Coleman Coliseum - Uses and Features

Uses and Features

Effective with the 2010–11 school year, Coleman Coliseum is home to the Crimson Tide men's basketball and women's gymnastics teams. Other Alabama programs to use the facility have been:

• Women's basketball: The team played its first season, 1975–76, at Foster Auditorium. It then moved to the Coliseum until extensive interior renovations to Foster Auditorium were completed in 2010, after which the team returned to its original home in 2011.
• Women's volleyball: The team moved from its original home, also Foster Auditorium, to the Coliseum in 1995. In 2000, it moved to the "CAVE" (Coleman Auxiliary Volleyball Extension), and it returned to Foster Auditorium in 2011.

In addition to sports, Coleman Coliseum has been used for other events including concerts (seating capacity 16,000), commencement ceremonies, alumni gatherings, student convocations, operas, ballets and political rallies. The Coliseum has been used as an annual bass tournament weigh-in spot, and a Travis Tritt music video was filmed here. The stadium hosted the NCAA Basketball Tournament three times, as a regional site in 1974 and as a sub-regional in 1975 and 1981.

The Coliseum houses the athletic department offices for all varsity sports with three exceptions. The women's basketball and volleyball offices are located at Foster Auditorium while the football offices are housed in the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility. It features an elegant suite that serves as the President's reception area, an equipment room, weight rooms, a steam bath, a training room, food service areas, the athletic department's photo studio, and locker room for staff and the athletes.

Coleman is also home to the UA athletic department's ticket office.

It is recognizable on television for its "striped" ceiling (a result of bands of acoustical tiles) and the two scoreboards behind each end line, both of which intersperse ads, video boards and scoring information with the familiar "R-O-L-L T-I-D-E" in large illuminated letters. The letters formerly served as a noise meter during games, with the "E" in "TIDE" being red, as a sort of overload light. Now, all eight letters on both ends are constantly illuminated, and the final E is white, like the rest of the letters. Before the 2009-10 season, the facility underwent major renovations and these boards were removed and replaced with a center-hung scoreboard.