In October 1987, the UT Athletics Department announced that construction of a new practice facility would begin in January 1988 on Upper Hudson Field. In order to provide the necessary room, the practice bubble was moved to the intramural playing field next to the Student Aquatic Center. Opened July 15, 1989 (and nicknamed by the media “Vol Mahal”), the $11 million, 120,000-square-foot two-level facility is named in memory of former Vol head football coach and athletic director General Robert R. Neyland and Knoxville businessman B. Ray Thompson. When completed, the main level of the facility featured the Tennessee Football Hall of Fame (an exhibit developed over a two-year period and made possible by the William B. Stokely family through the William B. Stokely Jr. Foundation, which opened February 10, 1990, and was replaced by a TV studio in 2014) and a 70-yard artificial-grass playing field.
The Sports Center also housed dressing-room facilities complete with lockers, showers, a steam room, and a sauna; players’ locker room; 14,000-square-foot state-of-the art training room and equipment; the 12,000-square-foot Percy Strength Facility; the Tim Kerin Sports Medicine Center, coaches’ offices; conference rooms; a team auditorium; individual position meeting rooms; and a recruiting lounge. Each assistant football coach had an office, and there were conference rooms for the offensive and defensive staffs, as well as a large meeting room for the entire football coaching staff. Each football position had a separate meeting room.
Architects for the project were the firms of McCarty, Holsaple, McCarty and Lindsey and Maples. The contractor was Ray Bell Construction Company. The facility was expanded in 2005 by the addition of the Brenda Lawson Athletic Center, and many of its functions were subsequently moved to the Anderson Training Center, which was in use in 2012.