Smoke and Basketball in the Butte Civic Center

March madness basketball coupled with a trip to Butte for dinner with friends resurrected some memories about the Western Divisional Basketball Tournament when I was in high school. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Western Division tournament was always in the Butte Civic Center. The Butte Civic Center was only place the boys played basketball where smoking was permitted. It was a smoking free for all. Smoking was allowed any time and any place in the civic center. It seemed like every adult in the place was a six pack a day smoker. Since it was a divisional basketball tournament, the building was packed. We would watch boys dribbling, shooting, and running through a blue-gray haze of cigarette smoke. One team had oxygen for its players. I remember seeing a couple of the team’s players pulled out of the game for an 15 minute oxygen break. Even as a high school student, I was appalled that adults in charge were OK with this situation.


During that same time period, my Mom and Dad decided to take in a divisional basketball tournament game in Butte. They brought my little sister who was not yet in high school. Mom, a nurse who worked with people dying of emphysema, was horrified to see the basketball players physically exerting themselves in the thick cigarette smoke of the Butte Civic Center.

To understand why this story is memorable, you need to understand my parent’s personalities. Mom was a pistol. She was a champion of good health, especially when it came to the drinking and smoking. She did not tolerate abject stupidity. Mom didn’t respect authority just because it was authority. When authority sanctioned stupidity, compromised safety, or endorsed what was harmful, she had no compunction about raising Hell.

Dad was another story. Dad was 6’2 with a solid build. He had big, thick hands and feet, a barrel chest, and a placid disposition. He had more tolerance for people’s foibles and if he thought someone was an idiot, he merely ignored them and avoided them. I rarely remember him saying anything unkind about anyone. I never knew him to start an argument or provoke a scene of any kind.  He was a humble, church-going man.

So these two diverse personalities and my sister, Colleen, sat watching a basketball game through smoke-filled haze of the Butte Civic Center. A couple of spectators seated themselves in front of my family and proceeded to light up. This misguided couple picked the wrong seat to enjoy a quiet smoke during the basketball game. My Mom asked the couple how they thought those kids playing basketball court were supposed to breathe in a building reeking with cigarette smoke. The couple flung down the gauntlet. Their position was that smoking was permitted, they were going to smoke, and there wasn’t a thing my Mom could do about it. Never one to meekly accept defeat, Mom, accompanied by Colleen, stood up and grabbed their winter coats.  They created the civic center's newest ventilation system, using the coats as large and visible fans to blow the smoke away from them. Every smoker in the entire Civic Center must have had a view of the proceedings. The man of the smoking couple turned around and threatened my Mom. Where upon my quiet, peaceable father raised his huge, anvil-like fist and let it be understood that if the smoking spectators disturbed my Mom in any way, Dad would settle the matter in the traditional Butte manner.

Evidently, the couple thought better of pressing the issue. Aunt Colleen would have further details about the couple’s subsequent actions since she was there. Not long after, smoking in the Butte Civic Center was prohibited.