The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Reflecting on 40 Years at the Frank Erwin Center
11.29.2017 | Women's Basketball
Forty years ago, today, the Forty Acres welcomed a new addition that would be a catalyst for the growth of women’s collegiate basketball.
By: Ryan Tewes
Texas Media Relations
Forty years ago today, the Forty Acres welcomed a new addition that would be a catalyst for the growth of women's collegiate basketball not only in Austin and the state of Texas, but throughout the country.
The Frank C. Erwin Jr. Special Events Center, named in honor of the regent who championed its construction, opened its doors at The University of Texas for a women's and men's basketball doubleheader on November 29, 1977, with the No. 20 Lady Longhorns tipping off at 5:15 p.m. The women's basketball team went on to defeat Temple Junior College, 67-64, in the first-ever event held at the facility at the time dubbed the "college version of Madison Square Garden."
"It was just awe inspiring, how big it was for a college arena," current Texas women's athletic director Chris Plonsky said. "How clean and pristine it was and thinking, 'This is where their women's basketball team plays.'
"There were few collegiate arenas in that era when women's athletics was truly beginning to build in that early-70s, late-80s era that women could access. Most campuses were placing the women's program in smaller facilities they thought were more suitable to crowd attendance. But typical of Texas, they don't do anything small."
The first bucket ever scored in the Erwin Center was not drained by a Longhorn, but by Leopard guard and future Longhorn Evwella Munn, who so impressed second-year head coach and future National Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Jody Conradt, that she recruited her and Temple JC teammate Hattie Browning to UT at the end of the season.
Nell Fortner, who will call the 40th Anniversary game against Louisiana Tech on the Longhorn Network on Thursday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m., was a freshman forward out of New Braunfels who made her Longhorn debut that same afternoon as the Erwin Center.
"It was really exiting; I was a freshman and it was the first game played there," Fortner said. "We will always be known as the first team to win a game at the Frank Erwin Center."
In the 40 years since that opening-game win, "The Drum," so nicknamed for its distinctive shape, has been the site of two NCAA Women's Final Fours, a Longhorn championship team (the first perfect season in women's collegiate basketball history) and more than 500 Longhorn victories.
With the Frank Erwin Center as their home, the Longhorns have won 12 regular-season championships and 10 conference tournament titles as members of the Southwest Conference (SWC) and the Big 12.
Seven Conference Players of the Year honorees suited up in the Burnt Orange and White, while 11 Longhorns have received All-American recognition. Kamie Ethridge (1986), Clarissa Davis (1987, 1989) and Edwina Brown (2000) garnered National Player of the Year accolades and Conradt was a two-time National Coach of the Year, claiming the honor in 1984 and 1986. Conradt was also a seven-time conference coach of the year and current head coach Karen Aston was recognized as the Big 12 Coach of the Year in 2017.
Originally designed for just the men's team, the early success of the women's team, which began play in the 1974-75 season, made it clear that they deserved to play in the Frank Erwin Center as well, instead of remaining in Gregory Gym, which held roughly 9,000 fewer fans.
"They never envisioned that women would play basketball in the Erwin Center," Conradt said. "It took 20 years for me to get urinals out of the women's locker room; it was planned and built well before we really had the women's team on the campus."
Conradt and the women's team quickly showed they could be a draw by building one of the dominant programs in collegiate basketball, finishing at No. 15 in the Associated Press poll after that first season in the Frank Erwin Center. During the first five seasons in the new arena, the Horns sported a 60-4 home record and finished as the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women's national runner-up following the 1981-82 season.
Texas began play in the SWC during the 1982-83 season and quickly became the class of the league, going undefeated in conference play during its first seven seasons and winning a Southwest Conference record 183 consecutive games.
The Longhorns had the ninth-highest attendance in the nation during the 1983-84 season and followed that with the sixth-highest the next season.
The Erwin Center hosted its first NCAA Women's Final Four in 1985, with Old Dominion defeating Georgia in the fourth women's championship game in NCAA history. Texas had entered the tournament as the top overall seed with a 27-2 record and with hopes of representing The University of Texas in the Final Four in their home arena, but fell to host Western Kentucky in the Mideast Regional semifinals.
"It was so bittersweet because we were ranked No. 1 and we were seeded No. 1 and expectations were great," Conradt recalls. "We sold thousands of tickets for people to come see the Final Four, which we were all certain was going to feature The University of Texas.
"Unfortunately, we lost (two games) short of that, and I remember very vividly sitting in the stands and watching somebody else play on our court, win the championship and cut down the nets on the court that we considered our own."
Fueled by their early exit the prior year, the Longhorns went on a historic run in the 1985-86 season, winning the national championship with a perfect record of 34-0, the first perfect season in NCAA women's college basketball.
Among the 16 home games that season for the Longhorns was a Dec. 10, 1985 matchup with USC, who the Horns would defeat in the title game. In the contest, Annette Smith broke the UT men's and women's scoring record with a basket over Trojans' star Cheryl Miller.
Texas hosted the 1986 Midwest Regional and reached their first Final Four with a 66-63 victory over Mississippi, who had given them a tough time earlier in the season and manage push the Horns to the edge of defeat again in the Regional final before Texas regrouped and pulled away.
On March 31, 1986, the day after the Longhorns defeated the Trojans 97-81 in the title game, the first National Championship celebration in Texas basketball history was held at the Frank Erwin Center. The celebration not only capped a season in which the Longhorns produced the first undefeated run in NCAA history, but also closed out the first of six consecutive seasons in which Texas led the nation in attendance.
Large and energetic crowds had become commonplace at Texas Women's Basketball games.
"As I went through my career at Texas, the crowds were getting considerably bigger all the time. We grew that fanbase, but (also) we grew the talent on the team," Fortner said. "Jody Conradt and her staff did a great job at recruiting, so Texas women's basketball grew a fanbase that became really passionate.
