Mattingly: Armory Fieldhouse earned place in UT lore

Photo by University of Tennessee

A shot of Tennessee’s Armory Fieldhouse in 1959. It was home to UT basketball team from 1958 to 1966.

Most Tennessee basketball fans today know a great deal about Thompson-Boling Arena, more than enough about Stokely Athletics Center, and darned little about the Armory Fieldhouse. That's too bad, because the precursor to TBA and Stokely was the site of some historic basketball in the late 1950s and the early- to mid-1960s.

It's been more than 40 years since the Vols last played at the Fieldhouse, home court from the 1958-59 season through 1965-66.

The Fieldhouse seated 7,500 fans with permanent seats on the west side and bleachers at the north and south ends. The north end football stands from Shields-Watkins Field were brought in for spectators on the east side, with accompanying radio and television broadcast locations. The floor ran in the same direction as the Tartan surface at the new Stokely.

Players didn't wear baggy shorts below the knees, and there were the requisite number of crew cuts on the floor and in the stands. The uniforms looked primitive compared to today's.

Emmett Lowery, UT coach since 1947-48, had led the push for the new arena and coached there one year before resigning to go into private business in Clearwater, Fla. John Sines was there three seasons, before Ray Mears came in and revolutionized Vol hoops.

With Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech each sporting new arenas and the Vols still playing in Alumni Memorial Gym on the Hill in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ben Byrd noted in "The Basketball Vols" that Lowery wanted Tennessee to keep up with the basketball Joneses, mentioning "full-time recruiting personnel, a new arena, and a larger budget" to make it happen.

Lowery had been hired as a football scout and assistant ends coach and also served as basketball coach chosen by Neyland from a pool of nearly 100 applicants. Lowery Byrd said, "My experience as a football coach had a lot to do with my being chosen."

Emmett was a hoops guy, having been an Indiana "Mr. Basketball" from the 1920s. He threw himself into his position full-bore, even overseeing the construction process from the athletic department's perspective.

"My responsibility was to do the best I could under the conditions, and, at the same time, try and convince school officials we needed to upgrade the basketball program."

The answer was the Fieldhouse, funded by a combination of federal and state money, with offices for the university's ROTC program thrown into the mix. Neyland wanted a facility twice as big, looking beyond the needs of that specific time. However, Lowery was happy with the new gym, terming it much better than what he had before.

The Fieldhouse featured some of the big names of Tennessee hoops: Gene Tormohlen, Dalen Showalter and Orb Bowling in the early years, Danny Schultz and A. W. Davis in the early 1960s, and Red Robbins and Widby midway through the decade. West Virginia's Jerry West and Mississippi's Don Kessinger played there, as did Vanderbilt's Clyde Lee and a host of Kentucky's finest.

Adolph Rupp, who always seemed to be complaining about the lighting at Alumni Gym, probably found the Fieldhouse more to his liking, winning five of the eight games played there, although losing three of the four played in the Mears Era.

The facility had a portable hardwood floor with the old-fashioned interlocking "T" at the center. The team benches were on each end of the floor in the early days, later moving to side court.

Sam Venable was the official scorer, not only keeping the made baskets and free throws, but also the shots attempted and rebounds. Sid Hankins Jr., was the timer, air horn at his side in case the horn malfunctioned.

There was a scoreboard and "count-down" clock at each end of the floor, nothing remotely close to the bells and whistles found in arenas today. It was "pure vanilla," but legends are made of such venues.

The first game played there in December 1958 was something special, as Maryville's Kenny Coulter hit an 11th-hour jump shot to upset Wyoming, 72-71. In the arena's finale in March 1966, Ron Widby led Tennessee to a memorable 69-62 victory over No. 1-ranked Kentucky, known popularly as "Rupp's Runts."

Fans look at film of these games from the 1950s and 1960s and wonder if it's the same game they see at TBA. The essential concept is the same, putting the ball in the basket, but that's where the similarity ends.

"Somebody thought it would be appropriate to put the General's name on the forthcoming armory-fieldhouse," former News Sentinel sports writer Marvin West said. "The old man was much too smart to let that happen. He considered it a monstrosity, from concept to design, and politely declined the honor. I don't know that he was holding out for bigger things, but his judgment was vindicated."

Four years later, there was "Neyland Stadium."

Tom Mattingly is the author of "The Tennessee Football Vault: The Story of the Tennessee Volunteers, 1891-2006" (2006), to be published in second edition in 2009, and "Tennessee Football: The Peyton Manning Years" (1998). He may be reached at tjmshm@comcast.net. His News Sentinel blog is called "The Vol Historian."