Crawford Gym was a state-of-the-art basketball facility when it opened on the University of Louisville’s main campus in 1964. It will soon be just a memory, and is scheduled to be demolished this summer to make way for a new academic facility.
No corporate sponsors back then, no air conditioning either, but it was exactly what Peck Hickman needed for his ambitious basketball program at the time. Two full-size basketball courts and even a swimming facility.
The facility was all but deserted on Monday, except for a couple of students and an office worker. The gym currently serves as a site for intramural programs and health and fitness classes. The swimming pool is closed now.
The gym was the primary practice facility for Hickman, John Dromo and Denny Crum teams until the Student Activities Center opened in 1990.
Crawford remained a magnet for former UofL basketball players for many years. They, in turn, would draw numerous fans to the bandbox facility for some legendary action, attracting up to 600 fans for pickup games. Players from surrounding schools, including some NBA perfor
mers, would converge there nightly.
Players like Darrell Griffith, Wiley Brown, Derek Smith, Jerry Eaves, Milt Wagner, Billy Thompson, Pervis Ellison, Jeff Hall and so many others persevered in Crawford Gym, acquiring the toughness that helped them to capture NCAA titles in 1980 and 1986.
Eaves, a member of the 1980 team, told WAVE-3’s Kent Taylor last year: “Sweaty, tremendous heat. Your total body was like you just got out of the swimming pool, completely drenched. Warmest place in the summer that I can ever
remember.”
Still standing outside the facility is a basketball-shaped concrete structure bearing the names and handprints of members of that first championship team in 1980. Hopefully, the artifact will find a new home elsewhere.
Time for Crawford Gym to go, having exceeded Peck Hickman’s ambitious expectations … and then some.