USC Promises Campus Arena

USC President Steven B. Sample said Thursday that USC will build a 10,000-seat on-campus arena.

“We’re going to do it, but I can’t tell you when and I can’t give you a location,” Sample said of the project, the subject of rumors the past five years.

Sample said the arena plan has been undergoing “a lot of serious thought, analysis and planning” the last few months.

Preliminary planning, he said, calls for a multi-use facility, suitable for “traveling theatrical and music productions” as well serving as the home for USC’s basketball and volleyball teams.

It’s believed the arena also will have office space for USC coaches, which would ease the crowded conditions at Heritage Hall.

Numerous plans for an on-campus arena have been drawn, discarded and redrawn since the post-World War II era.

In that era, USC basketball teams have played in USC’s second-floor gym (now a practice facility) in its Physical Education building, the Shrine Auditorium, Long Beach City College, the Pan Pacific Auditorium (since burned down) and the Sports Arena since 1960.

Trojan basketball games in the 15,000-seat Sports Arena, which is in walking distance from USC, have been generally poorly attended.

Sample indicated the 10,000-seat figure isn’t written in stone, “but it’s the number I hear most often.”

“This university needs an on-campus facility where students and staff can see their teams compete as well as major entertainment events,” Sample said.

Sample wouldn’t discuss a possible location, but two sites known to be under scrutiny are the parking area beyond the baseball stadium’s left-field fence and the parking lot at Jefferson and Figueroa streets.

USC sports followers remain skeptical, however.

Said longtime Trojan fan Stu Weinstein: “I won’t believe it until I actually sit down in my seat for that first basketball game.”