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 Gymnasium, 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, the University Athletic Association (UAA) bought the temporary hardwood floor that had been installed in the Indianapolis RCA Dome for the Final Four. Although the national finals logos were removed by sanding, 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, 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, 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.
Read more about this topic: O'Connell Center
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“In every election in American history both parties have their clichés. The party that has the clichés that ring true wins.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)