The Haunted Halls of Sutcliffe

The Haunted Halls of Sutcliffe

Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Anecdotes
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Buildings
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—History
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Students
Ghosts—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted places—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted universities and colleges—Kentucky—Danville

An oral history of paranormal experiences and the haunted history of Sutcliffe Hall on the campus of Centre College.

Roush, John

2021/01/18

Kaczocha, Mark

All Rights Reserved

MP4

English

Oral history (literary work)

Kaczocha, Mark

Roush, John

Fox Hall, Centre College, Danville, KY

Mark Kaczocha 0:01
Okay, so my name is Mark Kaczocha. And today I'm interviewing john Roush, who was the president of Center College from 1998 to 2020. Is that correct?

John Roush 0:11
Correct.

Mark Kaczocha 0:12
All right, perfect. I'm here with myself and John Roush. Today is January 18 2020. We are recording this interview over zoom. And today we will be discussing John Roush, his experiences during his time at Centre College. Okay. So, um, just for a little biographical can contextual information, what is your connection to center college,

John Roush 0:40
Well it was my honor to serve as president center for 20 years, 22 years from 1998 to 2020. And I counted a real blessing Susie and I both have had a chance to be a part of the college community and I continued, we move just on the same note scored so we I'm still teaching, as you may know more, and I'm involved in a whole lot of stuff here in town and around the country as as Suzy. So it's been an honor to be now President Emeritus of center college and watch Dr. Moreland, come into play and began to do good things at the institution, as well.

Mark Kaczocha 1:16
Okay. And in your career, what would you say your responsibilities were and currently are?

John Roush 1:23
Well, for 22 years, I was effectively the chief executive officer. I didn't bear that title. That doesn't work in the academy. But that's what I was. And, and now I'm, I have an honorific title. That is that I'm President Emeritus. More important right now I'm a professor, I teach during Centre term. And equally important is I'm a temporary assistant football coach, working with the running backs at Center College, which coach Frye found himself a couple people light, and decided to invite a few people who knew something about and I was one of them. And again, honored again, to be invited and be a part of your program. As a member of our football team, and, you know, a weekend, it's been an absolute joy. Now we got quarantined here. So we're gonna have to take a little bit of a timeout, but we'll be back better than ever.

Mark Kaczocha 2:14
Absolutely, and we are super excited to have you by the way on the team. I think that's all we've been talking about for forever. So on in your time on campus, have you ever had any paranormal experiences?

John Roush 2:30
Let me let me call off to I should tell you mark, there was another one of your classmates who contacted Susie and me. And I know what we want to talk to her about, but I'm going to call off to that would be maybe more relevant to some of your work. So the first is the old Sutcliffe. Now when I got here, you haven't ever you never saw that you may want to go back and get some pictures of the old Sutcliffe before it was renovated. I think about 2004 that sticks in my brain might have been a year or two before that, not much. But the old Sutcliffe was about as mysterious and looking building as you've ever seen. The lighting was poor, the flooring was beat up, it was just an old building that needed some new life. And we went in and spent about $10 million in there, added on a great addition to new gymnasiums, kind of a reboot of the whole place. But please, I'm going to tell you about, that I used to go at night, and it would scare me because I would always have this feeling I was not there alone was the weight room in the old sutcliffe. Now that is where you guys now have a bunch of your equipment stored. It was about as ordinary a weight room, as you can imagine, nothing was painted. The floor was just concrete. But it was satisfactory, and had the machines in there had some free weights in there. You know, it did the job. It's really quite like what I went back in the day when I was a competitive athlete. The weight rooms were not fancy, they were not elaborate. They were pretty ordinary. This was such a place, the ceiling was low. There wasn't much light. And there was all kinds of noise when you went in there. And I because I have a busy day, a lot of times, I would go back over to Sutcliffe when the lights were up, and no one was there, and I'd go back and I'd want to get maybe a 30 minute lifting. And I'd say mark, I think I just can't tell you how many times I left early. I got there, kind of about two thirds of the way through my workout and I just had this really weird sense that I was not the only one in that room. You know, there were some mechanical things back there. That made noise and you know, and then you get in a hurry and you're not paying attention. All of a sudden you just feel like something's there. And I just decided I never got angry about it and yelled at anybody, or are you there? No, I didn't do that. I just decided Maybe I missed my last couple sets and exit early. Did I ever see anybody? I did not? Do I think that I was with someone? Yeah, I do. I just don't, I don't know how to describe my paranormal experience. But it was in the old Sutcliffe, not so much the new Sutcliffe, though it has some places that can be a little spooky, but the old Sutcliffe and the old weight room. And maybe you can find some pictures of that mark, I don't have those for you. But you might be able to hunt around, get some from somebody or maybe even athletics. And the second one is on over the hill, what is now our lacrosse field, and our softball field. And then one of our practice spaces down there. When I got here, that was all filled up with really meat houses. stockyards are referred to as the Danville dock yards. And as for men and women would bring their stock in to sell it. So it was a place where things were bought and sold. And there really was, I think, some butchering, still going on down there. And, I several years into my presidency, we ended up buying the stockyards for the express purpose of turning them into athletic fields, where you now get to go and watch and enjoy things and other students as well. Well, we owned it for a while when there was nothing going on down there. And these big old stockyards were these giant kind of aluminum roof two buildings that were monstrous. And they just went on forever. Well, I was a president, you know, late at night, Susie and I would sometimes get in a car and go down just how Look how things were I used to when I was present, I would drive around often at night, sometimes early in the morning, just to be sure things were okay. It's an old habit goes back to a different time. I know we have a security force to do that. But I would like to put my eyes on stuff. So I got to tell you what the old stockyards had been there for like a century. And maybe it was the business that they were in. But I promised you that there were some times I would drill down into those buildings, I had keys, I got the keys. And I'd go in there. And

