We’ve known demolition day was likely taking place this summer, but it appears the machinery and mechanisms are now in place to send Tad Smith Coliseum to the great decrepit arena home in the sky.
According to Bill Dabney and his Twitter/X account, at least one crane is on the scene to begin the process of turning the Tad Pad into a parking lot.
Dabney also notes the Tad Pad will be taken apart in pieces instead of a way more exciting implosion using premium explosives. You know, the rapid fire charges the WRECK all load-bearing beams, pillars, and things of that nature, and everything falls into a nice, tidy pile of rubble.
As someone who advocated in 2016 for a raffle to let one person press the “detonate” button, this is disappointing news. I even made tickets ready to sell!
A missed opportunity to raise money for charity and give one person the ultimate satisfaction destroying the symbol of decades of men’s basketball futility and the good ol’ boy approach to the sport. ALAS.
And let’s not sleep on pieces of the siding, brick from the chimney, or THE Jock Jams CD that, as I noted in 2016, “served admirably for at least a decade and a half.” Those would be pretty sick consolation prizes.
As I also said in that post from a decade ago (!!!), the Ole Miss athletic department could still do a raffle with the crane or cranes. Let the winner turn the key that starts the crane engine or whatever mechanical action is needed.
Does this violate any OSHA, state, and local GUBMINT regulations? Probably! But on this historic occasion, we ain’t here to play fill out reports properly or do it by the book.
