IF YOU BUILD IT HE WILL COME...    

   

  

The mythical voice heard in a cornfield by Ray Kinsella in the 1989 movie, "Field of Dreams". Kevin Costner and baseball, two of America's favorites giving hope to all who have a dream.  It's time for the Univerisity of Alabama to quit playing word games about building a basketball arena. There comes a time when decision-makers have to quit talking and start building. My later father, AKA Big Bill, and I attended the first game played in Memorial/Coleman Coliseum. The year was 1968 and on February 1st,  the Tide beat Samford University.  It was, as my father said, the world's largest Quanset Hut. Alabama has put 15,363 people in the Hut on many occasions. Had this team been able to play home games without social distancing, they would have probably set a record for most consecutive sellouts. 

    Despite that voice in the cornfield,  Alabama's problems with poor attendance had very little to do with the inherent design flaws of playing basketball in a glorified auditorium. It was the product on the floor and the general attitude to any sport that wasn't football. Those are the problems. The general attitude toward basketball is the main problem. It has always been the real problem. Until the new arena is built it is likely to remain a problem. What Coleman Coliseum has become is a bastion of indifference toward basketball.  

    If you have been the Duke's Cameron Indoor Arena you would understand what I meant about indifference. Duke arena is small and antiquated. But since basketball is the premier sport in North Carolina it just fine. It is always packed with crazy students who screaming the entire game. Most of the time, you stand up to watch a game.  It's the football facility that needs some work.  I've seen better football complexes in Texas High School football than Duke now has.   The Hut, as my family calls Coleman, is just a symbol of how football fans don't take basketball seriously. Nate Oats and his team have given the board of trustees and the AD a chance to make that vanish. The building of a state-of-the-art facility will send a message to everyone that the Tide wants to be a major player in basketball.  If Alabama decides to be a big dog in hoops nothing can stop them. If you have enough time, energy, and effort at something you can do anything.  If leadership will choose to drive toward this goal now, and not kick the can down the lane once again, it will be the start of making Alabama the best programs in football and basketball in the NCAA. 

    Once again, the press wants this to make this an issue as click-bait. It isn't the press that will push this over the finish line. It is inspired leadership that will make it happen. I think the AD has this kind of imagination and leadership. Let's hope the board of trustees will do the same. Yes,  it is going to cost money. It is going to cost a lot of money.  Remember when AU's basketball attendance was so bad they put up a curtain to hide that fact? How much has their basketball program improved with a new arena?  It's going to take some people to imagine what the future will be like with the best basketball arena in the nation on campus at the UofA. One day someone will ask why Alabama built such a facility. We should be able to answer because we wanted to be the best.