The Palestra, often called the “Cathedral of College Basketball”, is an historic arena located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania and is the home gym of the Penn Quakers men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball teams, wrestling team, and Philadelphia Big 5 basketball. The Arena opened on January 1, 1927. At the time of its construction the it was one of the world's largest arenas. The Palestra has often been called "the most important building in the history of college basketball".
I grew up in New York City watching Big 5 games on WORTV ch 9 in the 1970s and always dreamed of going to the Palestra to watch Big 5 teams play each other because of the raucous atmosphere and intense rivalries between the schools. in 2018 I finally got the chance to go catch a couple of games there. Unfortunately I wasn’t lucky enough to see an actual Big 5 game but I did have the opportunity to walk around the concourse, take some photos and get a feel for the grand old arena.
The four guys I usually travel with are also High School Football coaches so when we want to go to a college football game all we have to do is call the home team, tell them how many tickets we need and most of the time they will provide us with free tickets to any game we ask for. The only 2 things we kind of worry about is the fact that we have no idea or control over where our seats will be. This time to our surprise Stanford gave us tickets and pregame field passes! when they handed them to us we all tried to look like we expected them just in case it was mistake. I don't know how the other guys felt but as we left will call but I was walking towards the field with my camera feeling like I had stolen something! And even though I had the field pass with my initials on it around my neck I was still a bit nervous every time I passed a stadium security guard, avoiding eye contact and fully expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and say it was a mistake! I guess thats how shoplifters feel as they walk out of a store with shit they didnt pay for hidden in their pants. But once I passed the last gate and actually stepped out on to the field it was on! So while the guys basically stayed in one place on the sideline I tested the limits of that damn field pass! I got as close to the players as I could without getting in their way I walked around the entire field doing exactly what the cats in the white media vests did. Sometimes even kneeling next to them and talking to them while shooting. But mostly I just walked around taking as many photos as I could.
Enjoy
During a coaching research trip to the Pacific Northwest a fellow coach and I had the good fortune to stop by a couple of college football facilities, one of them was Oregon State University. We met a couple of equipment managers who were kind enough to give us a quick tour and I was able to snap a few photos with my cellphone as they showed us around.
One of the first stops on our trip to California in 2013 was the Long Beach state campus for a college basketball game. Unfortunately we arrived there at night and it was so dark that we didn’t get to see the most unique feature on campus, the shape of the basketball arena,
At that time it was simply called “ The Pyramid” Today its called The Walter Pyramid and each side of the perimeter of the structure measures 345 feet (105 m), making it a mathematically true pyramid! It is one of only 3 true pyramid-style buildings in the United States, the others being the Luxor Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada and Pyramid Arena in Memphis, Tennessee. the building was designed by Don Gibbs and built by the Nielson Construction Company of San Diego. at a cost of approximately $22 million.
The Walter Pyramid rises 18 stories above the Long Beach skyline and its exterior is covered in sheets of dark-blue corrugated aluminum which makes it an even more striking sight.
Luckily for us the court inside was unique as well, painted in school colors and criss crossed with palm trees the playing floor made for some striking photos and we had a great time at the game.
(The photo of the Building in the daytime was not taken by me)
On a sport's run through Chicago my friend's and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend a Spring Football Coaches clinic run by the coaching staff at Northwestern University. We had a chance to visit with and learn from the coaches there in small groups, take a tour of their facility and attend the teams practice afterwards. I was able to take some photos of the field with my camera but the unfortunate part for me is that when you are invited to a teams facility during the time the team is there it's not really the time nor the place to pull out an actual camera and take pictures. So once inside the building I did my best to take some pics with my cellphone that will hopefully give you a feel for what their facility looked like at the time. I didn't take pics at the practice out of respect for the coaches because we were actually allowed to be in amongst the players and coaches as they discussed strategy. As you can see Northwestern is not really one of the Big Ten's biggest football programs so their facility is modest and on the small side. Northwestern is a private school with a great academic reputation and their football program has been pretty successful in the Big Ten since they turned things around in 1995.
