Check out the university map here. The blank spot in the south-east is the future location of Aggie Memorial Stadium. This doesn't even show where the original football stadium on campus was. I went there as a kid once. It was like a large high school stadium.
Here's where you learn the origin of the name of the facility.
The original court was modeled after the parquet at the Boston Garden. Hopefully they did a better job of it here. That court in Boston was famous, but infamous for how poor it was to play on. Before each game, the players would bounce a ball up and down the entire court to find the dead spots. The current Lou Henson Court at the Pan-Am Center is a new surface installed in 2013. The original was retired in 1988.
I can vouch that the sound system at the Pan-Am is still quite potent. I was vibrating from the bass of a rap song just last week.
President Corbett would have a building named after him on campus: the Corbett Center. How about that young man there who's the Aggies' coach, Lou Henson? 779 wins must have seemed a distant goal at the time.
There's Barbara Hubbard, "Mother Hubbard," herself. She would book many of the acts that would appear at the Pan-Am. She's currently working on getting a new entertainment venue built. Joe Muench there would go on to be the dean of El Paso sports. He retired recently.
You have to love these pics of the team. Sam Lacey was the star and an all-time Aggie great.
Check it out, they even had a freshman team. I love this pic.
Here's all five members of the cheer squad. They've added some members in the current iteration.
Here are the schedules for the basketball teams.
This might be my favorite page. There's a young Don Haskins and Nate "Tiny" Archibald as a player. But, you have to read the text. Trust me. Read it. It's classic.
This was a nice trip down Memory Lane. Thank you, Aggie /Sports Marketing!
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