The university has proposed a plan to transform Cole Field House into an indoor football practice facility.
For four straight summers in the 1970s, Randy Edsall traveled from his home in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, to attend Lefty Driesell’s basketball camp at Cole Field House. And in 2002, Edsall’s brother, Duke Edsall, refereed the Terrapins men’s basketball team’s final game at Cole.
Though Randy Edsall — now in his fourth season as Terrapins football coach — is “extremely excited” about a proposal to repurpose Cole as a $155 million indoor football practice facility, he acknowledged the importance of honoring the building’s history last week.
Edsall, Athletic Director Kevin Anderson and former men’s basketball coach Gary Williams have all said if the Board of Regents passes the plan for the renovations Dec. 12, the facility will include an exhibition honoring events that have taken place at Cole.
“They’re going to preserve the history, and they’re going to have displays in there to celebrate the years in the ACC and celebrate the things that took place there in Cole,” Edsall said. “I give the leadership credit for coming up with this concept to do that.”
The proposal to reconstruct Cole includes an innovation and entrepreneurship program open to students and The Center for Sports Medicine, Health and Human Performance, which would include a clinic open to the public.
But university officials said they are confident they would find a part of the new facility to use as a nod to the past.
Cole, which sits at the heart of the campus and is currently used as a student activities center, hosted the famous 1966 NCAA championship game in which Texas Western became the first team to win a title with an all-black starting five. The “ping-pong diplomacy” match between this country and China unfolded in Cole in 1972, and Elvis Presley performed in the 14,000-seat arena in 1974.
Plus, the Terps men’s basketball teams played at Cole from 1955 to 2002, and the women’s team played there from the 1970s to 2002. The first televised women’s basketball game was played at Cole in 1975.
The proposed changes to Cole also include keeping the building’s name, and Anderson said the addition of a football practice facility would add to the building’s prominence.
“What it does now, it restores, it refurbishes and it revitalizes what Cole Field House stands for,” Anderson said.
Williams played for the Terps men’s basketball team in Cole in the late ’60s, coached the team there from 1989 to 2002 and lead the Terps to their only national title in the building’s last year housing the program. The iconic coach, who was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame yesterday, said he is pleased with the plans in store for the building he calls “my area.”
“Cole’s one of those buildings that’s special in the history of college basketball,” Williams said. “The great players that have played there, the two final fours, the Texas Western-Kentucky game. All those things. I played in it, coached in it. To me, it was just kind of sitting there; it wasn’t part of the sports landscape, really. This way it’s back, and they’re not going to change the name. It’s going to be a great building on campus once again.”
Williams, who now works with the school in a fundraising position, said not everyone shares his feelings about the building because of his connection to it. But through fan interactions, he can tell tCole’s history means a lot to the university community, and he expects to play a role in deciding how it would be honored in the proposed upgraded facility.
And though Anderson wasn’t immersed in Terps basketball before arriving in College Park, he has known about Cole’s legacy.
“I have a lot of uncles that through my youth and growing up used to talk to me about the [Texas Western] and Kentucky basketball game and that it did happen in Cole Field House,” Anderson said. “The history of Cole Field House has far-reaching tentacles throughout the United States.”
Anderson and Edsall are spearheading efforts to gain support for the proposed changes to Cole, but both made it clear the building’s historical implications will be taken into consideration with each decision.
“It’s exciting for me to be able to be part of a team that’s going to be able to do this and to bring [Cole] up to current standards,” Anderson said, “and have it be one of the jewels of the university again.”
