Being a younger fan, I never got to experience Stokely.
Interested in hearing from fans who attended games, concerts, etc. there.
What did you like/dislike about it? What was unique about Stokely compared to other arenas.
I have a big interest in old gyms, arenas, stadiums.
It was smoking. Literally and figuratively.
It doubled as an indoor Track and Field facility. About the first 25 rows on each side were folding chairs and the floors would be pushed back to expand the playing surface.
The best seats were in the end zones.
John Ward had to hike to the extreme last row on the side opposite the benches and then take a long cat walk to a rickety, wooden “bird’s nest” hanging from the rafters.
The US flag was lowered from the rafters by an electric motor and rolled back up after the National Anthem played.
The Volunteer Classic was a 4-team tournament. The center scoreboard was lowered to the ground by another electric motor and the plastic team names were replaced on all 4 sides between games by a guy from the maintenance staff on a ladder. Then he’d go to the upper deck of each end zone and replace the name plates on those 2 scoreboards.
Haywood Harris sat in the center of the court side officials/press row between the benches and manned the mic for the PA system.
The court was Tartan. It was concrete covered in a rubber surface.
There was a Junior Varsity team as well as the Varsity team. Until Grunfeld arrived in 1973, freshmen were not eligible to play Varsity. On double header nights, members of each team sat behind the bench of the other in their bright Orange sport coats.
Mears had a pre-game routine with orange and white basketballs and player drills while Sweet Georgia Brown played over the PA. The finale was Roger Peltz and then Bill Seale peddling on a unicycle to the goal for a layup. The crowd would cheer when the layups were made. I don’t remember, they might have repeated the attempt on misses.
For a season or two there was a mascot that was a large, paper machete Orange that resembled the Syracuse Orange.
The pep band used to come out from underneath an end zone and March around the court.
The concourse was filled with museum pieces. Trophies from every sport and pictures of All-Americans and championship teams.
The east end of the concourse was directly connected to the Gibbs Hall lobby where student-athlete housing was located.
In the early 1970s or late 1960s there was a high school basketball game between Austin-East and another school (Fulton?). The game ended in a riot between fans. The folding chairs became projectiles. The concourse was heavily vandalized including the trophy case. TN then banned high school games in Stokely.