I just had this, that paranormal feeling somebody somebody is in here with me. I don't think they're angry with me. They're not trying to hurt me. But I am sticking around. And so I would be, I'd step in, turn on the lights. And again, really dimly lit this, this place did not invite company. And, man, I remember turning right back around locking the door and going home. And so you know, that's that's not very fancy paranormal stuff I can't claim to have ever spoken with anyone. I know one of your later questions has to do with just the paranormal as a whole. But I've had enough experience, I'm 70 years old. And here on Centres campus, I've had two places where actually a couple others that I I'm pulling back on because the other one of your classmates gets those from Susie and me. But those are two areas that are kind of special to your life because you go over there and do things athletically. And I saw some stuff down there I experienced let's leave it at that. Some stuff that would take my breath away every time.

Mark Kaczocha 8:27
Yeah, it's interesting that you bring up Sutcliffe. I was really looking on focusing on that, because I've heard a lot of spooky things about Sutcliffe Hall from other coaches and just in general, um, so

John Roush 8:38
but the Sutcliffe, Mark, the old Sutcliffe was twice as scary. I mean, it was really an old and not in very good shape building it was, it was an embarrassment of sorts. That's why it was one of the very first things we did, which was the reboot, and add on too many huge renovation when effectively doubled the size of Sutcliffe, but more importantly, we got rid of the old Sutcliffe because it was there was something

Mark Kaczocha 9:04
Yeah. So in your experience at Sutcliffe when you describe having that feeling of somebody being in that room to you, how would you I guess, describe in detail like Could you go into some detail on how you remember like your body feeling like that feeling of fear and stuff like that?

John Roush 9:23
Yeah, I mean, it was, it was fear met No, I make no apology for that. It wasn't just curiosity. It was fear. And you know, I've had a chance to kind of face life unafraid that's been my style as a person from the time I was a little boy. But um, you know, when I get into those kind of moments, like, you know, if you're driving down the road, and you have a near miss, and man all that, it's really all that adrenaline pouring into your body. For me, at least the physical experience is what kind of a tingle. I mean, it's just like, I'm just tingling in it. Arguably, I am at that moment as strong as I'll ever be, to run as fast as I would ever run. So I understand that the kind of the physiology of it, it's really, you know, endorphins pouring into your bloodstream at a rate that is just remarkable and you for so for me, it was at tingle, it was usually triggered Mark by something I heard. That's something I saw. It was triggered by something I heard that didn't seem right. Didn't seem normal. And so now my mind starts working. And I'm concluding that maybe I'm not in here alone. not upset about that. I'm just not sticking around. And I would exit the door, my body's still tingling, you know, and I make my way out of the car and go home. So that was my way of approaching the paranormal.

Mark Kaczocha 10:49
Yeah, that's really cool. It's interesting, because I feel like that's such a feeling that so many people can relate to and had experiences like that, like, that's super interesting. So how have these experiences, how have these experiences influenced your work in any way or your personal life?

John Roush 11:10
Well, that's a big question. I am. Some of you students know me, and you know me well enough to know that. I sort of believe in the possible, I don't spend a lot of my life, a lot of my work life thinking about things that we can't do. It's mostly focused on things that we can do. And I, so I live in the world of the possible, which is kind of jumping ahead, maybe to your next question is, so if someone were to say to me, John, are you a believer in the paranormal? I think that word might be a little bit strong. I allow for it, Mark, believe in it. Having you know, had a personal experience that makes me sure, kind of touch it, or be touched by it a few times to make me wonder. So I fall into that category is, I believe that the paranormal experience doesn't threaten me. So I'm alert to it, I'm aware of it. I sort of embrace it, I don't I don't think of these as being something to be physically afraid of. I just don't fully understand it. But there's a whole lot in life. I don't fully understand. So I'm okay with that.

