History
The building was originally constructed in 1955 as the Student Activities Building at a cost of $3.3 million. Although the building's original capacity was 12,000, additional seats were installed throughout the years to bring the final capacity to 14,596 (in 1993). The first basketball game was played on December 2, 1955, when Maryland beat Virginia 67–55.
When college basketball was achieving its most explosive growth - from the late 1950s to the late 1970s – there was one college gymnasium on the East Coast that sat as many as 12,000 fans.
The first coach at the venue Bud Millikan did not like its size saying at one point "It's like playing on a neutral court" with seats too far from the courts. In the late 1960s Lefty Driesell added a nearly 3,000 seats around the court raising the hometown decibel level.
The center was renamed the William P. Cole, Jr. Student Activities Building in 1956 after Judge William P. Cole, Jr., who was chairman of the university's Board of Regents from 1944 to 1956.
Cole Field House held its first East Regional finals in 1962, when NYU defeated St. John's in the final, 94–85. The Final Four was first held here in 1966 between Duke, Kentucky, Texas Western (now UTEP), and Utah. Texas Western (which started all black players) upset Kentucky's all white team 72–65 in front of a crowd of 14,253. Future Maryland men's basketball coach Gary Williams, then a student, attended the game. Cole also hosted the Final Four in 1970.
In 1991, Cole was the site of the first ever upset of a 2-seed at the hands of a 15-seed, as Richmond defeated heavily-favored Syracuse, 73-69. The Maryland Maniacs indoor football team used Cole Field House as its home venue during 2010.
As of 2011, Cole Field House still holds the distinction of being the site of the most upsets of No. 1-ranked men's basketball teams. The Terrapins accounted for six of the upsets at Cole, while the other one occurred in the 1966 Final Four where No. 3 Texas Western defeated No. 1 Kentucky. The seventh such occurrence was on February 27, 2002, when Maryland defeated No. 1 Duke. The venues which hosted the second- and third-most No. 1 upsets are Notre Dame's Joyce Athletics & Convention Center (six) and Oklahoma's Lloyd Noble Center (five), respectively.
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“All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)