Editor’s note: This story is part of a series examining significant developments expected this year involving sports in Oklahoma.
Oral Roberts will soon have something that more than half of Power Five schools don’t: separate practice courts for its men’s and women’s basketball teams.
The $15 million Mike Carter Athletic Center is nearing completion and will be dedicated during an April 19 ceremony. It’s a three-story, 50,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility built on the south side of the Mabee Center.
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“We’ve got great coaches and kids here and I can’t wait to start giving them the resources they need to really see what they can do,” athletic director Tim Johnson said. “We made the Sweet Sixteen without the building, so I can’t imagine what they’re going to do with the building and with all these resources we were given. It’s going to be great.”
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Named in honor of longtime ORU athletic director Mike Carter, who retired from that position in 2021, the project was a dream of Johnson’s years before it became a reality. After the Golden Eagles made history and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen of the men’s NCAA Tournament two years ago, an unidentified donor came forward with funds.
Johnson’s already sketched design fast-tracked the process, and ORU broke ground seven months later. Since then, construction has moved along in a timely manner.
“We have been really lucky as far as dealing with a great construction company, haven’t had a lot of delays,” Johnson said. “We got in a lot of our bids right before inflation hit. So as far as how the project’s been going, how it’s been moving, we couldn’t really ask for anything better.”
Dry wall is going up inside and the two courts will be laid in the next couple of weeks. In addition to administrative and coaches’ offices, the building will include a 10,000-square-foot sports performance area with turf and a fueling station and the Eli Academic Center.
“The whole thing was designed to take potential recruits through,” Johnson said. “When you start going through there and seeing it come together, it’s really starting to give everybody a lot of energy and a lot of excitement.”
The momentum generated from March Madness in 2021 continues to carry ORU, boosting national exposure, increasing enrollment and benefiting every sport.
“We were doing a lot of the work behind the scenes, anticipating that that day would come,” Johnson said. “Bill Haisten (from the Tulsa World) wrote an article when we were in the Sweet Sixteen saying, ‘I hope ORU can take advantage of this.’ And then he wrote another one saying, ‘I don’t know if a school’s ever taken more advantage of this.’
“There’s a lot of pride in your staff, in your coaches in being able to do everything we needed to do quickly to get this thing going.”
Kelly Hines
Sports Writer
I have covered college football and college basketball for the Tulsa World since 2012. I spend my spare time as an animal rescue volunteer, focusing on spaying and neutering community cats in the Tulsa area. Phone: 918-581-8452
