STARKVILLE — For the first half of Blake Haskins’ college career, McCarthy Gymnasium at Mississippi State University was just the kinesiology building with the indoor tennis court.
Now, he estimates two-thirds of its wooden bleachers are stacked in his woodworking space in the Cotton District.
“It took me and like three other guys all weekend and four truck loads to haul it off and find somewhere to put it,” said Haskins, a mechanical engineering major who does woodworking on the side.
For $500, Haskins purchased the oak bleachers and other salvaged items from Britt Demolition and Recycling, which tore down the legendary, but outmoded gymnasium last summer. Though he never saw a game inside the gym that hosted MSU men’s basketball home games from 1950-1975, those who did witnessed the likes of head coach and gym namesake James “Babe” McCarthy leading his teams to four Southeastern Conference championships between 1959 and 1963, as well as one defiant and groundbreaking NCAA tournament appearance.
Spectators saw stars like Bailey Howell, Kermit Davis Sr. and W.D. “Red” Stroud, to name a few. They witnessed the inaugural season for the women’s team in 1974, before both the men’s and women’s squads began playing in Humphrey Coliseum the following year.
For Haskins’ purposes, he scored salvaged aged oak for far less than the $10,000 he thinks the same haul would have cost new at a retail store. Oak is “flexible,” he said, for use in building cabinets and columns.
But he also understands the significance of where he obtained the wood and wants to share it. On Haskins’ Facebook page, he’s selling planks for $4 per linear foot. So far, he’s made “a couple grand” from the effort.
“It is probably good to get it out there,” he said. “I do like the idea of doing that and not just hoarding it for a few years. … One guy who hasn’t picked any up yet said he’s actually going to get it signed by one of the old players.”
McCarthy history
McCarthy Gymnasium opened in 1950, referred to initially as “the new gym” because it replaced “the old gym,” which was built in 1929 and stood in the same spot.
The building was renamed in 1975 to “McCarthy Gymnasium” after the legendary basketball coach passed away that same year. McCarthy led the team from 1955-1965.
Bill Page, now 83, said he remembers attending games at McCarthy Gym and seeing legends like Howell, Stroud and Leland Mitchell.
“Us boys would go up there (and) we’d sit up on the top bleachers and make airplanes and climb down across the floor when the game was going on,” he said. “It was an experience.”
The iconic Bailey Howell played under McCarthy from 1956-1959. Howell set numerous MSU records and was drafted second overall in the 1959 NBA Draft by the Detroit Pistons. He was named to six All-Star teams and won two NBA championships with the Boston Celtics. He has been inducted into both the College Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
However, Howell and his teams were never allowed to compete in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, despite getting a bid his senior year.
There was an unwritten rule that MSU would never play against integrated teams. MSU would decline in 1959, 1961, and 1962 following SEC championship wins, which came with an automatic tournament invitation.
That changed in 1963. With the backing of then-MSU president Dean Colvard, the Bulldogs accepted an NCAA tournament invitation and snuck off campus early since then-Gov. Ross Barnett put out a court order preventing the team from leaving, according to Bulldog Campus, a site managed by Mississippi State University.
“I am for you and the boys,” Colvard recalled telling McCarthy in a diary entry on March 6, 1963. “Go ahead and win.”
On March 15, 1963, in what became known as the “Game of Change,” the Loyola Ramblers — featuring four Black starters — defeated the Bulldogs 61-51.
After the Hump opened, McCarthy Gymnasium was converted to an indoor tennis facility and housed the university’s kinesiology department, including labs and classrooms, for 47 years before its demolition.
The gymnasium will be replaced by the Jim and Thomas Duff Center, which will include the kinesiology department and the university’s new autism and developmental disabilities clinic.
Duff Center on schedule
Les Potts, interim vice president for finance and administration at MSU, told The Dispatch on Friday that the new Duff Center is on schedule to be opened by fall 2025.
“We are obviously in the early stages of construction with a lot of the concrete piers building up right now,” he said.
He said the cost is estimated at $65 million. A $15 million gift from the Duff Brothers, who own Columbia-based private equity firm Duff Capital Investments, will help fund construction.
The Duff Center will be 100,000 square feet, almost twice as large as the McCarthy Gymnasium.
The primary reason that McCarthy Gymnasium needed to be replaced is due to the expansion of the kinesiology department. Potts said it is one of the largest programs on campus.
He said the kinesiology department will benefit from “having better, new space for a large and growing program on campus.”
He said that the contract with Britt Demolition and Recycling made the firm responsible for bringing down the gymnasium and removing the debris. He also revealed that, like Haskins, the university also salvaged some of the bleachers as well as bricks from the building.
“We knew there would be some fond memories and attachment to the building itself because of everything that occurred in it,” he said.
Kevin Edwards is news editor and reports on Starkville and Oktibbeha County government.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 44 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 44 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
