The Movin’ Mavs team talks during the PEB Farewell event Oct. 30 in the Physical Education Building. The Movin’ Mavs team gained intercollegiate status in 1988.
For 50 years, the Physical Education Building has been the home of UTA’s wheelchair basketball teams. It’s seen countless practices and games, dozens upon dozens of Paralympians and, between the two teams, 12 national championships.
By the end of October, the final practice will have taken place in the PE Building. Its historic halls have been hollowed out, the picture frames dedicated to members of championship teams gone. The banners signifying the national titles have been taken down. Its brick walls will never again echo with the symphony of metal on metal and leather on hardwood.
The PE Building will be knocked down some time in December, according to Cezar Olivas, assistant director of adapted sports. The teams were announced in February to be leaving the building, playing and practicing full-time in the College Park Center instead, starting in November.
“It’s kind of shocking that the building’s coming down, and that it’s coming to fruition,” Olivas said. “Sad to see it go, but it’s one of the older buildings on campus, so we understand.”
The move coincided with the announcements of the building’s demolition and the wheelchair basketball teams’ absorption by the athletics department. The first wheelchair basketball practices at the 7,000-seat arena will take place Monday.
On Friday, the teams held a farewell event for the building, inviting Movin’ Mavs alumni to say goodbye to their old stomping grounds.
Aaron Gouge, Movin’ Mavs head coach, gets his plate served during the PEB Farewell event Oct. 30 in the Physical Education Building. Gouge said he will miss all the history and memories that Movin’ Mavs made in the building.
One of the attendees was former head coach Doug Garner. Garner coached the Movin’ Mavs for 14 seasons, from 2008 to 2022. He said the move signified everything he had worked for during his time at the helm.
“The whole time I was here, this is kind of the direction we were working in, getting recognition as a sport for the program all those years,” Doug Garner said. “The part about PE Building being gone, all those memories, that’s a little disappointing, but it’s inevitable, and hopefully it’s going to be a great relationship with athletics.”
Also at the PE Building on Friday night was his son, Tyler Garner. The younger Garner played for the Movin’ Mavs from 2004 to 2009, and is now a kinesiology clinical associate professor at UTA. He said no one memory stands out above the rest during his years playing at the building.
“It’s the thousands of laps that I did around this court, and the thousands of shots that I put up on these hoops,” Tyler Garner said. “I can’t distill that down into one memory, but it all kind of comes together.”
The Garners weren’t the only ones to bid adieu to the gym. Purple Heart recipient Blake McMinn played for Doug Garner from 2010 to 2012 and 2017 to 2019, and said he had mixed emotions about the move.
Former statistician Richard Ellis laughs during the PEB Farewell event Oct. 30 in the Physical Education Building. The wheelchair basketball teams have won 12 national championships.
“It’s a old, aging building, and the facilities that they’re moving into is amazing,” McMinn said. “It’s bittersweet to see it going, but it’s awesome to see where the program is going.”
Even those from long before the Doug Garner era showed up to pay their respects to their old collegiate home court. Willie Hernandez was the first player to receive a scholarship to play for the Movin’ Mavs and played for the team from 1989 to 1993, winning three consecutive national championships.
After graduation, Hernandez started Per4Max, which has grown to become one of the largest companies that specialize in sports wheelchairs. He said without getting the opportunity to attend UTA on scholarship, he may have never gotten the career he did.
“It changed my life,” Hernandez said. “When you’re young, you really don’t know exactly what direction you want to head, and I was given a full ride coming from Southern California, didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, and I got my degree in mechanical engineering, and from there it just took off.”
Hugh Small, sports leadership and management sophomore, grabs a plate of food during the PEB Farewell event Oct. 30 in the Physical Education Building. The Movin’ Mavs are transitioning to College Park Center.
Also making an appearance from the early era of the team was Richard Ellis, assistant coach in the early to mid-90s. Ellis was a part of two of UTA’s national championship teams, and a buzzer-beater away from a third.
He said his first time being around other handicapped people was when he came to UTA, and it inspired him to strive for success despite his own physical limitations.
“When I got here, I realized that I could be somebody, because I saw the other handicapped people doing it,” Ellis said. “I was like, ‘If they can do it, then I can do it, stop complaining,’ and boom, I graduated.”
Both teams will begin their first full season outside their longtime home on Nov. 21-22, hosting the Jim Hayes Fall Classic at College Park Center.
Hayes was the first disabled student to live on-campus at UTA. After he graduated, Hayes created the Movin’ Mavs, leading them to seven national titles and coaching the team until his death in 2008. Hayes coached many of the alumni that showed up to the PE Building on Friday, including Tyler Garner, Hernandez and Olivas.
“When I look at the walls and the courts and the locker rooms and how much it’s evolved up until this point, it’s all because of his doing,” Olivas said about his collegiate head coach. “That’s my first thoughts when I think about [the PE Building] going away, that there’s pieces of him that are going away too.”
@TyRoland06