![\"Baylor's](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/ferrell-may15.jpg\")
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While the golden dome of Pat Neff Hall is the iconic image of Baylor University, there\u2019s another golden dome that has housed a significant amount of Baylor history over the last quarter-century. Countless\u00a0fans have filled the Ferrell Center<\/a>\u00a0to watch Baylor’s basketball, volleyball, and now acrobatics and tumbling teams, and\u00a0thousands of\u00a0graduates have walked across its stage at Commencement<\/a>.<\/p>\n But just how much do you know about the Ferrell Center? Here are a few facts every Baylor fan should know:<\/p>\n 1. President Ronald Reagan was the featured guest at the Ferrell Center’s first event<\/strong>, just a few months before he left office.\u00a0(Here\u2019s what preparations for the Ferrell Center opening looked like<\/a> in a classic news clip from 1988).\u00a0Including Reagan,\u00a0the Ferrell Center has hosted three of the five United States presidents to serve during its lifespan. George W. Bush has twice attended Lady Bears games, including his first public appearance<\/a> after leaving office in 2009, while\u00a0Barack Obama spoke at a\u00a0memorial service for victims of the 2013 West explosion<\/a>.\u00a0Other notable political figures to visit the Ferrell Center include Colin Powell<\/a>, Margaret Thatcher<\/a> and Desmond Tutu<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2. Its name honors the memory of a former Baylor student.<\/strong> Charles Robert Ferrell tragically lost his life in a car accident in 1967 while a Baylor sophomore. Charles\u2019 father, Monroe, was a 1938 Baylor graduate, and his love for his son and for Baylor was shown through the naming gift of the Ferrell Center. Two decades after the accident, Mr. Ferrell\u2019s estate, recognizing what it would have meant to the family to honor Charles at Baylor, made the naming gift for the arena.<\/p>\n 3. This\u00a0is the fourth permanent\u00a0home for Baylor basketball.<\/strong> Before the early 1920s, the Bears\u00a0played their home games outside on Carroll Field (located where the Bill Daniel Student Center sits today). After that, they played in a combination auditorium\/gymnasium on campus until Rena Marrs McLean Gymnasium\u00a0debuted\u00a0in 1938. By 1953, the team\u00a0was\u00a0regularly selling out the 3,500-seat gym, and so the Bears moved to the 10,000-seat Heart of Texas Coliseum across town (now the Extraco Events Center). They remained there until the Ferrell Center opened in 1988.<\/p>\n 4. The Ferrell Center wasn’t always planned for its current location.<\/strong> In 1982, it was announced<\/a> that a new special events center would be built “adjacent to Russell Gymnasium, on a site bordered by Waco Creek, University Parks Drive, Bagby Street and Speight Avenue” (where the McLane SLC and Baylor Sciences Building are now). New intramural fields were planned for the corner of University Parks and LaSalle Avenue. But by the time of groundbreaking five years later, the arena’s site had been moved across University Parks — joining what is now Baylor Ballpark in establishing the beginnings of an entire riverfront athletics complex.<\/p>\n 5. It has served Baylor longer than any other current athletics facility.<\/strong> Maybe that\u2019s a nice way to say the venerable Ferrell Center is Baylor\u2019s oldest athletic facility<\/a>, but it really\u00a0speaks to the incredible growth of Baylor Athletics since it opened. And the Ferrell Center is getting better as it gets older, with more improvements coming; Director of Athletics Ian McCaw has\u00a0said that\u00a0renovating the Ferrell Center is one of the university’s current five-year goals<\/a>.<\/p>\n 6. The Ferrell Center has a twin.<\/strong>\u00a0The University of Hawaii\u2019s Stan Sheriff Center<\/a>, built in 1994,\u00a0was modeled after the Ferrell Center. Just look at a few photos<\/a> and you\u2019ll likely do a double-take. From the triangular design in the domed ceiling to the circular bowl around the floor, Hawaii\u2019s arena\u00a0is a nearly identical replica of the home of the Bears and Lady Bears. The only real discernible difference in photographs (aside from the Hawaii logos and signage) is the dome itself. As you can see in this exterior shot<\/a>, the Stan Sheriff Center\u2019s dome lacks the brilliance of the Ferrell\u2019s eye-catching gold. Aside from that, Hawaii could feel like a home away from home for Baylor Bears, which isn\u2019t a bad thing at all.<\/p>\n The Ferrell Center has\u00a0been a fixture on the Baylor campus for more than 25 years, adapting with the times and serving generations of Bears. So here\u2019s to future generations celebrating graduation, cheering on Big 12 championships, and marveling at the growth of one of Baylor\u2019s most recognizable facilities.<\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, Ferrell Center!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the golden dome of Pat Neff Hall is the iconic image of Baylor University, there\u2019s another golden dome that has housed a significant amount of Baylor history over the last quarter-century. Countless\u00a0fans have filled the Ferrell Center\u00a0to watch Baylor’s basketball, volleyball, and now acrobatics and tumbling teams, and\u00a0thousands of\u00a0graduates have walked across its stage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-just-for-fun","category-student-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}