In March,1976, the rich 50-year history of Nebraska Cornhusker basketball being played in the NU Coliseum, located one block east of Memorial Stadium, ended.
An era of a new venue was beginning.
Located a few blocks north of the University campus near 17th and Court Streets on the then state fairgrounds, the sparkling new Nebraska Sports Center was ready to open.
The new arena was ready to host the 1976 State High School Basketball Tournament. Since I was a member of the Raymond Central High basketball team, I was excused from school and allowed to attend the tournament. I wanted to be part of history, and nothing was going to stop me from witnessing the first-ever game played in the new arena.
On Thursday, March 11, 1976, I was one of several thousand people who saw Omaha Burke beat Columbus, 73-60.
Before the official tip-off, a short ceremony was held to dedicate the new building. Standing at the center-court circle, Bob Devaney — dressed in a pink sports coat — tossed a basketball in the air and the centers of the respective schools attempted to tap the ball to their teammates. The official blew his whistle, retrieved the ball, and Devaney and other dignitaries left the court. The next center-jump was for real, and the sports center was ready to begin 50-plus years of hosting thousands of athletic events.
As I vividly remember that day, the arena’s construction was about 98 percent complete. There were no bleachers on the floor, and the wood on the actual playing court was the only part of the floor that had been varnished. Thin white lines had been painted to serve as the out-of-bounds lines, free throw lines, and center-court. Two temporary scoreboards were hung in the northwest and southeast corners, just below the first row of red theater seats. There was no big red “N” painted anywhere on the court, so the playing floor had a rather bland appearance. Despite those deficiencies, it was a beautiful facility. As I walked through its doors for the first time, I saw thousands of bright red theater seats in the 360-degree oval, and I gasped for air. Unless a fan chose to sit in the nosebleed section near the giant steel rafters, the days of a fanny bonding with a gray wooden plank were over. The concession stands were larger and so were the bathrooms. As much as I loved the NU Coliseum, the Nebraska Sports Center had my stamp of approval.
How the Sports Center became a reality is an interesting story. A week before Nebraska opened its 1976-77 basketball campaign, the Lincoln Journal-Star published a special tabloid portraying the facility. An in-depth story written by Don Pieper revealed Bob Devaney had been grumbling about the inadequacies of the Coliseum for several years.
In the summer of 1969, Devaney, lobbyist David Tews, and Senator Roland Luedke of Lincoln, met at the Nebraska Union for lunch to discuss the possibility of a new arena and how its construction could be funded. The three men decided the best person to approach the legislature to request planning money was Senator Jules Burbach of Hartington, who was also a member of the State Fair Board of Directors. The Fairgrounds had already been considered the best site for the facility. Burbach requested that the Legislature’s appropriations committee earmark $60,000 for the University to develop a proposal, and the committee adopted his proposal unanimously. In the fall of 1970, former Senator George Gerdes of Alliance, who served in the Unicameral between 1959 and 1969, had suggested investigating the possibility of using cigarette tax money to build the new arena. Senator Luedtke sponsored LB 87, which increased the tax on a pack of cigarettes from eight cents to 13 cents. Half of the additional five cents would pay for the new state office building and the other half would go for the new sports complex. LB 87 passed the legislature in 1971 but ran into opposition in the form of Governor Jim Exon. Exon understood the need for both facilities but wanted lawmakers to study the issue for nine months and act on it during the 1972 session. Governor Exon’s advice was ignored, so he vetoed the bill, stating the cigarette tax was “an unsound and unfair adventure in taxation and appropriation techniques.” Exon’s veto was overridden, 34-14, but he vowed to have the issue repealed during the 1972 session. However, an intense lobbying effort kept the law alive.
In the fall of 1971, entertainer Bob Hope attended the Nebraska vs. Iowa State football game in Lincoln and appeared in a show at the Coliseum after the game. At Devaney’s pleasure, Hope referred to the building as a barn after Devaney had apologized to him for not having a better facility in which Hope could perform. Governor Exon changed his position on funding for the new facility when a group of citizens formed a committee to see the construction of the new building to fruition. It was reported that several of the people on the committee were Democratic friends of the governor. Senator Terry Carpenter of Scottsbluff had Devaney appeal to the legislative body to keep the bill, and lobbyists also kept the pressure on. A revised version of LB 87, endorsed by Governor Exon, included provisions to the State Fair Board to prepare the site for the new facility and put a limit of $12 million on the sports center, with the exception that interest from the investment of the revenue bonds could be added to the construction total.
Ground for the new Nebraska Sports Center was broken in November 1972. The projected completion date was January 1975.
My father felt since he and other smokers were paying for the new arena, the building should be named “The Smoke House.” Anytime we were in Lincoln, I asked Mom or Dad to drive by the fairgrounds so I could see firsthand the progress on the new sports center. Throughout 1973, 1974, and 1975, growth was noticeable with each drive-by. A huge hole in the ground soon became a mountain of brown steel beams. Eventually the steel was covered with a cream-colored siding. After three years and four months of construction, the new 15,000-seat Nebraska Sports Center was completed. It eventually carried a price tag of $14 million. I have no clue as to how many packs of cancer-sticks were sold to fund Dad’s smoke house.
Several of my basketball teammates and I ventured to the Capitol City for three consecutive days to watch games at the new arena. The opening day’s games were also played at the NU Coliseum, Pershing Auditorium, and Lincoln High’s Johnson Gym. The semifinals were held at the new Sports Center and the Coliseum, while the championship games were played in the new arena.
I witnessed one of the most dramatic endings to any sporting event when Aurora beat Holdrege, 53-52, to win the Class “B” Championship. A Holdrege player missed a lay-up in the final seconds and lay face down on the floor while the Aurora players danced around him in celebration, oblivious to his emotional pain. However, Aurora coach Bill Holliday leaned over and comforted the Holdrege player in one of the classiest acts of sportsmanship I have ever witnessed. A photographer caught the moment, and the picture was printed in the Lincoln paper the next day. Holliday had just led Aurora to its first state title since 1920, but he was more concerned about the distraught Duster. I watched Holliday’s heroics from row 20 behind the east basket. It was the same basket at which the Holdrege player had attempted his ill-fated shot. Holliday was no stranger when it came to scoring important baskets. He still holds the Nebraska high school career scoring mark of 2,748 points while playing for Wilsonville High School from 1957 to 1960 — but probably scored the biggest points in Nebraska High School basketball history on March 13, 1976, when Holliday aided a devastated Holdrege Duster.
The Nebraska Sports Center was renamed the Bob Devaney Sports Center in 1978.
Today, the Devaney Center is home to the University of Nebraska volleyball team, who – like the Husker basketball teams – once called the Coliseum home.
In 2025, the volleyball venue was named the John Cook Arena.