College Station, TX: G. Rollie White Coliseum at Texas A&M

Feb 285 min read

Address: 756 Houston St, College Station, TX 77843 | corner of Houston St. & Joe Routt Blvd

Coordinates: 30.611869, -96.340237

EP Date: Monday, October 3, 1955

Date Visited: October 31, 2023

Opened/Commissioned: September 18, 1954

Closed/Demolished: August 2013

Building Nicknames: "The Holler House on the Brazos", "Jollie Rollie", & "G. Rollie"

My Experience

Not much to report with this one. The spot is in the middle of a college campus (A&M College Station), so parking can be a pain, but if you turn onto Houston St. from George Bush Dr., you'll be facing the correct direction to park across the street from the E. King Grill 12th Man Statue for half a second with your hazards on in order to take a quick picture.

Building History

The G. Rollie White Coliseum was built in 1954 and dedicated on September 18th that same year, as a means to replace the Charles DeWare Fieldhouse, built in 1927. Both buildings stood along the same street for 43 years, until the fieldhouse was demolished in 1997 to make way for the expansion of Kyle Field at A & M College Station. The DeWare Fieldhouse once stood where the John David Crow Statue now stands (11 Pickard Pass, College Station, TX 77840 or 30.610678, -96.341909).

At it's conception, the coliseum was named after George Rollie White, an engineering graduate from the class of 1895. During his life, he was dubbed the "Steer King of Texas", worked as a horse breeder, civic leader, philanthropist, and served on A & M's Board of Directors (1926-1955), even serving as the President of the Board for the last 11 years. A corps dorm on campus was also named after him in 1939, but was renamed in 1969 to honor the WWII Medal of Honor recipient, Eli L. Whiteley.

Upon being built, the coliseum was the largest building on campus with a 7,800 seating capacity.

From 1954 to 1998, the coliseum's main purpose was to house to college's men's basketball team and women's basketball and volleyball teams, and that it did. During that time, it earned one of its nicknames, "The Holler House on the Brazos" due to its reputation during the Southwest Conference days for being ridiculously loud during basketball games, thanks to the legendary top-notch cheering from the A & M student body.

In November 1989, the Reed Area, the coliseum's replacement, was opened to the public just across the main road (Welborn Rd), leaving the old building with no teams left to host. The members of the Athletic Department, who once called the building their headquarters, moved to other offices around campus; other staff members filled some of the now-vacant offices, and from 2009 to 2012, the main basketball court in the coliseum was used as a temporary campus bookstore, while the Memorial Student Center (MSC) underwent renovations.

With the expansion of Kyle Field set to begin and G. Rollie White Coliseum in the way, a demolition date was set for mid-August 2013. This was said regarding the impending demo: "It's sad to see G. Rollie go by the boards, especially for those of use who received our diplomas there and enjoyed countless basketball and volleyball games," notes Fry, a 1996 Texas A & M graduate, "but the hard, cold fact is the facility has outlived its usefulness--no longer fulfilling the purposes for which the decision was made to build it more than 60 years ago."

Although set for demolition, the coliseum did get a last hurrah; due to a scheduling conflict, and off-season volleyball game was played inside the coliseum.

The demolition was interesting in and of itself. During the event of tearing the building down practically brick-by-brick, construction workers uncovered the long forgotten subfloor, which consisted of the original wood flooring/basketball court! How cool is that?! The original flooring was used from 1954 to 1991, and it was the same floor Elvis would have performed on. After demolition was complete, pieces of the original wood floors and sets of the chairs were sold.

As stated in the previous section, the E. King Grill 12th Man Statue is now where the entrance of the coliseum used to be.

Elvis at G. Rollie White Coliseum

All I could find about Elvis at the coliseum is written below. The only source I have as of now is a Reddit post, for the book I ordered on Amazon has yet to come in the mail, but I'll update y'all with new information as I am presented with it.

The Reddit post cites the archives at Sun Records, but the link sends you to an unsecure website based in the Netherlands, so my computer won't even let me see it. So... anyway, here is what the Reddit post said happened at College Station's G. Rollie White Coliseum on Monday, October 3, 1955:

Corps Members Checking Out Elvis' Car Before the Show

"There was a 7:30 p.m. concert in College Station at the G. Rollie White Coliseum on the campus of Texas A&M University in Bryan, Texas. The show was sponsored by the Office of Student Activities. Advance tickers cost 35-cents for children and 75-cents for adults. At the show, seats were 50-cents and $1.00. Elvis was dressed in a pink dinner jacket, black open-collar shirt, pink socks, and red shoes.

When Elvis rolled onto campus that evening of October 3, the Aggie footballers couldn't believe their eyes, much less their ears, as hundreds of squealing girls wiggled and cavorted like Elvis himself. The girls had gone gaga over the man on stage. Some pulled their shirts mid-high, seeking approval, while others went further, removing their panties and throwing them onto the stage.

Elvis needed to look no further than the front row to know it wasn't a normal college crowd. There stood military officers, sabers on their hips, shoulder-to-shoulder facing raucous fans. No one had ever seen anything like it at A&M. But for the most part, the kids seemed to be having fun, until Elvis did the unthinkable. He spit his gum onto the stage floor.

In the blink of an eye, the crown rushed to the edge of the stage. Corps members moved in waves, shoving their dates aside. They shook their fists and cursed the swivel-hipped rocker. 'You desecrated our stage!' they screamed. 'Somebody knock that sonofabitch off of there.' Swords were suddenly drawn. A company commander grabbed the microphone and began barking orders; 'Men, get back to your seats! This boy didn't mean any harm. We've already picked up his gum. Everybody get back. Now, goddammit.'

Amazing, the cadets retreated. Elvis held his arms above his head and apologetically smiled. 'Sirs and ladies,' he said, 'I'd like to say I didn't mean anything by it. I'll try to do better.' With those two strings still dangling from his guitar, Elvis went into "Shake, Rattle and Roll", a song made famous by Bill Haley and the Comets. Even the cadets started moving with the music. By the time he tried "Good Rockin' Tonight", the audience was his once more. He even returned for encores, including "Maybellene", a song made famous by Chuck Berry."

Sources

College Station, TX: G. Rollie White Coliseum at Texas A&M

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