Broke ground June 3, 1964 Opened 3 December 1965 Renovated 1986 | Capacity 4,000 Phone +1 509-313-6000 | |
Full name Charlotte Y. Martin Centre Similar Washington Trust Field and Patte, McCarthey Athletic Center, Spokane Coliseum, Jundt Art Museum, Firestone Fieldhouse | ||
Charlotte Y. Martin Centre is an athletics center in the northwest United States, on the campus of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Its multi-purpose arena has a seating capacity of 4,000.
Ground was broken in June 1964 on the $1.1 million center, which opened in late 1965 as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Pavilion, with a capacity of 3,800 for basketball. The center included a 6-lane 25-yard (23 m) swimming pool. The first varsity event on December 3 was a men's basketball game against Washington State, won by the Cougars 106–78 before an overflow crowd of 4,300. Charlotte Martin, the daughter-in-law of former governor Clarence D. Martin, donated $4.5 million for the renovation of the complex and it was renamed for her as part of Gonzaga's centennial celebrations on March 17, 1987. Mrs. Martin died less than eight months later, at age 68.
It is the home of the Gonzaga Bulldogs women's volleyball team, and was home of men's and women's basketball teams from its opening until the $25 million McCarthey Athletic Center opened in the fall of 2004. An exception was the partial hiatus in the 1979–80 season when the men's team returned to its former home of the Spokane Coliseum for WCAC home games only, The Pavilion was affectionately known as The Kennel, a reference to the enthusiastic capacity crowds for Bulldog basketball.
In late 1968, the English rock group Led Zeppelin played their fifth-ever American concert at the Kennedy Pavilion on December 30, opening for Vanilla Fudge and erroneously billed as "Len Zefflin"; the first known bootleg recording of the band originated from this performance. The bands were welcomed to Spokane with frigid sub-zero temperatures.