By BARRY LEWIS Sports Writer on Dec 21, 2012, at 12:45 AM Updated on 12/22 at 10:08 PM
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As Bill Haisten writes in Friday’s editions of the World, Oral Roberts University’s Mabee Center has aged beautifully and is “Still Fine at 40.”
I remember when I first stepped into the building for the first game played there on Nov. 4, 1972, that it was a similar experience for basketball as it was for me when I attended the Dallas Cowboys’ third game at Texas Stadium after it opened a year earlier.
I had been to other football stadiums before but going to Texas Stadium with its animated scoreboard and modern design took going to a game to another level. Mabee Center also had those assets.
It was as I was quoted in Friday’s paper as comparable to when my family got its first color TV five years earlier after having seen TV previously only in black-and-white.
The Mabee Center was a facility I thought could only be built in larger cities. And with it came the promises of big-name opponents and games from there on national TV. Both promises were fulfilled in that opening season.
The first basketball game played there was an ABA regular-season game. At that time the ABA was the upstart competitor to the NBA. It was a home game for the Dallas Chaparrals, who had poor attendance in Dallas and were looking for other venues to host games in their final season before becoming the San Antonio Spurs. Dallas, with Goo Kennedy scoring 23 points, beat the New York Nets 106-99. The Nets were coached by Lou Carnesecca, who would later beat ORU in the NIT quarterfinals in 1975 when he was at St. John’s.
Whenever the Spurs play the Nets these days, I think of that first game at Mabee Center.
My first memories of that night had more to do with getting to see a pro basketball game in person for the first time and for the first time getting to see an ABA game — the league with the multi-colored basketball and 3-point shot which I had not seen in person previously.
ABA games were not televised in Tulsa. Back then, ORU warmed up with ABA-like basketballs so it had that in common with the ABA.
But it really didn’t seem like an opening night for the facility. There wasn’t a very big crowd, officially estimated at 4,000 but it seemed less than that in the 10,575-seat arena. ORU did play an intrasquad scrimmage that night as a preliminary.
Not many in Tulsa seemed to pay a lot of attention to the game as it was a college football Saturday with all the local teams playing. Tulsa's stunning win at 17th-ranked Louisville was the day's biggest sports story locally.
When ORU played its first game at Mabee Center against Wisconsin a month later on Dec. 4, that was the Dedication Night and it really seemed like that was the Opening Night. There were more than 8,000 fans, including myself. It was on a Monday and as a sixth-grader at age 11, I could hardly wait for my school day at Phillips Elementary to end so I could go the game, which was on KTUL.
It wasn’t ORU’s first home game ever televised but whenever a game was on TV then, even if it was just locally, it was a happening. And that first ORU game was a major happening even though its first choice of an opening night opponent, Notre Dame, fell through.
But Wisconsin was an exciting alternative choice — the first Big 10 opponent for ORU, which was ranked No. 4 by Sports Illustrated and won 90-76 to silence doubters again that it could beat big-time teams. It also was fun when Wisconsin athletic director and NFL legend Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch came to town to help promote the game.
The Mabee Center was such a contrast to the Expo Square Pavilion, where I regularly attended University of Tulsa games, and to the old ORU Fieldhouse. Mabee was bright inside while the Pavilion seemed dark. The cushioned seats at Mabee Center also made it very comfortable to watch a game there, compared to the folding chairs at the Pavilion. At the old ORU Fieldhouse, I was afraid of falling through the bleachers and it was way too small for a major college program.
Adding to the look at the Mabee Center were artist Ted Watts' large portraits of each ORU player on the wall around the concourse. Watts also did player portraits for the back cover of each game program. The featured player for the Wisconsin game was not All-American Richard Fuqua or future ABA player David Vaughn, but it was Larry Baker. Vaughn was the top scorer with 25 points despite drawing four fouls in the first half and Fuqua scored 24.
Wisconsin's lineup that night included center Kim Hughes, who played in the NBA and was briefly the Los Angeles Clippers' head coach. He is currently a Portland Trail Blazers assistant coach. ORU's Mabee opponents that season included other players who also went on to become NBA head coaches such as Doug Collins and Mike D'Antoni, who helped Marshall give ORU its first Mabee Center loss.
Two nights after the Dedication Game, ORU hosted a doubleheader and honored legendary coach Hank Iba as OSU played Texas A&M there that night. Later in the season there, ORU’s Richard Fuqua would outduel Illinois State's Collins, a future NBA No. 1 draft choice, and ORU would play the Southwestern Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns on national TV with CBS’ top sportscaster, Ray Scott, doing the play-by-play for a syndicated network.
A year later, Mabee Center would host the NCAA Midwest Regional — another event that it had been unimaginable just a few years earlier that it could ever be held in Tulsa. From 1975-77, a national college all-star game also was held there. From 1974-85, Mabee hosted five NCAA Tournaments.
-- Barry Lewis
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