I’ve known about the old gym at Catholic for about 35 years, and I’ve had these photos in my phone for a super long time, but only now am I actually writing about the old Catholic University Fieldhouse.
- Old gym series: Amherst, Randolph-Macon (January 2007)
- St. Norbert (September 2010)
- Wittenberg (November 2010)
- Loras Fieldhouse (March 2018)
- Doremus Gymnasium, Washington and Lee (March 2018)
When I got to The Catholic University of America as a 17-year-old freshman in August of 1990, the building had already been decommissioned from basketball for several years. In fact, in 1989 it was turned into a space where a few friends of mine spent a lot of their time: The Crough Architectural Center.
The building became a big draw for prospective architecture majors, as it was a great studio space for everyone, even undergraduates, even freshmen. One of them, a classmate of mine named Stephen Corbellini, sliced his hand open with an X-acto knife his first semester at school, and he and I watched Monday Night Football in the waiting room at the closest emergency room.
Stephen later changed majors to musical theater.
The building was home to CUA basketball from 1919 until the mid-1980s, including a men’s basketball team which went to the 1944 (Division I) NCAA Tournament, one which went to the 1964 College Division (Division II) NCAA Tournament, and then the first handful of years that Catholic played in Division III.
These interior shots show a long shot down the length of the building, the detail of the curved armory-style roof, and an old out-of-bounds line.
I took these photos in 2018.