In 2011, Foster Auditorium will reopen its doors and welcome the Crimson Tide women’s basketball and volleyball programs onto its newly refurbished court.
Foster began its lore on campus as a lecture hall and event center. Women’s athletics were relocated there during the 70s and 80s and were replaced by branches of the department of kinesiology until 2006.
During the Tide’s alumni weekend two weeks ago, the women’s volleyball team took the group of alumni players on a tour of Foster Auditorium. There were a handful of players from the Foster era in attendance, and their reaction was invaluable.
“It was awesome to get to experience that with them and see their ‘Oh my gosh!’ reaction to the change,” sophomore Kayla Fitterer said.
She said seeing the former players in awe of the building was a special moment for the current team and only made them more thrilled to play there next year.
“I’m excited to get our own facility, and hopefully it will bring in more fans,” freshman Shelbi Goode said.
She said she has enjoyed spending her first year in the CAVE, but she and her teammates look forward to forming a new legacy in Foster.
The CAVE has been a home to some of the older players for their entire career, but moving buildings won’t break the Tide’s spirit.
“We’re still young,” Fitterer said. “I’m only a sophomore and that means I’ll have half of my seasons in the CAVE and half in Foster. I’m excited.”
However, Foster Auditorium is known beyond the reaches of campus and acknowledged far past its sports legacy. It was the site of George C. Wallace’s Stand in the Schoolhouse Door in June of 1963, when the Alabama governor physically blocked the entry of the first two black students enrolled in the University.
Today, the entire complex will be dedicated to those two brave students who marched past the governor’s flagrant oppression more than forty years ago. The compound will be named Malone-Hood Plaza in honor of James Hood and the late Vivian Malone Jones.
The tower in the forefront of the complex will be named the Autherine Lucy Clock Tower in honor of the first black grad student admitted to the University.
“I think if anything, it’s an honor to get to play in that building” Goode said. “It’s amazing that they chose to give that building to us.”
The attitude of the Tide’s underclassmen shows in their enthusiasm about next year’s big move.
Now that the renovations are complete, Tide women’s athletics will reclaim Foster for the first time in two decades.
