After 70 Years, LACC Gym Is Down to Last Shot

Southern California’s oldest college gymnasium will host its final basketball game tonight when Los Angeles City College faces Ventura College in a Southern California Junior College regional at 7.

Completed in 1935, the Cubs’ cozy gym has been an effective force behind LACC’s basketball success over the years. “I was really heartbroken when I found out that it was going to be torn down,” said former LACC basketball coach Bill Thayer, who also coached the Cubs’ track and field team in the 1960s and 1970s. “The gym is one of the original buildings in Los Angeles. It’s still a first-class facility, but ... I guess it’s served its time.”

The LACC gym is in good shape with a shiny floor trimmed with fresh red and blue paint. But the old gym west of Vermont Avenue will no longer be needed, once the school’s new one is completed across campus.

Coach Mike Miller, who helped restore the facility when he took over 13 years ago, will especially miss the Cubs’ little gym. He has led LACC to 12 consecutive conference championships, state championships in 1997 and 2003, and transferred numerous Cub players to Division I schools.

“This is a special place with a lot of special memories,” said Miller, who has led LACC to the state final eight three consecutive years heading into tonight’s game. “So many great players and teams have played on this floor ... which is the original floor from the 1930s. So many highlight games in front of standing-room-only crowds.”

Thayer said he considered former L.A. Poly High great Jim Powell the best player to ever play in the LACC gym.

“He played on a great team at LACC that went on to win a national title,” Thayer said. “Powell was a really great player.”

Los Angeles Junior College had one of the dominant basketball programs on the West Coast in the 1950s and 1960s. But by the time Miller arrived, the Cubs’ basketball program was nearly nonexistent.

After being shut down for two years in the 1980s when LACC’s entire athletic department was closed for financial reasons, the Cubs foundered until 1992.

“The gym was fairly run down because it had been left unattended for a couple of years,” Miller said. “We raised some funds to get the gym back into shape and it’s been a key reason why the program has had so much success.”