As part of the buildup to the 75th Anniversary celebration for Claremont McKenna College (visit CMC's 75th Anniversary Countdown Page to learn more), we are reliving many of the great moments and landmark years from CMS athletic department history over the 75-day countdown from April 17 to July 1. If you would like to add to the memories of one of these moments, or if you would like to submit your memories of your own favorite CMS Athletics moment, fill out the form on our main 75th Anniversary page.

Great Moments Featured in This Story

1993 Volleyball: CMS Defeats Redlands in NCAA, Reaches Quarterfinals
2001 Women's Basketball: CMS 69, Whittier 61 (OT - SCIAC Clincher)
2002 Men's Basketball: Stags Win 13 Straight for SCIAC Title
2012 Men's Basketball: CMS 60, Pomona-Pitzer 54 (SCIAC Championship)
2014 Women's Basketball: CMS 76, Redlands 72 (OT - SCIAC Semis)
2014 Volleyball: Athenas Win Regional, Advance to First Nationals

The end of Ducey Gymnasium in 2014, which had been the hub for athletics on CMC's campus for 57 years, was a sign of progress. Ducey was torn down to make room for the state of the art Roberts Pavilion, one of the top Division III facilities anywhere in the country.

But it didn't mean that there weren't some mixed emotions.

When the gymnasium was first constructed in 1957, athletics was a small operation. In fact, it was the final step needed to allow CMC to partner with Harvey Mudd in a new athletics department, after Claremont Men's College had combined with Pomona athletically for its first 12 years.

In 2014, CMS had swelled to 21 varsity programs and was a nationally prominent athletic department. There was a dire need for more space, for locker rooms, coaching offices, meeting rooms, and places to put all the trophies the teams were winning.

Ducey Gym, though, was an intimate setting, and one which the student-athletes enjoyed calling home.

"I loved games at Ducey and I'm so glad I was able to experience them before it was torn down," said Tyler Gaffaney, who played for the CMS Men's Basketball team from 2010-15. "The atmosphere in Ducey was absolutely electric."

There were a lot of memories stored in the Ducey Gymnasium walls, beginning with where it got its name. Head Coach Ted Ducey passed away in a flash flood in 1974 after 15 years as the head coach, and the building was named after him almost immediately. To ensure that his legacy remained visible, the Ted Ducey Hall of Fame is now one of the first things you see when you enter the main doors of Roberts Pavilion.

"One of the downsides of building a new facility is a cherished facility has to come down to make space for that," Trustee David Mgrublian '82 said in 2014, before the final regular season games were played. "There is no way that the spirit of Ducey Gymnasium or Ted Ducey could ever leave the Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd or Scripps College community."

There were also so many great athletics moments that took place inside Ducey. There was the first NCAA win for CMS Volleyball, 3-1 over Redlands in 1993, which first put the Athenas on a national stage. There was an emotional overtime win over Whittier in a head-to-head battle for the SCIAC women's basketball championship in 2001, the last that former men's basketball coach David Wells was a part of, as he served as an assistant coach with his wife Jodie Burton's Athenas.

That was followed the next year by a dramatic final day with dual celebrations when the CMS Men's Basketball team won the 2002 title. The Stags first celebrated their own win over Whittier to clinch a share of the championship, which was followed minutes later by word of Cal Lutheran's upset loss down the street to Pomona-Pitzer, which gave CMS the outright title and the NCAA bid.

It was the Sixth Street rivalry games, though, that often brought back the most memorable moments.

"After graduating, I played overseas for a few years and the fans often brought vuvuzelas and full-sized drums to the games but it never came close to matching the atmosphere of a Pomona game in Ducey Gym," said Gaffaney.  "It was loud, hot, sweaty and the fans were basically on top of you. Everything was different about Pomona games at Ducey: the floor would get so slippery from the sweat and humidity that it was hard to keep your footing."

In the final year of Ducey Gymnasium, a ceremony was held to honor the building's legacy and the Ducey Family prior to the men's basketball regular season finale against Redlands, appropriately coached by Jim Ducey, one of Ted's sons.

"Ted Ducey had a huge impact on the development of our program and to have Jim here to celebrate that last men's regular season home event is very fitting," said Michael Sutton '76, CMS Director of Athletics at the time. "The programs he led went from "start-ups" to champions and he understood that a good coach must be an outstanding teacher, motivator, and tactician."

The final game for the CMS Women's Basketball team in Ducey Gymnasium was a SCIAC Semifinal against Redlands, and the Athenas were able to prevail 76-72 in overtime after tying the score twice in the final minute of regulation. CMS went on to win the SCIAC title at Chapman to earn its first NCAA bid since 2001, sending out the old facility with one last championship banner.

"That game was easily one of my favorite moments," said Shelby Barthold, one of the seniors on the 2014 team. "One important detail I specifically remember is that it was a packed house and definitely our most attended game ever. We never got the attendance I thought we deserved until that day."

Volleyball also made its final year in Ducey a memorable one, improving from 17-10 in 2012 to 25-7 in the fall of 2013, and earning the program's first NCAA bid since 1997. The Athenas made the transition to the new building seamless, spending 2014 at the Linde Activities Center at Harvey Mudd and winning an NCAA Regional title to reach the quarterfinals. In their second year in Roberts Pavilion in 2017, when the 2014 freshmen were seniors, the Athenas would win the program's first national championship.

The last time the basketball nets were cut down in Ducey was in 2012, when the Stags defeated Pomona-Pitzer in a memorable year for the Sixth Street rivalry. It was actually the fourth time in a five-year span that the two rivals met for the SCIAC title, with the Sagehens winning at their home Voelkel Gymnasium in 2008 and the Stags winning at Ducey in 2009 and 2010.

In 2012, the teams split during the regular season, with the away team winning both games in the final second, but CMS defended its home court for a 60-54 win in the last championship game played in Ducey, in front of a raucous crowd that made it the sort of memorable atmosphere that characterized those games.

"That SCIAC championship game happened to be my last game at Ducey as I injured my knee and redshirted the next season," said Gaffaney. "I remember we had such a short turnaround from our last game against Pomona that the emotions from that loss were still fresh. The chants back and forth between student sections were legendary, extremely specific, and rarely PC. You couldn't hear anything. Even Scali's booming voice from the sideline was swallowed up by the crowd noise. So many good memories it's hard to pin down."

It was only fitting that after 57 years, the last Ducey Gymnasium nets to come down would stay with CMS, providing a few more good memories to a building overflowing with them.