The cornerstone for the Stokely Athletics Center, which would expand the Armory-Fieldhouse, was laid on May 7, 1966. The facility was placed into service for the 1966–67 basketball season, with the first game being December 1, 1966, against Michigan (Tennessee 72, Michigan 54), when a less-than-capacity crowd was allowed to view the game because both balconies had failed inspection and could not be used.
The facility, like the Stokely Management Center, was named in honor of three generations of William B. Stokelys, but this facility paid special tribute to the interests and support of William B. Stokely Jr., without whose financial and personal support the project would not have been possible. Stokely made a major gift (almost $600,000) toward the $2 million expansion of the field house-armory, which had opened in 1958, and he visited the site October 16, 1966, one day before he died.
When it opened, the expanded field house increased seating for basketball to 12,374; provided an indoor track; provided space for Athletics Department and ROTC offices; and included space for dressing rooms, trainer operations, and headquarters for other UT sports programs.
Stokely Athletics Center had a synthetic, tartan floor for basketball, the South’s first, which was replaced with a wooden floor for the 1985–86 basketball season. The Vols played in the Stokely Athletics Center from the SEC championship season of 1966–67 through the 1986–87 season, after which both men’s and women’s intercollegiate games moved to Thompson-Boling Assembly Center and Arena. The men’s team won its first 23 games in Stokely Athletics Center and had an overall 321-69 record in its 29 years in the facility. The lowest score game was an 11-6 victory over Temple in December 1973.
Stokely Athletics Center was used as a multipurpose assembly facility. UT commencements and large gatherings were held there; state basketball tournaments were held through 1971, coming to a close following a melee in the stands during an Austin-East vs. Fulton game; Knoxville boxer “Big John” Tate, heavyweight champion of the world, made his first defense of his title at Stokely, losing to Mike Weaver; Elvis Presley (three concerts) and Janice Joplin are among performers and entertainers who played the venue.
The Student Programs and Services Fee assumed payment for the Stokely Athletics Center’s debt service in 1987, and this became a major student issue in 1991. Vice Chancellor Phil Scheurer indicated that Stokely would become a recreation building for students, and in spring 1992, ten RecSports activities (Step Aerobics, Fencing Club, Weightlifting Club, Judo Club, Tennessee Walkers, Karate Club, table tennis, cheerleaders, badminton, intramural 3-point contest, second round intramural tug of war, and RecSports special events) were moved to Stokely. In December 1992 Student Government Association President John Taliaferro announced that the administration had agreed to transfer the annual debt service payment back to the Athletics Department.
In 2007 the fire marshal determined that Stokely’s safety systems were not up to code, including a lack of sprinkler systems, poor exit paths in case of a fire, guardrail safety concerns, and stairwell deficiencies. Because the cost of upgrading the facility to meet modern fire and health safety codes was prohibitively expensive, UT agreed with the fire marshal that activities would be limited to office use and gatherings of fewer than 50 people during the period it took to arrange alternative locations for functions, including ROTC, located in the building, and that the building would be completely vacated by the end of 2012. The building was taken out of service in December 2012.
By agreement with the Athletics Department, the 2011 Campus Master Plan presented to the board of trustees and the State Building Commission showed the Stokely Athletics and Gibbs Hall sites as being for academic buildings and a parking garage that would serve Music, Art, Theatre, and McClung Museum for special events. In September 2012, however, UT announced that the State Building Commission had approved demolition plans for Stokely Athletics Center and Gibbs Hall and that the site would be reused for three purposes: a $33 million, one-thousand- space parking garage to be finished in 2015; a new $68 million residence hall, open both to male and female students, on the east side of the site, close to the Gibbs Hall location, featuring seven hundred beds in single-occupancy rooms with shared living areas and with a dining facility open to the university community; and expansion of Haslam Field to add more football practice areas to provide three full-size exterior grass outdoor practice fields along with the nearby indoor full-size practice field.
The facility was turned over to the contractor to begin the demolition process in January 2014 in a $6 million project led by Red Chair Architects, with Sabre Demolition Corporation being the contractor.