T02:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/?p=759"},"modified":"2015-05-21T09:44:14","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T14:44:14","slug":"dennie-bridges-court-dedication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/2015\/02\/23\/dennie-bridges-court-dedication\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennie Bridges Court Dedication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Illinois Wesleyan athletic director <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iwusports.com\/staff.aspx?staff=2\"><span class=\"s2\">Dennie Bridges<\/span><\/a>, who coached the Titans&#8217; men&#8217;s basketball team to 667 wins over a 36-year span, will be honored with the dedication of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.iwusports.com\/staff.aspx?staff=2\"><span class=\"s2\">Dennie Bridges<\/span><\/a> Court&#8221; in the Shirk Center performance gymnasium on Saturday, Feb. 21.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The event will take place at halftime of the Titans&#8217; final regular season game, a 7 p.m. &#8220;Seniors&#8217; Day&#8221; contest against Elmhurst. A number of former players, including seven-time NBA all-star and 1977 IWU graduate Jack Sikma, will be on hand at the game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Bridges, who will retire from the university in July as its longest-serving athletic director, led IWU to a national Division III championship in 1997 and third place finishes in 1996 and 2001.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">His teams had a 667-319 record from 1965 to 2001 with 17 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin championships, 14 NCAA Division III tournament appearances and seven NAIA national tournament appearances.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">&#8220;The naming of the court in Dennie&#8217;s honor is a well-deserved tribute to his long and successful career at Illinois Wesleyan,&#8221; said IWU President Richard Wilson. &#8220;His dedication and commitment as a coach, teacher and administrator have served as a model for many athletes and friends across the country, in this community and at this university.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">From 1957 to 1961, playing at Memorial Gymnasium (now the Hansen Student Center), Bridges was a four-year letterman and all-conference player in basketball. Coaching for 29 seasons (1965-94) at Fred Young Fieldhouse, his teams won 285 games in the building (285-71) and in the first seven years of the Shirk Center, Bridges&#8217;s IWU squads won 93 of 98 home games.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illinois Wesleyan athletic director Dennie Bridges, who coached the Titans&#8217; men&#8217;s basketball team to 667 wins over a 36-year span, will be honored with the dedication of &#8220;Dennie Bridges Court&#8221; in the Shirk Center performance gymnasium on Saturday, Feb. 21. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/2015\/02\/23\/dennie-bridges-court-dedication\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":460,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/460"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/1970sclassnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}