The campus of the University of Arizona with the football field directly west of Bear Down Gym. On February 14, 1929, a photographer took aerial pictures of the Tucson area, including the U of A.
The facility formerly known as Bear Down Gym still features a hardwood floor and some of the original bleacher seats, but it has been rebranded and repurposed as the Bear Down Building as part of the UAβs βStudent Success District.β
Former UA basketball coach Fred A. Enke at Bear Down Gym, around 1960, with assistant Bruce Larson, who succeeded Enke, sitting to his right. Enke achieved great success at the old gymnasium, which ceased hosting Wildcat hoops in 1973.
On Wednesday, the 50th anniversary of Arizonaβs last basketball game at Bear Down Gym, I walked through the front door and was greeted by a nurse.
βAre you here to get a COVID vaccine?β she asked.
The site where Arizona once won 81 consecutive games has been repurposed. You can buy a cup of coffee and a donut at a quick-serve market where the office of coaches Fred Enke and Fred Snowden used to be.
You can study for an exam in the βThink Tank,β nap in a comfortable chair, take a cooking class or consult with a nutritional coach at what is now called the Bear Down Building.
But you canβt play basketball.
Two glass backboards with rims and nets hang 10 feet from the ground, but they are ornamental, not to be used for a 3-point jumper or an intramural game.
Time has touched every aspect of the one-time state-of-the-art gymnasium, built in 1926 for a then-hefty $166,207.
Fifty years ago, on Jan. 18, 1973, Snowdenβs first Arizona team beat UC-Santa Barbara in a farewell-to-Bear Down Gym game. One columnist referred to the venue as βonce elegant, now a relic.β It was the last of 488 UA games played at Bear Down Gym.
It was forgotten almost overnight.
Jerry Holmes, who was Snowdenβs lead assistant coach, remembers the seven games Arizona played at Bear Down Gym in the 1972-73 season, but not necessarily fondly.
βOh my god, it was so small,β Holmes says now. βIt seated about 3,000, and half of those were for students. I think we mustβve had 500 students turned away every game. It was a wild environment β intimidating β but we werenβt thinking about the history of the gym; we were too excited to get into McKale.β
By 1973, the history of the gym had long been classified as old news. Tucson was eager to make its tardy entrance in the Western Athletic Conferenceβs first true facilities βarms race.β What was once the premier basketball facility in the Southwest was over the hill by age 30.
βThe grand old dameβs days as a queen of high society are long past,β the Tucson Citizen wrote in 1973. βNow itβs a doddering old dowager.β
Some referred to it as βTear Down Gym.β
The Star reported that Bear Down Gym prevented the UA from being a competitive basketball force. βIt has drained Arizona,β it wrote. βThe school is now so weak it cannot field a presentable team.β
The UAβs competitors in the WAC didnβt have any pity for the slow-moving UA athletic department. The arms race was full-on:
Colorado State opened Moby Arena in 1966, seating 8,700.
New Mexico debuted the 14,000-seat βThe Pit in 1966.
Utah completed the 15,000-seat Huntsman Center in 1969.
BYU opened the doors to its 21,000-seat Marriott Center in 1971.
The final decade at Bear Down Gym all but erased memories of Enkeβs teams of 1945-51, a golden era in which the Wildcats went 132-40, played in their first NCAA Tournament and began to play a coast-to-coast national schedule.
When Dick Clausen was hired as Arizonaβs athletic director in 1958, one of his first stated goals was to replace Bear Down Gym. In a 1998 interview at his midtown Tucson home, Clausen told me that departing Bear Down Gym met opposition at every turn.
Clausen estimated that the UAβs gate receipts for a typical 1960s season at Bear Down Gym were a thin $25,000. He accurately estimated that McKale Centerβs income would exceed that by 10 times, more than $300,000 per season in the early β70s.
Yet progress was clogged by political opposition and financial issues.
βI was the AD for 13 years, and it took 14 to get McKale Center built,β Clausen told me. βThe state legislature, especially the Phoenix group, wouldnβt budge. But when (former UA vice president) Swede Johnson and I proposed it would be named after Pop McKale, it changed everything. We got the fans on our side, and it moved the legislature to take action.β
The price for Arizonaβs long delay was staggering. From 1955-72, Arizona had just four winning seasons. Utah, BYU and New Mexico ruled WAC basketball.
On the day of the last game at Bear Down Gym 50 years ago, no one could have guessed or dreamed that Arizona would become the No. 1 college basketball program West of the Kansas Jayhawks.
βWe couldnβt have recruited the Eric Moneys and Coniel Normans and Bob Elliotts without having McKale,β Holmes says now. βBut it was sad to see what Bear Down Gym had become.β
Now, 50 years from the last game played at Bear Down, itβs possible to put the positives of the old arena in perspective.
Thirteen athletes who played their entire basketball careers at Bear Down Gym β Warren Rustand, Ed Nymeyer, Ernie McCray, Roger Johnson, Fred W. Enke, Hank Leiber, Linc Richmond, Joe Skaisgir, Mo Udall, Waldo Dicus, Leon Blevins, Hadie Redd and George Genung β have been inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame.
The street in front of McKale Center is appropriately named Fred Enke Drive. And rather than tear down the old gym, the UA spent more than $25 million to revive it and make it useful. Today the school refers to it as part of the βStudent Success District.β
Just like the day in 1951 when the Wildcats beat No. 2 LIU, rose to No. 11 in the AP poll and provided the first glimpse of Tucson as a basketball town.
Photos: University of Arizona β Then and Now β Part 3
University of Arizona: Football stadium
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University of Arizona: Football stadium
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University of Arizona: Adminstration
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University of Arizona: Adminstration
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University of Arizona: Mall
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University of Arizona: Mall
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University of Arizona: Mall at Campbell
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University of Arizona: Mall at Campbell
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University of Arizona: McKale Center exterior
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University of Arizona: McKale Center exterior
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University of Arizona: Dorms
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University of Arizona: Dorms
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University of Arizona: Coronado Dorm
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University of Arizona: Coronado Dorm
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University of Arizona: Physics, Math and Meteorology
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University of Arizona: Physics, Math and Meteorology