"They did not miss a game. We would come out and play Stephen F. Austin and there would be 8,000 people there; it was very exciting. Texas did a great job of growing its fanbase during that time."
The Frank Erwin Center hosted its second NCAA Women's Final Four the following year – the second facility to host multiple NCAA Women's Final Fours – and the defending national champion Longhorns were among those competing for the crown. The hometown team that had drawn more than 90,000 fans to the arena during the regular season, drew the first-ever sell-out in Women's Final Four history, packing all 15,823 seats.
"One of the iconic pictures in my mind is Donna Lopiano, who was the women's athletic director, and I going out and standing on Red River (Street) under the sign that said, 'Women's Final Four' and 'Sold Out,'" Conradt said. "There can only be one first in everything and The University of Texas and the Erwin Center can always have that as their first."
The Longhorns fell in the semifinal to Louisiana Tech, but Texas continued to bring huge crowds into the Erwin Center, topping 100,000 total fans in attendance each of the next three seasons and finishing in the Top 10 in attendance every year through the 1999-2000 season. Since the Erwin Center became the Home of the Longhorns, the women's team has had nine seasons of drawing more than 100,000, including an arena record 135,702 for the 1988-89 season, and another seven seasons in which they drew at least 90,000 spectators. Texas has posted perfect home records in eight seasons, notched six one-loss seasons and has never had a losing home record.
NCAA Tournament play has become synonymous with the Erwin Center, as the facility has hosted games following 18 seasons, including the First and Second Rounds each of the last two seasons.
In one such tournament game on March 15, 2002, current Louisiana Tech head coach Brooke Stoehr (then Brooke Lassiter) played her final collegiate game in the Lady Techsters NCAA First Round loss to UC Santa Barbara at the Erwin Center, finishing her career as the NCAA's all-time career leader in free-throw percentage at 91.5 percent. Legendary Louisiana Tech head coach Leon Barmore coached his final game in the loss, retiring after 30 years as the programs head coach or co-head coach with 576 wins and an .869 winning percentage that was the best in major college basketball history at the time.
As one of the premier programs in the nation, the Longhorns have been able to celebrate numerous win milestones.
One of the major markers of Texas' success came with the 800th win of Conradt's career, which occurred on Jan. 22, 2003 when the No. 17 Longhorns upset No. 7 Texas Tech, 69-58, in front of the home crowd at the Erwin Center. Conradt, who was the first women's collegiate basketball coach to pick up 700 victories, finished her career with 900 wins.
Aston, who was an assistant at Texas for eight seasons under Conradt, has carried on the winning tradition that started with those teams of the late-70s and early-80s.
Since taking the helm for the 2012-13, Aston has rekindled the magic of those years. Texas is 64-8 (.889) inside the Frank Erwin Center since the start of the 2013-14 season and 35-4 (.897) at home over the past two-plus seasons, including a pair of NCAA Tournament wins in each of the past two seasons.
Two major win milestones occurred at the Erwin Center in 2016, with the 1000th win in Texas women's basketball history on Jan. 27 and bookending it with the Horns' 500th victory at the Erwin Center on Dec. 15.
The 1,000th victory in program history came as the No. 6 Longhorns topped Kansas, 70-46, becoming the fifth program in NCAA Division I history to achieve the feat.
"That was an amazing evening, I was proud that our team was able to be a part of that," Aston said. "We had a special year [reaching the Elite Eight that season], and for that to be part of that year, (it) will be something that our players and coaches will remember for life."
Texas' win No. 500 at the Erwin Center occurred when the No. 16/17 Longhorns defeated UT Rio Grande Valley, 85-61, improving to a 500-96 (.839) record at home.
"It's a real credit to the talented women who have played for Texas … it also is a credit to our fanbase," Plonsky said." "You can't make any home environment special unless you have support, and so every single one of those 500 wins came in front of people that care.
"Cared enough to support the program with buying tickets, giving us donations, sort of personalizing that experience for themselves, and it's still happening today. When our fans come to the arena for games, they are looking at that arena as a place that they can call home."
On Jan. 7, 2017, No. 15/17 Texas defeated TCU inside the Erwin Center on Saturday night, 83-54, for the 200th win of Aston's career and her 99th with the Longhorns, improving her record with the Horns to 99-50 (.683).
Longhorn basketball has been the primary tenant of the Erwin Center, but other talented Texas hoopsters have been featured in the facility, primarily in the University Interscholastic League (UIL) High School Basketball Championships, which took place in the arena until 2015.
"I think if you ask a lot of people in the state of Texas what is their first memory of the Erwin Center, they're either going to say Lady Longhorn basketball or the state tournament," Aston said. "When you recruit young people, that's kind of what they always talk about, 'What's the road to the Erwin Center? What's the road to Austin?' It becomes part of the culture of high school basketball."
The Longhorns have also been successful in producing talent for the professional ranks, with nine Longhorns being selected in the WNBA Draft, four of them in the 1st Round, while 17 former Horns have played in the league. Six Longhorns played in the American Basketball League between 1996-98.
At 40 years old, the Erwin Center continues to be one of the premier arenas in the country.
"I think it has stood up very well over time (and) it says a lot for what The University of Texas is always trying do, be a pacesetter," Fortner said. "It was an enjoyable place to play; look at all the great athletes who have come through here for the women's basketball program. (It set) the tone, (set) the pace of greatness for women's basketball."
History continues to be made at the Erwin Center and the 40th Anniversary Celebration marks yet another tremendous milestone for the venue.
"It is a special building. To think about how it has endured and how long we've been in that facility," Conradt said. "Most facilities don't have nearly the lifespan and the effectiveness as the Erwin Center."
