Last Friday, the University of Texas at Austin held a grand opening ceremony for the Frank Denius Family Athletics Hall of Fame, a 24,713-sf space that is located at the north endzone of Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
The $17.1 million space, designed by Page and built by Turner Construction, includes 392 trophies earned over the decades by the university’s 20 sports teams. Visual and digital displays celebrate UT’s 55 national championship teams, 599 conference team titles, 144 individual national champions, and 171 Olympians who have won 145 medals.
The national champions are highlighted in their own 1,400-sf room with a 16x9-ft monitor that plays videos commemorating team title victories.
Also included in the Hall of Fame is an 8-ft-tall, 1,200-lb statue honoring the school’s mascot, the longhorn Bevo. The Hall of Fame offers a visual timeline of the 15 Bevos in Texas’ history since 1917.
Nashville, Tenn.-based Advent was a co-collaborator on this project, responsible for creating the “stories” that identify special touchstones and moments in the history of UT’s athletic programs.
John Roberson, Advent’s owner, had worked previously with Chris Del Conte, UT’s Athletic Director, when Del Conte held the same post at Texas Christian University. “Chris was brought in as a change agent, to restore the culture” for UT’s athletic program, Roberson tells BD+C.
That culture, he explains, is defined by stories “that are repeated.” Telling those stories required Advent to pull together the school’s trophies and other memorabilia that were scattered all over the place. For example, a Wheaties box that featured UT’s 2005 national championship football team and its legendary coach Mack Brown was found in someone’s garage. Trophies won by the school’s baseball team were located in crates in the basement of the team’s fieldhouse.
It’s not just the trophies that matter, though, says Roberson. “It’s identifying the heroes” and the narratives about individuals, teams, and special moments. Advent helped UT select those people and events using a proprietary process called “story mining,” which Roberson describes as “empathetic listening” to stakeholders. Advent used data analysis software to identify within those captured stories what needed to be told “to uncover the emotions” of the time and place.
“We’re transporting you, taking you back,” says Roberson, via images and interactive exhibits. “Memory is created by the experience that causes wonderment.”
A statue of UT's mascot, the longhorn Bevo, is prominently displayed in the Hall of Fame. Image: Rick Myers/Advent
Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial is the ninth-largest stadium in the world, with a seating capacity of 100,119. So, says Roberson, several hundred thousand people could conceivably visit the Hall of Fame during the football team’s season, which opened with a 45-14 win over Louisiana Tech University last Saturday. Roberson expects UT to also use this facility as part of its student recruitment effort, and to lease it out for events like weddings.
He believes the Hall of Fame is a “smart investment” for the university to recapture a space that had been a wide concourse and circulation area with a modest food court.
In conjunction with the opening of the Hall of Fame, UT has entered into a joint branding agreement with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in an effort to strengthen Olympic sports programming at the collegiate level. The tagline for the campaign is “Olympians Made Here.”
The Athletics Hall of Fame is named after Frank Denius, an alumnus who passed away in 2018 at the age of 93. Denius was a decorated World War II veteran, having been awarded four Silver Stars and two Purple Hearts. He earned two degrees, in business and law, at UT, and supported the university philanthropically.
Related Stories
| May 25, 2011
Olympic site spurs green building movement in UK
London's environmentally friendly 2012 Olympic venues are fuelling a green building movement in Britain.
| Apr 11, 2011
Wind turbines to generate power for new UNT football stadium
The University of North Texas has received a $2 million grant from the State Energy Conservation Office to install three wind turbines that will feed the electrical grid and provide power to UNT’s new football stadium.
| Apr 5, 2011
U.S. sports industry leads charge in meeting environmental challenges
The U.S. sports industry generates $414 billion annually. The amount of energy being consumed is not often thought of by fans when heading to the stadium or ballpark, but these stadiums, parks, and arenas use massive quantities of energy. Now sports leagues in North America are making a play to curb the waste and score environmental gains.
| Mar 25, 2011
Qatar World Cup may feature carbon-fiber ‘clouds’
Engineers at Qatar University’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering are busy developing what they believe could act as artificial “clouds,” man-made saucer-type structures suspended over a given soccer stadium, working to shield tens of thousands of spectators from suffocating summer temperatures that regularly top 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
| Mar 11, 2011
University of Oregon scores with new $227 million basketball arena
The University of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena opened January 13 with a men’s basketball game against USC where the Ducks beat the Trojans, 68-62. The $227 million arena, which replaces the school’s 84-year-old McArthur Court, has a seating bowl pitched at 36 degrees to replicate the close-to-the-action feel of the smaller arena it replaced, although this new one accommodates 12,364 fans.
| Mar 11, 2011
Community sports center in Nashville features NCAA-grade training facility
A multisport community facility in Nashville featuring a training facility that will meet NCAA Division I standards is being constructed by St. Louis-based Clayco and Chicago-based Pinnacle.
| Mar 11, 2011
Slam dunk for the University of Nebraska’s basketball arena
The University of Nebraska men’s and women’s basketball programs will have a new home beginning in 2013. Designed by the DLR Group, the $344 million West Haymarket Civic Arena in Lincoln, Neb., will have 16,000 seats, suites, club amenities, loge, dedicated locker rooms, training rooms, and support space for game operations.