Ahearn Field House
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| Mike Ahearn Field House | |
|---|---|
| "The Old Barn" | |
| Location | Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas 66506 |
| Opened | December 9, 1950 |
| Owner | Kansas State |
| Operator | Kansas State |
| Construction cost | $2 million |
| Tenants | |
| Kansas State Wildcats | |
| Seats | |
| 5,000 (volleyball) | |
Ahearn Field House is one of the athletic buildings on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. It currently is home to the K-State volleyball team and indoor track and field squad, and it houses facilities for the Department of Kinesiology, Department of Continuing Education, and the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.
The facility was named in honor of Michael F. Ahearn. Over the years 'Mike' Ahearn served Kansas State University in a variety of roles that included coach, professor, Head of the Department of Physical Education, and Director of Athletics.
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[edit] Background
During the 1930s and 1940s basketball was an increasingly popular intercollegiate sport around the nation. This phenomenon was particularly evident on the KSU campus where the success of the men’s basketball teams and the growing popularity of the sport made for some less than ideal accommodations within existing facilities.
By the mid-1940s basketball at KSU had already outgrown its current facility, Nichols Gymnasium. During this period students would have to literally climb into the rafters in order to find a seat to watch the men’s team play. Not only was this situation uncomfortable but it was quite unsafe as well.
In the late-1940s the Kansas State Legislature finally approved the construction of a new and much larger basketball facility. Prompted by the general success of the KSU men’s basketball team over the years (the school reached the Final Four of the 1948 NCAA tournament) as well as the growing safety concerns surrounding Nichols Gymnasium, Ahearn Field House was designed to replace the aging, cramped, and unsafe Nichols with a truly world-class facility.
[edit] Facilities
Opened in 1950, Ahearn Field House was one of the first and largest truly purpose-built basketball arenas in the country. Originally seating more than 14,000 when it first opened, changing fire codes throughout the years reduced Ahearn’s seating capacity to 11,700 for the 1987-1988 season – the final year in which K-State basketball games were held in Ahearn.
It hosted the men's NCAA basketball tournament regional finals six times (1953, 1955, 1960, 1962, 1965, and 1969), as well as a quarterfinal game in the 1976 NIT.
While the fieldhouse was used for basketball, it provided a legendary homecourt advantage for K-State. As former Kansas State coach Tex Winter was quoted in his biography Trial By Basketball: "Kansas State won a lot of ballgames because of that crowd. Many times during timeouts you couldn't hear yourself talk. All I could do was scribble a play on the floor. The crowd there never died, even in one of our lulls – the crowd would come alive and pick us up." Nevertheless, by 1988 many felt that Ahearn – like Nichols before it – had grown outdated, and that year K-State basketball moved to the newly-constructed Bramlage Coliseum.
Over the years Ahearn has been modified to accommodate a variety of other activities, ranging from additional classroom space to providing venues for other intercollegiate sports such as indoor track and field and volleyball. Ahearn has also hosted NCAA volleyball tournament games four times since 1996.
[edit] References
- David Smale, The Ahearn Tradition (1988)
- Mark Bender, Trial By Basketball: The Life and Times of Tex Winter (ISBN 1-886110-90-5 2000)
