McKale Center turned 45 last week and it triggered three thoughts:
1. Long-time Pima College humanities professor Rob Modica still sits in the same seats, Section 12, Row 15, as he did for the first game, Feb. 1, 1973.
Modica, now retired, is a fan of such degree that he sat through every game of the 4-24 season under Ben Lindsey (1982-83). He bought a mini-season ticket plan for the inaugural season, 1972-73, five games, and without prompting he remembered that Arizona scored 100 points in three of those games.
“I came to Tucson from Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1960 and became a regular at Bear Down Gym,” he said. “I’ve been to McKale for all the big games: the McMiracle shot by Craig McMillan, the Duke games, the day Sean Elliott set the Pac-10 scoring record, and those remarkable days of Coniel Norman and Eric Money.”
2. The game has changed so much. Arizona went 4-1 in those first five games, when scores included 110-105, 101-95 and 100-94. “It was so loud then, as loud or louder as any time through the years,” Modica said. It was more entertaining, too. In that first mini-season at McKale, the UA averaged 97 points. It averaged 71 field-goal attempts per game (the UA has never averaged more than 57 shots under Sean Miller). And Norman, a freshman shooting whiz, had consecutive games of 37, 34, 26, 29 and 38 in those first five McKale Center games.
3. McKale Center opened even though Bear Down Gym was only 47 years old. Now the lifetime of a Pac-12 basketball arena goes on and on and on. Washington’s American Airlines Arena (more affectionately known as Hec Edmundson Pavilion) is 90. Cal’s Haas Pavilion is 85. Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum is 68. All have been touched up and renovated, but since McKale’s debut in 1973 — and that of ASU’s Wells Fargo Arena a year later — only Oregon and USC have built new arenas from the ground up.