By Giovanni Moceri
Recently, the O’Rena is brandishing a fresh look to go along with last year’s new name: The OU Credit Union O’Rena. The name comes as a result of last summer’s naming deal between Oakland Athletics and the OU Credit Union to breathe new life into the building and the university’s campus.
With this new era of the building’s life, let’s go back and take a look at some of the history of its construction, its unique atmosphere, and what we can expect in the future.
Back in the late 1990s, the Division II Oakland Pioneers have started to outgrow their old home of the Lepley Sports Center and commissioned the construction of a new facility that would contain both the indoor arena for basketball and volleyball and the campus’ recreation center.
As the acting athletic director, current Oakland men’s basketball coach, Greg Kampe, along with Vice President of Student Affairs, Dave Herman, was chairman of the project to give the campus a new spot for students and the community to gather in Rochester.
Speaking with Coach Kampe about the construction of the facility, he says there was a lot of things planned for the complex, however, there was also a lot of budgeting compromises that needed to be made.
“It’s funny because the budget was $32 million. We were going to have a 3-story parking garage. We had all this stuff and then the bill came in at just under $60 million. So we had to, what they call ‘value engineer’ it down to $32 million. So there were a lot of things that we wanted and didn’t get.”
Although the O’Rena’s construction seemingly coincided with the school’s decision to move from Division II to Division I in 1997, it was the O’Rena that was commissioned before the official plan to move to D1. This means that it and the connecting recreation center were funded and built for Division II, not Division I.
However, those plans to build the O’Rena, Kampe says, were likely part of why Oakland was able to find a spot in the Mid-Continent Conference (now known as the Summit League), the first Division I conference that Oakland joined in 1997. Strangely enough, it was the Division II building that possibly helped Oakland move into Division I! With that, there were, and still are, many things that the building lacks for a Division I facility. The most obvious one being the size of the arena itself, only seating around 4,000.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120117145834/http://www.ougrizzlies.com/facilities/athleticscenter-orena.html
But some find this to be one of the reasons that the O’Rena is so unique in Division I, and specifically in the Horizon League. The fewer, yet closer, seats and the low ceiling are key characteristics that give the O’Rena its distinct home court advantage, along with the supporting fans of course.
“It’s a perfect size for us,” Kampe said. “Why would you want to play most of your games with 4000 empty seats?”
Kevin Beers, who will be celebrating 20 years on the mic as the PA announcer for Oakland, echoes this sentiment.
“It feels like family, and it feels like a true interaction. Often in a bigger place, in a high stakes game, it almost feels like a fishbowl,” Beers said. “It doesn’t feel at all interactive and at the O’Rena, I think that’s what we offer. It feels like an interactive experience.”
It is not just those from the university that feel this way about it, the opponents of the Golden Grizzlies do as well. Jayson Woodrich, the longtime Cleveland State Viking for men’s basketball, and recent transfer to Oakland University, knows it firsthand.
“I feel like every time we also played Oakland, it was always a close game that came down to the end. So, you’re gonna have a crowd into it and, Oakland always does a great job of showing up,” Woodrich said. “That energy that they give off definitely makes an impact, seeing it from the wayside where they, weren’t on my side, seeing like what it does to the team, like how much harder it is to go into arena like that and play, when everybody’s against you.”
During those couple years of transition and construction, Oakland was toughing it out with temporary facilities barely bridging the gap between the eras of Division II and Division I.
Pete Hovland, former coach of Oakland swim and dive for over 40 years, described some of what they had to endure as they waited for their new facility.
“We didn’t have showers. We didn’t have locker rooms. We didn’t have bathrooms. We had outhouses, porta johns,” Hovland described. “If they had to go to the bathroom during practice, they would have to go outside in their bathing suits.” Remember, swim seasons are in the middle of winter!
He goes on to describe how he and the women’s coach would have to vacuum cinderblock dust in their office nearly every day and how his office was right next to the AC unit, making it more like a freezer! He had to wear a coat and a scarf in his own office!
“It was the wild west!” Hovland said.
Meanwhile for basketball, they were playing and practicing mainly in a temporary bubble built on a campus parking lot with donated flooring and baskets from the nearby Detroit Pistons.
“It was the best of times and the worst of times,” Kampe said. “They put the bubble in and it was really bad but it was fun!”
“The first year we played there in the winter, it happened to be one of the worst winters we’ve ever had. It was just freezing, and you had this runway from these portable locker rooms up to the arena.
Players would just freeze!”
But through all the hardship the teams had to go through as they waited for the completion of the O’Rena, it was all worth it in the end. “It was magical,” said Hovland when talking about when the facility was finally open. “To know where we came from and how limited the space was and what we went through during those two years of construction. When it opened, it was so beautiful and so spacious, and I really felt that they built the nicest swimming facility in the state of Michigan and one of the nicest in the Midwest.” “We went literally from the outhouse to the penthouse,” Hovland added.
He went on to describe how they would celebrate the opening with open houses for students, how the coaches played against students in an intermural basketball league (and won!), and how Detroit Lions Hall of Fame running back, Barry Sanders, would stop by and play pickup!
Fast forward to the present, last year’s 10-year, $5 million deal with OU Credit Union to rename the facility the “OU Credit Union O’Rena” has given the university more opportunity to improve and grow.
Part of that growth will come with the new practice facility, projected to be open for practice this December and fully operational by the end of June 2025, according to Kampe.
“It’s been going for 20 years that we’ve been trying to get a practice facility,” Kampe said. “Our locker rooms, the inner workings of the arena are Division II level. They were built for Division II. So we’re going to build over there, Division I. And now that’ll help us in recruiting, it’ll help our kids. I mean, it’s gonna make a huge difference.”
Once the facility opens, no longer will the Blacktop need to be shared between men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball for practice and for games. They will not have to wait until June, when all the graduation ceremonies in the O’Rena are finished, to start practice.
Now both basketball teams will practice in the new facility and volleyball will remain in the O’rena for practices. This allows new opportunities for non-athletic events in the Orena such as concerts and other entertainment events. With the absence of the Palace of Auburn Hills, former home of the Detroit Pistons, the O’Rena is one step closer to being the new spot in the area for athletic and entertainment events in the area.
