Stephen C. O'Connell Center
Encyclopedia
Arena
An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...
located on the University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
campus in Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Alachua County, Florida, United States as well as the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area . The preliminary 2010 Census population count for Gainesville is 124,354. Gainesville is home to the sixth...
. The facility is named for the sixth president of the university, Stephen C. O'Connell
Stephen C. O'Connell
Stephen Cornelius O'Connell was an American attorney, appellate judge and university president. O'Connell was a native of Florida, and earned bachelor's and law degrees before becoming a practicing attorney...
, who served from 1967 to 1973. The facility is located on the northern side of the university's campus, between its football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
field, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field is the football stadium for the University of Florida and the home field of the university's Florida Gators football team. It is located on the university's Gainesville, Florida campus. The stadium was originally built in 1930, and has been regularly...
, and its baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
field, McKethan Stadium.
Florida Gators home arena
The O'Connell Center is the home arena of several of the university's Florida GatorsFlorida Gators
The Florida Gators are the intercollegiate sports teams that represent the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. The "Lady Gators" is an alternative nickname sometimes used by the Gators women's teams...
intercollegiate sports teams, including the men's and women's college basketball
College basketball
College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....
, gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
and diving
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
, indoor track and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
teams. ESPN The Magazine
ESPN The Magazine
ESPN The Magazine is a bi-weekly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut in the United States. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998....
nicknamed it the "House of Horrors" in 1999, a name that the sports teams began using promotionally a few years later. The student section of the stadium has been dubbed the "Rowdy Reptiles." ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
commentator Dick Vitale
Dick Vitale
Richard J. "Dick" Vitale , also known as "Dickie V", is an American basketball sportscaster. A former head coach in the college and professional ranks, he is well-known as a college basketball broadcaster and for the enthusiastic and colorful remarks he makes during games. He is known for his...
, on assignment at the Florida-Kentucky game in 2006, said that the Rowdy Reptiles make the O'Dome one of the toughest places to play in college basketball.
History
The arena opened in 1980, but problems with the inflatable, Teflon-coated fabric roof required replacement with a permanent, hard shell dome on top of the structure in 1998. In 2006, the university undertook an overhaul of the four scoreboards located above the entrances to Gates 1 through 4. Instead of displaying information and advertisements, the scoreboards are now used for live instant replays of events inside the arena. The arena, which is the fourth on-campus home of the Gators, replaced the old Florida GymnasiumFlorida Gymnasium
Florida Gymnasium is a historic building located on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Design work was begun by university architect Rudolph Weaver during World War II and completed by his successor Guy Fulton. It replaced the old University Gymnasium built in 1915,...
, nicknamed "Alligator Alley," which was the home of the Gators for the previous thirty-one seasons.
Following the men's basketball team's victory in the national title game of the 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2005–06 basketball season...
, the University Athletic Association
University of Florida Athletic Association
The University Athletic Association, Inc. is a non-profit corporation that is responsible for maintaining the Florida Gators intercollegiate sports program of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida...
(UAA) bought the temporary hardwood
Hardwood
Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...
floor that had been installed in the Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
RCA Dome
RCA Dome
RCA Dome was a domed stadium, located in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the home of the Indianapolis Colts NFL franchise for 24 seasons ....
for the Final Four
Final four
Final Four isa sports term that is commonly applied to the last four teams remaining in a playoff tournament, most notably NCAA Division I college basketball tournaments. The term usually refers to the four teams who compete in the two games of a single-elimination tournament's semi-final round...
. Although the national finals logos were removed by sanding
Sandpaper
Sandpaper, also known as glasspaper, is a heavy paper with abrasive material attached to its surface.Sandpaper is part of the "coated abrasives" family of abrasive products. It is used to remove small amounts of material from surfaces, either to make them smoother , to remove a layer of material...
, the basketball teams now play on the same lumber on which the Gators won their first basketball national championship. The UAA also bought the court used to win their second title from the Georgia Dome
Georgia Dome
The Georgia Dome is a domed stadium located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west. It is primarily the home stadium for the NFL Atlanta Falcons and the NCAA Division I FCS Georgia State Panthers football team. It is owned and operated by the...
, and displayed it in the O'Connell Center during their championship celebration event, but sold it in pieces to raise funds for scholarships.
On December 23, 2006, a then-record crowd of 12,621 watched the fifth-ranked Gators defeat the third-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes
Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball
The Lucas Sapp men's basketball team represents The Ohio State University in NCAA Division I college basketball competition. The Buckeyes are a member of the Big Ten Conference. The Buckeyes won their only National Championship in 1960 and have made a total of 21 NCAA Tournament appearances...
, 86–60. The two teams would meet again that season for the National Championship game, with the Gators, once again, emerging victorious as the first back-to-back National Champions since Duke in the early 1990s. This record was broken, however, on February 5, 2011 in a 70-68 Gator victory over the 11th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats, as 12,633 attended the game.
In addition to its use as a basketball arena, the O'Connell Center also contains both indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and is regularly used to host other events on campus, including career fairs, graduation ceremonies, concerts, and public speakers.
See also
- Florida GatorsFlorida GatorsThe Florida Gators are the intercollegiate sports teams that represent the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. The "Lady Gators" is an alternative nickname sometimes used by the Gators women's teams...
- History of the University of FloridaHistory of the University of FloridaThe history of the University of Florida is firmly tied to the history of public education in the state of Florida. The University of Florida, colloquially known as "Florida" or "UF," originated as several distinct institutions that were merged to create a single state-supported university by the...
- List of Presidents of the University of Florida
- List of University of Florida buildings
- University Athletic AssociationUniversity of Florida Athletic AssociationThe University Athletic Association, Inc. is a non-profit corporation that is responsible for maintaining the Florida Gators intercollegiate sports program of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida...
External links
- Official website
- Stephen C. O'Connell Center In-depth history of the arena from the official Florida Gators website.