For many students and faculty, the large windows, neon signs and LED lights sitting a few yards north of the center of campus are unrecognizable. For others, the new facility is all they’ve ever known. But to everyone, Moody Coliseum is a household name.
Sitting just adjacent to the heart of campus, Moody in its newly renovated glory is ushering in a new era for spiritual formation, athletics and culture, creating in itself a new heart of campus within its walls.
Moody reopened its doors in a grand opening ceremony Friday, though it was already being utilized throughout Wildcat Week for various events. Construction began in January of 2021, and the original plan was to have the facility open in the 2022 spring semester.
Large events and traditions, such as Opening Chapel and Sing Song, are set to take place in Moody Coliseum for the first time in two years, after both the COVID-19 pandemic and building renovation.
Impact of delays
It’s no secret that construction in Moody took longer than expected. In fact, Moody was exactly one month behind schedule.
The delays in completion of Moody were plinths underneath the basketball court floor and the supply chain issues that have disrupted the construction process.
Supply chain issues continue to hit the facility past the completion and opening of the space, with missing lights and graphics still being installed, said Kevin Campbell, senior vice president of operations.
“Right now they are still installing a lot of the graphics and we are still working through the architectural punch list,” Campbell said. “As you complete the construction, then you walk through the facility with the design team and Architects to look for repairs.”
Before the construction was completed, Campbell said the pressure was to get the project done in a timely manner to minimize disruption on campus.
“But construction is always disruptive,” Campbell said. “So to me, it’s not as much as pressure relief, it’s more about the excitement that we can open the facility to our entire community.”
Each part of the coliseum is dedicated to the past and the future of ACU athletics and events. The west side is dedicated to student events, and the east is dedicated to the history of athletics.
“Moody is a multipurpose arena,” Campbell said. “ACU utilizes that arena more than I can think of other colleges using their arena. It was important to us to not only pay tribute to the past from an athletic perspective but from a student use perspective.”
Commitment to Spiritual Formation
For the past six decades, the three-times-a-week spiritual formation opportunity conducted in the arena, affectionately nicknamed “Moody Chapel,” has been a staple for students and alumni.
With the loss of a building to facilitate this beloved university tradition, the Office of Spiritual Life explored different avenues of spiritual formation opportunities during the past two years.
Cyrus Eaton, dean of spiritual life and campus chaplain, said he and others in the Office of Spiritual Life are finding a new rhythm as the transition back to Moody begins by increasing their focus on leaders and on being servants in the new space.
In the past, Moody Chapel had a notable tradition of students swiping ID cards before taking their seats. However, during the pandemic, the Office of Spiritual Life utilized apps like Compass for students to gain their spiritual formation points via QR codes.
Chapel in Moody will seem even more different to some because the Office of Spiritual Life have implemented a tap-in method instead of swiping or scanning. In addition, with the increase of spiritual formation requirements to 500 points from 400, new opportunities will exist for students to earn credit.
“We’ve developed different programs and initiatives that are meant to also be in support of spiritual formation,” Eaton said. “And so now that we’re back with our big venues, our rhythms of what we’re at the beginning of the pandemic are similar, even though still slightly different.”
The continuation of small groups and finding different avenues for students to achieve the needed requirements were heavily relied upon during the pandemic. These avenues will continue as the transition to Moody Coliseum continues.
“Often in our office, we say that spiritual formation isn’t just something that students come and are required to do,” Eaton said. “Rather as a university, it’s a commitment that we are all making to students, faculty and staff to grow in friendship with God and one another.”
Despite the changes, Moody Coliseum is a piece of the puzzle for the Office of Spiritual Life, Eaton said.
“One of the things that both Moody and then the Boone Family Theater allows us to do as we have done in the past is truly being able to say that there’s a seat for everyone,” Eaton said.
A new home for athletics
For the past two years the Teague Center has acted as the home for both men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball. Teague, which is intended to be the indoor tennis facility on campus, was also home to weekly Chapel events, as well as Candlelight Devotionals, Sing Song Awards and other ACU traditions. After two years of facility changes and adapting to a lack of space, the reopening of Moody is allowing all athletics facilities to be used for their intended purpose.
Zack Lassiter, director of athletics, said he is both grateful for the tennis programs being flexible in the use of the Teague Center. He said he is excited for Moody to be available for use again, not just for athletics, but for the student body as a whole.
“I really appreciate Juan Nuñez and Bryan Rainwater and our tennis programs for allowing us to use their indoor facility the last two years for our basketball team so they didn’t have to play off campus, but I’m excited to have the Teague Center be for tennis and for Moody to be for basketball,” Lassiter said. “Moody’s really a shared facility. Certainly, it’s our home in athletics, but every student starts their career and ends their career at Moody.”
As far as the future of athletics is concerned, Lassiter has three goals for the department: For students to grow in their faith, encourage coaches to be spiritual leaders, and – plain and simple – win championships. Lassiter said the new facilities will bring a new energy to the teams and the Department of Athletics, but it’s not just the facilities that matter.
“It’s a matter of having facilities and infrastructure where a student feels like they can invest in being the best selves they could be, and I think what our facilities are doing is providing a place where that can happen, where they believe that this is a university that wants to invest,” Lassiter said. “This is important, but it comes about the people that are in those buildings, too.”
Bringing back culture
While the reopening of Moody means something different to the students, faculty, staff and alumni, the overarching meaning of Moody, said Dr. Phil Schubert, president of the university, can be summed up in one word: connectedness.
“We as an institution push people into places and spaces where we can enjoy that sense of community because we know it may be hard for some, especially those who haven’t experienced that yet,” Schubert said. “What we’ve talked about with the senior leadership team level is making sure to have heavy promotion and visibility of these major opportunities for students and faculty and staff to feel connected again as a community. And we’re going to work really hard to make that highly visible.”
In addition to community, the Moody renovation worked to preserve the culture by using the same structure built in the 1960s.
“There’s so many aspects of it that feel like it’s brand new, and yet we still get to enjoy knowing that we’re in a facility that was built back in the late ’60s and has been a big part of the history and culture of ACU for decades,” Schubert said. “And yet it feels new and state of the art.”
Overall, Schubert is excited Moody is creating a central gathering place again.
“I’m just super excited about that part of the cohesiveness of ACU, which Moody over the decades has been a major catalyst for bringing people together, causing us to feel connected and as a bigger part of something,” Schubert said. “I think we’re going to feel that immediately on Monday. I felt that the other night with freshmen there. It’s just a great sense of being together.”
