Sophomore Nadav Menachem, left, freshman Shawn Simmions, center, and sophomore Jensen Blaine cheer after the Movin’ Mavs score during a game against the Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks on Feb. 14 at the Physical Education Building. The team won 68-60.
For 50 years, a small gym in the Physical Education Building has echoed with the sound of metal clashing into metal, as athletes on the distressed hardwood fought for every possession, every shot, every point and countless wins.
Along the sides, the walls are decorated with evidence of UTA’s most nationally successful athletic programs. Writing on the outside of the building proudly presents the “Home of the Movin’ Mavs.”
In a press release Thursday, the university confirmed its plans to demolish the PE Building, culminating half of a century of competition at the historic building. In the gym’s final tournament, UTA went 3-0 to sweep three professional teams, a microcosm of the program’s legacy.
The news comes just over three weeks after the announcement that wheelchair basketball would be brought into the UTA Division of Intercollegiate Athletics. This move, aside from a change in scenery, solidifies UTA wheelchair basketball as Division I teams.
Junior Lionel Tamoki attempts to shoot the ball during a game against the Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks on Feb. 14 at the Physical Education Building. The game was one of the last matches the team would play in the PE Building before moving to College Park Center.
Wheelchair basketball boasts 12 national championships and 36 Paralympians. It has called the PE Building home since its formation as a club program in 1976 and throughout its promotion to intercollegiate status in 1988.
The change in home venues will provide the wheelchair basketball teams with the same resources as other varsity programs, including academic resources, athletic trainers and facilities, according to a UTA press release.
Movin’ Mavs head coach Aaron Gouge and several players said the memories made at the PE Building will be missed but that the program’s future in the 7,000-seat College Park Center is an inspiring prospect.
“The PEB here is definitely sentimental for some of us that have been around a long time, but we’re so excited about moving to the CPC,” Gouge said. “It’s such a great facility, it’s going to be such a great change for the team, and getting to play here later on in March in the CPC will help us going into nationals.”
Banners commemorating the Movin’ Mavs’ championship wins line the gymnasium Feb. 16 in the Physical Education Building. The wheelchair basketball programs have won 12 national championships.
Junior Lionel Tamoki said he hopes the move will popularize the wheelchair basketball programs across the campus.
“I’d say here [the PE Building] is home of the Movin’ Mavs and nobody on campus really knows about this building,” Tamoki said. “Whenever I go to class and people ask me, I end up talking about the tournaments, and people would say, ‘Oh, where y’all playing? Oh, the PEB? The pool?’ They don’t realize that this is where we play.”
Playing at College Park Center full-time, Tamoki said, legitimizes wheelchair basketball as a sport like any other. Tamoki said he is happy to see the team finally get recognition.
“We’re athletes, just like any other sport. We put as much pain, tears and effort as anybody else,” Tamoki said. “It’s just proof that we’re moving, we’re taking the sport further, where people will start recognizing us and start considering us as athletes in the near future.”
Some players are also excited to have the opportunity to play in front of a large home crowd.
“Everyone getting behind us would be just absolutely unreal,” freshman Mitchell Bond said. “Especially if you’re like myself and the other rookies here that haven’t had that full experience in the CPC just yet, it’d be absolutely unreal.”
The team’s first tournament in College Park Center, as its new permanent home, will be on March 14 and 15.
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