Don Haskins Center
"The Don" | |
Walter P Moore[6] | |
General contractor | Jordan Nobles Construction[7] |
---|---|
Tenants | |
UTEP Miners (1977–present) |
The Don Haskins Center, formerly known as the Special Events Center, is the home of UTEP Miners men's and women's basketball. The venue is located in the heart of El Paso, Texas. In addition to hosting sporting events, the Don Haskins Center is also used by many area schools, such as El Paso Community College, for graduation and commencement ceremonies.[8] Due to its large seating capacity, the center is also the city's premier entertainment venue and has hosted big-name acts such as pop star Shakira's Tour of the Mongoose, Oral Fixation Tour and The Sun Comes Out World Tour, Britney Spears during her Circus Tour,[9] comedian George Lopez and rock band KISS.[10]
History
Built in 1977, as the Special Events Center, the venue replaced Memorial Gym.
The Haskins Center features a Robbins Bio-Channel Star maple floor, installed in the summer of 2002, as well as two modern locker rooms, training facilities and basketball coaches' offices. The game-day environment for basketball was enhanced in recent years with the addition of four new scoreboards and two video replay boards to the arena. The arena now has a total of seven electronic scoreboards.
While it had originally been built as an alternative to the
UTEP Basketball
The Miner men's basketball team has posted a 476–140 (.773) record in 34 years at the arena. UTEP won 25 straight home games from January 23, 1987 to December 16, 1989. The Miners have posted undefeated home records in three seasons: 1983–1984 (21–0), 1985–1986 (19–0) and 1988–1989 (18–0). They also won the first 10 conference games they played there after joining Conference USA in 2005. UTEP has defeated many top-10 ranked teams in the Don Haskins Center over the years, including #10 Arizona (1977), #5 Georgetown (1985), #5 Wyoming (1988) and #9 Utah (1993), among others.[13]
UTEP has attracted 5,592,257 fans in 34 seasons at the arena. The 11,892-seat arena (formerly 12,222 due to the late El Paso Sports legend Paul Strelzin) has been sold out for UTEP basketball games 112 times.[13]
Concerts
Shakira currently holds the record of having the most shows in the arena as a female artist, with 6 in total:
- She performed in the arena for the very first time with Tour of the Mongoose on November 15 and 16, 2002. She returned to the arena on February 25, 2003 for another sold-out show, becoming the female artist with most shows in the venue with one single tour.
- She kicked off her sold out North American leg of Oral Fixation Tour in the venue on August 9, 2006.
- She brought The Sun Comes Out World Tour to El Paso on October 13, 2010. Later on, she added a second show on October 12, 2010, after the first show was completely sold out.
Depeche Mode were scheduled to perform during their Touring the Angel Tour on May 2, 2006, with She Wants Revenge as their opening act, but the show was cancelled, due to scheduling issues.[17]
The Cure played a memorable gig on May 17, 2016 for about three hours with 5 encores and 5 songs they hadn't played for at least nine years including "The Perfect Girl" which hadn't been played since 1990.[citation needed]
See also
References
- ^ "UTEP's WNIT game for tonight has sold out". KVIA.Com. Apr 1, 2014. Retrieved 2 Apr 2014.
- ^ "Special Events Center Construction Begins". El Paso Herald-Post. January 14, 1975. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
- ^ Molinar–Muñoz, Jessica (November 16, 2013). "Day 46: The Don Haskins Center". University of Texas at El Paso. Archived from the original on May 10, 2009. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ a b "Special Events Center Open At Last". The Prospector. University of Texas at El Paso. February 1, 1977. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
- ^ "Arenas". Walter P Moore. Archived from the original on July 8, 2000. Retrieved February 18, 2012.
- ^ "Heritage". Jordan Foster Construction. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
- ^ "Venues at UTEP". University of Texas at El Paso. Archived from the original on May 10, 2009. Retrieved March 10, 2010.
- ^ Swann, Ben (June 10, 2009). "Britney Spears Coming To Don Haskins' Center". KTSM. El Paso. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
- ^ Soto, Stephanie (January 5, 2010). "Legendary Rockers Invade the Sun City". The Prospector. University of Texas at El Paso. Retrieved March 10, 2010.
- ^ Kaplowitz, Steve. "12,222: Busting the Attendance Myth of the Don Haskins Center". 600 ESPN El Paso. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
- ^ "Basketball Pioneer Haskins Dies". National Collegiate Athletic Association. September 8, 2008. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
- ^ a b c "The Don Haskins Center". UTEP Athletics. Retrieved March 10, 2010.
- ^ Sanchez, Stephanie (September 9, 2008). "El Pasoans Visit Don Haskins Center as Coach Lies in State". El Paso Times. Retrieved March 10, 2010.
- ^ "Technical Information | Pan American Center | Special Events | New Mexico State University". New Mexico State University. Archived from the original on 2018-07-09. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
- ^ Dominguez, Noah (2017-10-02). "10 Live Observations From WWE EL Paso". WhatCulture.com. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
- ^ Martinez, Leonard (July 6, 2006). "Catch Depeche Mode Live on CD". El Paso Times. Retrieved February 7, 2014.