Mark Kaczocha 12:24
Right. And so that being said, have these experiences influenced your view on Centre campus at all? And how you view Centre?

John Roush 12:33
No, no, I mean, it's just a part of life. You know, I am a person of faith. And that that gives me strength and gives me courage. And also lets me dream and think about those things that are possible not impossible. And so you know, if there are some paranormal dudes across the street, kind of cruising around Center College, that doesn't, that doesn't give me a reason for any alarm, or to be overly concerned. So it doesn't affect my Outlook, about center college or about life in general. It's it was again back to what is it? What is it to live in a world with possible then you have to acknowledge that things you cannot understand I can be real. I can't understand paranormal behavior. But I have a sense that it might be real. And so I don't disavow it or spend a lot of time trying to talk people out of it. It's, I like the relationship that I have with the paranormal and I feel like I've been touched maybe a little bit but not like some others and I refuse to make stuff up. So I can't talk about what I've seen I can talk about what I have experienced

Mark Kaczocha 13:55
and yeah, that's that's really insightful honestly, like that was really cool. Um, so aside from Sutcliffe and the old stalking yards what places have you heard ghost stories in and center colleges campus or heard about?

John Roush 14:12
I've heard I've heard stuff about old Centre, heard stuff about Craig house. I think that another one of your classmates wants to talk to Susie about Craig house, I'm gonna let her do that. If and now she doesn't follow through, we can double back but you know that i think that you know, this place is 200 years old mark, and there's going to be stories that are, you know, pretty remarkable. One last one for you, and then I'll go. So I've run often over the track late, I'm talking that you know, after 10 and there have been some times when, as I'm running around the track, I look up at that press box. And there's just there are dim lights up there or I have, I've talked to myself into believing they're dim lights up there. And then The light would go off. Well, why did it do that? You know, is it time now? Did somebody turn it off? I don't know. But I've often had that sense that somebody was watching me run. Now, I don't run that fast anymore. So they couldn't have been impressed. It must have just been a curiosity of him. And, but you know, when I go to run, I'm not trying to impress anybody, I'm just trying to get some exercise in. And it's often late at night, late, the latest I ever ran was about one o'clock at night, I got home from a trip. I just didn't really want to go to sleep. And so I went over and I remember thinking, this is kind of stupid. Nobody knows you're over here, except Susie. And, but it worked out. Okay. You know, I'm still here.

Mark Kaczocha 15:47
That's, that's really interesting. Um, so I have two more and a, why do you think there are so many ghost stories on centers campus or so many rumors, or just stories in general, or experiences?

John Roush 16:02
I got, I think the three reasons, one, we're 200 years old. So we got a history of some note, two. You know, we got a lot of intellectual people, and you're bright people, interesting people, on the faculty, on the staff, and even among your students. So the chances of somebody, you know, sort of being aware of alert to, conscious of, that shouldn't be a surprise, we got a lot of intellectually curious people all packed together. And then the third thing is, and this allowed for the paranormal, is I just, I don't know, when I figured out that it wasn't that important that I understand everything. I need to understand many things. And certainly some things, I don't need to understand everything. And so I go back to something I said earlier, I allow for the paranormal, I'm not a true believer. But I allow for it doesn't cause me to be afraid. If there are, if there are some among us who cannot be seen in a physical way. I'm okay with that. They're not doing any harm and kind of gives me something else to be to imagine, and to sort of be inspired by that. But we got a lot of that going around. It's been here for a long time, and it will no doubt will continue. Mark, you're probably adding to it by creating these, these tapes that you are.

Mark Kaczocha 17:20
Oh, I hope so. Okay, you kind of touched on this a little bit, but I'm just gonna ask it just for you know, the sake of it. So, what do you think about ghost stories in general? And do you think that center college is haunted?

John Roush 17:38
haunted? The first question, I think you've already answered one haunted. That word has a kind of a negative tone, how about spirit filled? I am, I'm more comfortable with that definition that we may have some spirits among us that are still here, able to communicate in ways, unlike the way we do, like communicate, nonetheless. And I'm okay with that. And I have been okay with it, when I was 10 when I was your age at about 20. And also all my life, I just I don't I don't find that to be a frightening thing. I just don't fully understand it. But there's lots of things I don't fully understand. And I think people should have some fun with it. And if they're real serious about it. That's okay. That's their choice. I tend to be more around the business of enjoying the prospect of there being some folks among us not to be seen or heard. But here nonetheless. So who's to say?

Mark Kaczocha 18:45
Yeah, I mean, I agree. Well, that about wraps it up. Honestly. Thank you so much for your time and telling us all your stories and everything.

John Roush 18:55
I'm honored to be included. I hope this goes well and hope it goes well for you, Mark,

Mark Kaczocha 19:00
thank you so much.

John Roush 19:01
I hope to see you real soon back over on the field and having fun and getting ready to play games. So take care yourself.

MP4

19:11