The Physical Education Building sits on Greek Row Drive on March 1. The Movin’ Mavs will permanently relocate to College Park Center.
As the Physical Education Building nears its final sign-off, its more than 50 years of history at UTA has already begun to mythologize. With that mystique comes questions that frequent users have occasionally whispered: Is there really a gun range hidden beneath its floors?
The idea of a firing range tucked below the space is a fitting addition to the building’s extensive — and often quirky — lore.
Cezar Olivas, assistant director for adaptive sports, said it is no rumor, but is shut off and sealed to the public eye.
On Feb. 12, the university announced plans to demolish the PE Building, the home court of the Movin’ Mavs and Lady Movin’ Mavs since their founding. Backed by the integration of UTA’s wheelchair basketball programs into the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, the teams will be leaving their lifelong site to live in College Park Center with the rest of UTA’s Division I teams.
As the transition nears, nostalgia and sentimentality are setting in for those who have used the facility, including some who said their time in the PE Building helped shape them.
Olivas shared a memory that has stuck with him since his days as a player under Jim Hayes, founder and longtime head coach of UTA’s wheelchair basketball program.
Hayes would sit outside and smoke cigarettes by the back entrance, waiting for Movin’ Mavs players to show up for practice, Olivas said.
After Hayes’ death, he said, members of the team would talk about still seeing him sitting there waiting.
“On occasion, the talk was that when we round this corner, coming from Greek Row, that we could see somebody there,” Olivas said. “But then there wasn’t, because it can’t be.”
He said that current players wouldn’t know Hayes as they did, but supposedly, newer Movin’ Mavs players would still see cigarette butts in that same corner.
“That’ll be something that at least my era will definitely always talk about,” Olivas said.
Hayes’ dedication and passion for the team were tangible, so much so that he had his wake in the PE Building gym, an appropriate notion for the former coach, Movin’ Mavs head coach Aaron Gouge and Olivas said.
“It was quite fitting to see him go in that place where we spent so much time with him,” Olivas said.
Walking into the building now, its faded walls — decorated with memorabilia from former wheelchair basketball teams — trap the distinct scent of the now closed pools, the smell filling the walkway. The sounds of balls bouncing and wheelchairs screeching on the distressed hardwood swell in the back of the building.
Before people enter the gym, one of the first things they’ll come across walking inside is a shared office space for the Movin’ Mavs and Lady Movin’ Mavs, alongside a training room.
“If adaptive athletics had grown in any other building, aside from the PEB, it just wouldn’t be the same,” said Morgan Wood, Lady Movin’ Mavs head coach. “There wouldn’t be that sense of grit that we’ve seen.”
Wood said a distinct sound that will forever remind her of the building is the buzzing of the old score clock still used at the gym. On the possibility of a gun range or any other oddities, she said anything is possible at the PE Building.
“If something has happened in your life, it’s happened in the PEB,” Wood said. “I’ve done a lot more than basketball in the PEB in my lifetime, just whatever you can think of as a college student that sounds fun, it’s been done in the PEB.”
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.
Since helping create the Lady Movin’ Mavs program in 2013, Wood said the facility has undergone many changes. One in particular is when she and the team at the time handcrafted the Lady Movin’ Mavs’ original locker room.
Wood said a couple of the men’s team players came down and helped set the lockers up, without telling the university out of excitement. While they got a new area in 2018, Wood said she kept some of that day with her.
“They bought plywood and built our lockers for us, and so our first day of practice, they brought all this paint in, and we painted our own lockers,” Wood said. “I actually still have mine. Michaela, our academic adviser, she still has hers as well.”
While both head coaches for the adaptive athletics teams said they are excited for what the future holds with their move to the Athletic department and into College Park Center, Wood said there were times they were uncertain about what would happen to the programs.
Leaving the PE Building feels bittersweet, Gouge said. One of the main things that will not be missed by either head coach is the irreparable leak in the gym ceiling.
“After a hard night’s rain, and there’s either a puddle on the ground or a trash can sitting in the middle of the court collecting the leak, definitely, definitely won’t be missed,” Gouge said.
As the wheelchair basketball programs finish their remaining tournaments — one of which will be in College Park Center starting March 14 — and gear up for the national championships, the teams are eager to get back in the arena and do what they do best.
“I’m ready to win,” Wood said. “It’s about time we went undefeated in a tournament and won another national championship, so that’s what I’m ready for.”
“The PEB, it will be missed. I will say that it has been a wild ride,” she said.
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