After a 20-month renovation, Daniel-Meyer Coliseum will reopen on Nov. 13 with a new name: the Ed & Rae Schollmaier Arena.

TCU Athletics Director Chris Del Conte announced the name change yesterday at a news conference by thanking Ed Schollmaier, TCU Trustee and former CEO of Alcon Laboratories, who made a $10 million lead gift in April for the project, which has grown from about $30 million to $72 million.

“No longer will a coach or student-athlete come to Texas Christian University and say we cannot win because we don’t have the proper facility,” Del Conte said. “This will be the finest arena in the Big 12 Conference. I can assure you of that.”

The approximately 7,000-seat arena will feature new locker rooms, team areas, wider concourses, club areas and improved concessions and bathrooms. The playing surface has been lowered eight feet and will accommodate additional courtside seating. The complex around the arena also will expand to include office space and team meeting rooms for TCU’s golf, tennis, track and other programs, plus a new sports medicine center and ticket office. A TCU Athletics hall of fame at the entrance will highlight top moments from Horned Frog sports.

The arena surface was lowered eight feet to accommodate expanded courtside seating. (Images courtesy TCU Athletics)

The grounds around the facility, practice building and Amon G. Carter Stadium will be called Daniel-Meyer Athletic Complex. TCU officials named the original coliseum in honor of TCU letterman, coach, faculty member and trustee Milton Daniel ’12 and legendary coach Leo “Dutch” Meyer, who was the athletics director when the facility opened in December 1961.

The men’s and women’s basketball coaches and players, football coach Gary Patterson and other university and athletics department officials attended the announcement.

“I hope that the city of Fort Worth adopts TCU basketball the same way it’s adopted TCU football,” Schollmaier said. “TCU football is really the city’s team, and I think it’d be great if we get basketball to that point. I encourage all of you that are here to get on the wagon this year and come to some basketball games in the new arena, because it’s going to be very competitive and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

The Schollmaiers also donated $5 million in 2004 to construct the basketball practice facility.

“He believed in basketball. He knew the power of what basketball could be,” Del Conte said of Schollmaier. “And every single day, he’d say, we’ve got to do something for DMC — we’ve got to do something for this arena. I said, ‘Sir, you’re absolutely correct.’ I said, we need someone to step up to the plate to help us, to get the momentum going. The day we open this facility, I’m going to be so gratified at what has transpired because this one individual and his wife came to us and said, ‘I want this to happen.’”

Women’s basketball coach Raegan Pebley said the plans for the facility have already boosted recruiting.

“We see the benefits already. It has been so fun to show everyone the plans and walk through with hard hats on and start to see this vision become a reality,” she said. “We want to honor this gift with our hard work.”

Men’s coach Trent Johnson said Schollmaier’s loyalty to college basketball is exceptional and his support of the TCU teams will help future Frog teams.

“We appreciate Ed and Rae Schollmaier for their vision and commitment,” TCU men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson said. “This project will result in a first class, state-of-the-art basketball arena that all those associated with TCU will be proud to call home for years to come.”

Del Conte agreed that the new arena will fulfill a long-time need for TCU.

“At the end of every year, you ask the coaches, what do you need to win? They’d say, this, this and this,” he said. “The greatest glaring weakness for a long time was, ‘We don’t have a facility we can recruit to, we don’t have a league we can recruit to.’

“Well, we’re in the premier league in this region. We didn’t have a facility that matched the league. Now we have a facility that matches the league. Any student-athlete within 100 miles that wants to play in the premier league in the finest facility has no excuse now not to come to TCU.”