USC Trojan Family Magazine - Spring 2000: What's New: Sporting Life

IT WAS JESS HILL'S and John McKay’s dream. And it’s becoming Mike Garrett’s and Steve Sample’s reality.
A 12,000-seat arena to host USC sports, like basketball and volleyball, as well as major university happenings, like commencement, large concerts and major theatrical engagements.
“Is this a great day for USC or what?” exclaimed an exuberant President Steven B. Sample at the October press conference announcing the decision to fund-raise for a $70 million campus events center. “Think of it: people will be able to cheer on their fellow Trojans at a game one weekend, and attend a Broadway musical in the same facility the next weekend.”
USC athletic director Mike Garrett is charged with raising the money to build the versatile, multipurpose facility that falls, in terms of seating capacity, between the Staples Center and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Slated to be ready by January 2002, the arena is expected to host as many as 125 events annually, including concerts, plays, pageants, cultural events, NCI playoffs and high school championships – plus, of course, Trojan basketball games and volleyball matches.
THE NEW FACILITY is an outgrowth of USC’s carefully considered strategic plan to enrich the undergraduate experience.
“We are an urban residential university with more than 10,000 students living within a half mile, night and day,” says vice president for student affairs Michael L. Jackson. “They need sports, recreation and cultural events.”
In competing with the nation’s top universities to get the very best students, USC must consider the total package – research and academic programs, residential living and recreation, Jackson says.
The university has already made many strides in these areas: research now attracts more than $300 million in annual funding; a revamped general education program makes it easier for undergraduates to work toward minors or double majors; and USC is investing well over $100 million in immediate residential improvements.
“Now it’s time for the fun part,” Jackson says. “Great facilities like the events center are a big part of that.”
Garrett agrees. And, he adds, “athletically, it will be a huge boost to recruiting in our basketball and volleyball programs. It will give us the best home-court advantage we’ve ever had.”
Witness USC’s success in signing up Narbonne High’s power forward Ebony Hoffman – one of this year’s top women’s basketball picks. The assurance that this center would be opened by 2002 was pivotal in attracting her, athletic officials say.

THOUGH IT was only announced in October, the planning for the events center is coming together at a brisk pace, says Carol Dougherty, senior financial director for the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the point-person for events center planning, design and construction. Planning team members have met with hundreds of USC decision-makers as well as faculty, alumni and student groups, developing a concrete program that addresses everything from parking concerns to handicapped access, food service and groundkeeping.
The facility’s likely location will be on the southeast corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Figueroa Street. Besides being the playing and practice site for USC’s men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball teams, the new center will contain coaches’ offices, an auxiliary gym, a gift shop, food concessions and a full-service restaurant.
While the size – 12,000 seats – is good for most concerts, both pop and classical, says Dougherty, the planning team is exploring the possibility of a flexible design that would permit the house to shrink down to 5,500 seats when a smaller venue is desirable.
“We are very close now to going into the architectural process,” she says. Groundbreaking is scheduled for late summer, assuming fund-raising goes as expected. “So far, we’re doing extremely well,” she adds. “We fully expect to reach the $70 million goal by end of summer.”
The events center is one of seven new facilities recently approved by the Board of Trustees. Within the next five years, the university plans to add a science and engineering center, a performing arts center, a student center, and an internationally themed residential college on the University Park Campus. Also approved are a neurogenetic research facility and a health-care center on the Health Sciences Campus.