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BY JOHN BURBRIDGE
jburbridge@nwitimes.com
219.933.3371 | Friday, March 28, 2008 | (No comments posted.)
CROWN POINT | Chester Lobodzinski doesn't quite remember the old Hammond Tech High School on Russell Street. But he'll relate the urban legends.
"It was rat-infested ... the place was falling apart," he says. "There was no money at the time, and no one cared about us."
Then the Tigers came to the rescue.
"They put us on the map," Lobodzinski said of the 1940 basketball state champions. "They wouldn't have been able to build that new school (on Sohl Avenue -- now the Hammond Career Center) if it wasn't for what those guys did."
If a basketball team can beckon a new school, then statuettes commemorating the feat 68 years after the fact can raise a museum.
At least that's what Lobodzinski believes.
"I think they look pretty nice," Lobodzinski said of the 5-by-7-inch collector items he designed. Lobodzinski is hawking them for donations for the Hammond Tech Historical Museum he hopes to make a reality.
"Right now, I'm looking for the right building," said Lobodzinski, a 1958 Tech graduate.
Aesthetically, the statuette is a nice start as far as commemorations go. Hammond Trophy Shoppe did the lettering, and Kwik Kopy did the colorized Tiger displayed in the portrait window. The caricature first appeared in a newspaper of the time -- a proud, wide-grinning cat wearing a crown and likely able to eat Garfield for breakfast.
Lobodzinski plans to show off the statuettes at tonight's "Tech Day -- Music Night" at the Dynasty Banquet Hall in Hammond. The first "Tech Day" was March 30, 2000, 60 years to the day of the Tigers' championship win over Mitchell.
Lobodzinski, a retired steel worker, has remained a mover and shaker amid the "Hammond Tech Fraternity" as he calls it, as well as in his longtime hometown of Crown Point. Last fall, Lobodzinski motioned to start a Crown Point Bowling Hall of Fame.
Not all have been appreciative. Several fellow alumni have challenged Lobodzinski's possession rights of some of the school memorabilia he plans to display.
But Lobodzinski doesn't shy from scrutiny. Rather, he collects and preserves it.
On a shelf in his kitchen there's a plastic cup with a chunk of concrete in it. Lobodzinski says it's structural decay from Wrigley Field, and it nearly took him out when he attended a Cubs game. Also in the cup is a column from The Times that openly questions the legitimacy of the claim and alludes to Lobodzinski's alleged penchant for stretching a story.
"They wanted to take the piece and test it," Lobodzinski said of the issue that also attracted television news outlets. "But I would have never gotten it back."
Statuette information
For more information about the commemorative statuettes, call Chester Lobodzinski at (219) 663-4115.
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