It once resonated with some of the greatest moments in college basketball history. It was home to Lefty Driesell and Gary Williams. Len Bias and Len Elmore. Steve Blake and Juan Dixon. Keith Booth and Joe Smith.
Today, Cole Field House is home to Joe and Jane Schmoe ? normal college students who participate in intramural and club sports at the University of Maryland. Cole now serves as a civic multipurpose building, housing concerts, career fairs, commencements and recreational sports.
“Students very seldom had a chance to do anything aside from come here and watch a basketball game,” said Curt Callahan, the facility manager at Maryland?s iconic former basketball arena, which is now run by Campus Recreation Services. “In all the years I was here, I was trying to keep students off the basketball court. And now it?s a venue that students can use.”
A turf floor has been installed where the storied basketball program once roamed. Intramural and club sports have access to the indoor fields, as do some intercollegiate teams. Most commonly, the Terps? football and field hockey teams make use of the facility.
“I think it?s been very positive, the fact that it wasn?t torn down, that it is available for the general student body to use,” CRS director Jay Gilchrist said.
Maryland?s intercollegiate athletics left 12,000-seat Cole in 2002 ? the same year the school?s men?s basketball team won its lone national title ? across campus to the Comcast Center. Many welcomed the shift to the newer, snazzier building (which, unlike Cole, boasts air conditioning), but just as many fans preferred the aura of Cole, where boisterous crowds became infamous.
But, according to Gilchrist, many of today?s students might see it as just another facility.
“I think we?ve pretty much turned over a full group of undergrads” since the last men?s basketball game at Cole, Gilchrist said. “So, except for our fifth-year seniors, not many students have been to Cole, and not many know it?s been the host of two men?s Final Fours.”
Aside from the new turf field where the hardwood once lay, the building?s extremities have also been revamped. The swimming pool adjacent to the fieldhouse is being converted into an art gallery, and Cole?s offices, gymnasiums and other rooms have been transformed into academic and office space.
Even the former basketball locker rooms and facilities are being used for the likes of aerobics, yoga, rowing and stationary bike classes.
Williams? former office now houses the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. Williams? picture hangs in the office of the Knight Center?s director, Carol Horner.
Callahan has heard the false stories about the building from those passing through. It was either an airplane hangar or a hockey rink. All wrong.
“It was built in 1955 and it was one of the biggest arenas on the East Coast,” Callahan said. “And it was purely a basketball arena.”
Today, the new Cole Field House is much more than that.
AN ARENA FOR THE AGES
» Cole Field House, officially named the William P. Cole Jr. Student Activities Building, opened in 1955. It cost $3.3 million and, ironically, started with a Terps win over the same Virginia program with which they closed the venue. In 2002, Cole closed with a 112-92 win over Virginia for the program?s first Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title since 1980.
» Cole was home to more upsets of top-ranked teams than any other venue in the nation. The No. 3 Terps toppled No. 1 Duke in February of 2002 for the final of seven top-seed upsets in the building.
