Coleman Coliseum is a 15,316-seat multi-purpose arena

Arena

An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...

 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

 and is home to the University of Alabama

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

 Crimson Tide men's basketball

Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball

The Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball program has a history of being among the best of the Southeastern Conference . It trails only Kentucky in basketball wins, SEC tournament titles, and SEC regular season titles in the 12-member conference. The team is coached by head coach Anthony Grant,...

 and gymnastics

Artistic gymnastics

Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics where gymnasts perform short routines on different apparatus, with less time for vaulting . The sport is governed by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique , which designs the Code of Points and regulates all aspects of international elite...

 teams. It has also been home to the Alabama women's basketball

Alabama Crimson Tide women's basketball

The Alabama Crimson Tide women's basketball program represents the University of Alabama in the sport of women's basketball. The team competes in the Southeastern Conference and National Collegiate Athletic Association. They are coached by Wendell Hudson, the first African-American student-athlete...

 and women's volleyball programs in the past.

Before 1988, the building was known as Memorial Coliseum. The arena opened in 1968 as a replacement for Foster Auditorium

Foster Auditorium

Foster Auditorium is a multi-purpose facility at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It was built in 1939 and has been used for Alabama basketball, women's sports , graduations, lectures, concerts, and other large gatherings, including registration...

. The coliseum has hosted numerous superstar

Superstar

A superstar is a widely acclaimed celebrity.Superstar or superstars may also refer to:-People:* Warhol Superstar, associates of Andy Warhol* WWE Superstar, the term used to refer to entertainers from the WWE...

 performers.

The coliseum is located at the center of the University of Alabama's Athletic Complex, which also includes Sewell-Thomas Stadium

Sewell-Thomas Stadium

Sewell–Thomas Stadium is a baseball stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It is the home field of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide college baseball team. The stadium opened in 1948 and the current seating capacity is 6,571...

, Sam Bailey Track & Field Stadium, the Hank Crisp Indoor Facility, the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility and the football building and practice fields.

History

Coleman Coliseum is named for Jefferson Jackson Coleman, a prominent University of Alabama alumnus. Jefferson Coleman was the first pledge of Theta Sigma Fraternity that would later become the basis for starting the current National Delta Chi Fraternity Chapter at The University on February 12, 1927. Jefferson went on to serve The University in many capacities, from Business Manager of the football team to Director of Alumni Affairs, for almost 50 years. Until his death in 1995 he was the only person that had attended every Alabama bowl game, starting with the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1926. In 1990, The University honored him by renaming Memorial Coliseum after him. In addition, he served Delta Chi nationally by serving in various positions, most notably as “AA” from 1954 to 1956. For his meritorious and inconspicuous service, Jeff was inducted into The Order of the White Carnation.

The coliseum opened its doors for the first time on January 30, 1968 for the traveling Broadway show The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd. Two days later the coliseum held its first men's basketball game against the Samford Bulldogs

Samford Bulldogs

Samford University fields 17 varsity teams . The Bulldogs have done well in recent years in both football and men's basketball, participating in the 1999 and 2000 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The women's basketball team made its initial NCAA tournament appearance in the 2011 NCAA...

, replacing Foster Auditorium

Foster Auditorium

Foster Auditorium is a multi-purpose facility at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It was built in 1939 and has been used for Alabama basketball, women's sports , graduations, lectures, concerts, and other large gatherings, including registration...

 as the new home for Crimson Tide basketball

Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball

The Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball program has a history of being among the best of the Southeastern Conference . It trails only Kentucky in basketball wins, SEC tournament titles, and SEC regular season titles in the 12-member conference. The team is coached by head coach Anthony Grant,...

.

President

President

A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...

 Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 visited Coleman Coliseum during his 1984 presidential re-election campaign.

Since the City of Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

 does not have a municipal civic center

Civic center

A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building...

, the demand for events grew rapidly and the Coliseum doubled its capacity in the 1970s due to this. In the 1990s marquee concerts and events that the arena had seen in the previous two decades grew scarce as the facility became more outdated and became mostly devoted to Crimson Tide athletic events. In the hope that the University could pull more excitement for events at the facility, the Coliseum underwent a significant renovation in 2005, which cost over $24 million.

Coleman Coliseum is also noted for the historic Alabama-LSU basketball game that took place on February 7, 1970. LSU's Pete Maravich

Pete Maravich

Peter "Pistol Pete" Press Maravich was an American professional basketball player. Born and raised in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Maravich starred in college at Louisiana State University and played for three NBA teams until injuries induced him to retire in 1980...

 scored a career-high 69 points in a 106-104 loss to Alabama. Maravich came into the game against Alabama with two pulled muscles and late in the contest, he injured an ankle. Despite the injuries, LSU's senior guard scored 47 points in the second half to finish with 69, setting an NCAA record for most points against a Division I opponent. Maravich broke the record of 68 established by Niagara

Niagara University

Niagara University is a Catholic university in the Vincentian tradition, located in the Town of Lewiston in Niagara County, New York. Originally founded by the Congregation of the Mission in 1856 as Our Lady of Angels Seminary, it became Niagara University in 1883. The University is still run by...

's Calvin Murphy 14 months earlier. Maravich completed 26 of 57 field goals (45.6 percent) and completed 17 of 21 free throws (81.0 percent). After the game, Maravich pursued a fan before being restrained. Press Maravich

Press Maravich

Petar "Press" Maravich was an American college and professional basketball coach. He received the nickname "Press" for always having gossip-styled updates in his hometown of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb. Maravich Sr...

, LSU's coach and Pete's father, stated that the fan had hit Pete on the back. Maravich's record lasted almost 21 years, until Kevin Bradshaw

Kevin Bradshaw

Kevin Bradshaw is a retired American professional basketball player and current collegiate basketball coach...

 of U.S. International scored 72 against Loyola Marymount on January 5, 1991.

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

Seating capacity

Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...

 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

Travis Tritt

James Travis Tritt is an American country music singer from Marietta, Georgia. He signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1989, releasing seven studio albums and a greatest hits package for the label between then and 1999. In the 2000s, he released two albums on Columbia Records and one for the defunct...

 music video was filmed here. The stadium hosted the NCAA

National Collegiate Athletic Association

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...

 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 the exception of football, which is housed in the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility. It features an elegant suite that serves as the President's reception area, an equipment room

Equipment room

An equipment room is a room or space within a building for the storage or installation of mechanical or electrical/electronic devices.An equipment room can house telecommunication installations that serves the occupants of the building or multiple buildings in a campus environment...

, 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

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

 athletic department's ticket

Ticket (admission)

A ticket is a voucher that indicates that one has paid for admission to an event or establishment such as a theatre, movie theater, amusement park, zoo, museum, concert, or other attraction, or permission to travel on a vehicle such as an airliner, train, bus, or boat, typically because one has...

 office

Office

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...

.

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. These boards were removed before the 2009-10 season and replaced with a center-hung scoreboard.