The House that Phog Built:
Fifty Years of Allen Fieldhouse

“…we should get a start, if we are to keep in the game, in view of such progress as Kentucky’s nearly completed $2,000,000 structure.”
So wrote Chancellor Deane Malott in the Forty-Second Biennial Report to the Kansas Board of Regents, in 1948.

Basketball coach Dr. Forrest C. “Phog” Allen had begun talking publicly about a field house for basketball and other sporting events as early as 1927. But depression and war prevented action. In 1947, a bill was introduced in the Kansas House of Representatives to appropriate funds for a new sports building at KU, but was defeated. Another plea was made in 1949; this one was successful and led to the assignment of Charles Marshal, the State Architect, to oversee the preparation of plans and drawings. Another two years would pass before sufficient funding could be identified in the state’s budget to move ahead.

Ground was broken in 1951, with Bennett Construction, of Topeka, which had just built Ahearn Field House at Kansas State University, named contractor. The project was immense in many ways: The outside dimensions of the building were 344 feet by 254 feet. The roof was 85 feet at its highest peak. Seating capacity was projected at 17,000 (Hoch Auditorium, the long time home of the Jayhawk basketball program, held 3,800 seats)…and the cost was more than $2.5 million.

As completion of the building approached, the decision about its name became an urgent matter. The names of both Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball and first coach of the game at KU, and Phog Allen were both considered The final decision was to name the new facility after the still serving, but already legendary coach. It was against Kansas Board of Regents’ policy to name any building for a living person. But popular support, including a 924-10 (Allen over Naismith) poll taken among students by the University Daily Kansan, was clear! This was seen as the house that Phog had built.