I know we have had the discussion here many times. I worked in the 12th Man foundation at the time and Reed Arena design has always been a sore subject. Almost all efforts for fundraising at the time were for Football being led by John David Crow (Former Athletic Director stepped down in 1993) and Wall Groff (Athletic Director). John David Had so much power over fund raising and he wanted all efforts focusing on the new football stadium, so basketball never got the push it deserved. So they basically made a big push in those years to get the state of texas to put in all of money for it by call it an Special Events Center the university needed, not a basketball arena. By doing this, the state required us to change the design to more of a special Events center design and not just a sports arena. That is why the design changed.
No one was happy with the design at the time, but basketball was not that popular with Barone as coach and again John David Crow wanted to money going towards football stadium expansion.
I think today you could get more big donors to step up for a real basketball arena, if Bucky could put a few really good season together in a row and get people excited about the sport. And we start really campaigning for a new stadium. But you are going to have to have a few of the power brokers to be behind this before anything can really get started.
No one was happy with the design at the time, but basketball was not that popular with Barone as coach and again John David Crow wanted to money going towards football stadium expansion.
I think today you could get more big donors to step up for a real basketball arena, if Bucky could put a few really good season together in a row and get people excited about the sport. And we start really campaigning for a new stadium. But you are going to have to have a few of the power brokers to be behind this before anything can really get started.