Facilities
In addition to the main basketball court, Comcast Center also features a 1,500-seat gymnasium for volleyball, gymnastics and wrestling; an academic support center; a 400-seat banquet hall; and the offices of the athletics department. Inside the lobby on the east side of the facility is the Terrapin Walk of Fame and History, featuring many images of the past of Maryland athletics as well as the 2002 men's national championship trophy and the 2006 women's national championship trophy.
The student section contains 4,000 seats arranged in the first ten rows on all sides of the arena, plus the most notable feature of the arena, the steeply pitched seating area at the west end of the arena behind the visiting team's second half basket, informally known as "the Wall." Originally designed to reduce excavation costs due to a hill, the area features 2,600 student seats meant to intimidate opposing players who shoot free throws in the second half.
Although it is Maryland's largest arena, it is actually the second-largest arena in the Washington, D.C. area, behind the Verizon Center. It is also used for concerts, graduation ceremonies including those for the University of Maryland, and other special events. Concert seating capacity is nearly 19,000.
Read more about this topic: Comcast Center (arena)
Famous quotes containing the word facilities:
“Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I have always found that when men have exhausted their own resources, they fall back on “the intentions of the Creator.” But their platitudes have ceased to have any influence with those women who believe they have the same facilities for communication with the Divine mind as men have.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)