<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>The end of an arena</span>

Gym to make way for new USM building

By Kevin Walters
American Staff Writer

About 1,300 University of Southern Mississippi students will be affected by the upcoming demolition of the Sports Arena which will be taken down soon to make way for the Trent Lott Center of Economic Development and Entrepreneurship.

As expected, the state College Board gave final approval Thursday to the $12 million, 36,000-square-foot Lott center which will be built where the Sports Arena now stands.

The old building will be torn down in about three months.

For some, the Sports Arena has long been a thing of the past - though it is more of a relic than a cherished heirloom.

Originally built at Camp Shelby during World War II, the university paid a small fee for it and the state spent around $150,000 to dismantle the 90-by-50-foot-long building and reassemble it in the shadow of M.M. Roberts Stadium.

For years, the gym was the site of the university's basketball games, graduation exercises and class registration. And the cramped weight room was the only space for students who wanted to work out.

Mark Maneval, a professor of coaching and sports administration, recalled numerous struggles with the arena's faulty heating system, the holes in its walls, the leaky pipes that ruined several floors and the lack of air conditioning.

Standing inside the Sports Arena on a hot day like Thursday is like standing in a steam bath - only darker and noisier.

"Once you walk in, you can feel it," said Joey Pinkston, 25, a coaching and sports administration graduate student from Forest.

Lou Marciani, director of the School of Human Performances and Recreation, just shakes his head when asked about the old gym.

"It's got its own little history and it served its purpose," he said.

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