The Cam Henderson Center is the primary indoor athletics complex at

Marshall University Marshall University is a public research university in Huntington, West Virginia. It was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States. The university is currently composed of nine colleges: ...

Huntington, West Virginia Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County, and the largest city in the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Area. A h ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

.Cam Henderson Center
at herdzone.cstv.com, URL accessed November 18, 2009

11/18/09 The basketball and volleyball teams of the Marshall Thundering Herd use the venue for their home games. The first basketball game played in the facility was a varsity match between Marshall and Army on November 27, 1981. The venue is named for

Cam Henderson Eli Camden Henderson (February 5, 1890 – May 3, 1956) was an American football, basketball, and baseball coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Muskingum College (1920–1922), Davis & Elkins College ...

, who coached football and basketball at the school from 1935 to 1955.

History

Design

The facility, as designed, was to be a "state of the art" arena seating 14,000. However, during construction, massive budget cuts were made and the finished product seated only 10,250. The

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

arena currently seats 9,048. The arena was designed with a retractable lower seating section, which permitted use of the floor area for indoor track and general use by the physical education department. However this seating never worked as designed, and eventually the school stopped retracting the seating for fear it would become stuck in that position. Also the poured concrete floor developed major cracks. The Henderson Center is .

Construction wrangles

Its construction was a part of a deal in the

West Virginia Legislature The West Virginia Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of West Virginia. A bicameral legislative body, the legislature is split between the upper Senate and the lower House of Delegates. It was established under Article VI o ...

to support construction of Mountaineer Field at

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State Coll ...

. Legislators affiliated with Marshall had opposed building such a facility unless Marshall also received an athletic facility. At the time, Marshall's home court was the

Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse The Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse was an 8,500-seat (6,500 for basketball) multi-purpose arena in Huntington, West Virginia. It was built in 1950. Prior to the completion of the Huntington Civic Center (now known as Mountain Health Arena) in 197 ...

, a 30-year-old county-owned facility located 6 blocks from campus and seating only 6,500. The Center was opened in 1981, despite construction of the facility not finishing until the next year. In 1996 the school, using settlement proceeds from a

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

against the seat manufacturer and a new state appropriation, replaced the lower section with a permanent seating section and repaired the floor, mostly ending the arena's use for anything except basketball and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, with the exception of a small annual charity

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

tournament. This reduced the

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

to its current level. With the decline in the men's basketball program, many years passed since the final reconfiguration of the facility without a capacity crowd seen in Henderson Center. On February 11, 2006, the Center was finally filled when the men's basketball team faced number 3-ranked

University of Memphis } The University of Memphis (UofM) is a public research university in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. The university maintains the Herff College of Engineering, the Center for Ea ...

. The women's basketball program has held "Jam The Cam" events resulting in attendance records for women's basketball in the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great L ...

(Marshall has since become a member of Conference USA) and an occasional copycat event with one of the other lower-profile sports at Marshall, such as volleyball or swimming/diving. The building was merged into the existing Gullickson Hall, and contains athletic department offices, and a competitive pool for

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

in addition to the arena.Cam Henderson Center and Gullickson Hall
at marshall.edu, URL accessed November 18, 2009

11/18/09 In 2011, the University proposed a deal with the local park board to take over and remove the Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse, which would be the site of a new soccer facility. The remaining basketball events at the fieldhouse, which are games of the city's two private high schools and regional rounds of the state basketball tournament, would move to the Henderson Center.

References

{{Sun Belt Conference basketball venue navbox 1981 establishments in West Virginia Basketball venues in West Virginia College basketball venues in the United States Indoor arenas in West Virginia Marshall Thundering Herd basketball venues Sports venues completed in 1981

History

Design

Construction wrangles

See also

References