Paige Wilkerson takes a break from walking at the Tad Smith Coliseum on Friday April 17 (DM Photo | Kayla Beatty)
The Ole Miss campus needs a new basketball arena and space for big events. But the loss of the Tad Smith Coliseum will rob a community of walkers of the place they have enjoyed for nearly 50 years.
She grabs the handles of the walker and follows her father onto the concourse of the Tad Smith Coliseum. It doesn’t take long for her to tire. Soon she’s resting on the seat of her walker and watching people pass. Sometimes she waves. Sometimes she sits still. But she never speaks.
Paige Wilkerson, 21, has a condition known as Angelman Syndrome. The rare affliction causes ambulatory issues, cognitive disabilities, seizures and communication issues. Some of the few affected become almost completely immobile.
“Fortunately, Paige has been ambulatory most of her life but it’s getting more difficult for her,” said her father, Woody Wilkerson, who walks every day with Paige at the coliseum. “The best thing for her is just to get as much exercise as possible – that’s why we started walking there.”
The Tad Smith Coliseum welcomes dozens of walkers such as Paige. Around 5 p.m. you can see them; some walk quickly, headphones in and music loud. Others amble, speaking more than they walk. Some come on a daily basis; others only visit when the weather does not permit outdoor exercise.
Doors have been open to walkers since the Tad Smith Coliseum opened nearly 50 years ago. But construction of a new arena – one that lacks an uninterrupted concourse – threatens this small community.
The Pavilion, the new Ole Miss basketball arena, is set to open in January of 2016. Although there is no set date to close the Tad Smith Coliseum, many of the walkers don’t know where they will go after it is demolished.
Some will switch to outdoor walking tracks, such as Avent Park, the Whirlpool Trails, FNC Park or Pat Lamar Park. For Paige, however, there are many reasons this isn’t possible.
“Paige needs room,” Wilkerson said. “When she gets in that walker, you don’t know exactly where she’s going – she’s just going. She needs a wide track.”
The flat surface of the Tad Pad stabilizes her walker; the handicapped parking spots allow her and her father to easily access the building.
Faculty, staff, student and community walkers have their own reasons to go each day.
“I kind of forget everything; it’s a stress relief mechanism when I go,” said Daisy Cheng, a senior catalog librarian and associate professor who has been walking for eight years. “For us, especially we who are doing technical aspects of library tasks, we’re sitting. So, I need some kind of exercise.”
Cheng walks seven loops-to-a-mile in the Tad Pad.
“The university encourages people – especially the faculty and staff – to have an exercise or fitness program,” she said, noting that there is no other free indoor recreation facility on campus.Membership at the Turner Center runs $300 to $750 for faculty, staff and community members for one calendar year.
The Tad Pad has always been free. So many, like Cheng, only use the Tad Pad when weather is bad. During the heat of the summer, the cold of the winter or the stormy days in between, men and women flock to the covered, climate-controlled concourse.
Rachel Bost, interim director of procurement services, walks with her 15-year-old daughter, Taylor, when they have time. Bost said there are many reasons the Tad Pad is the best choice for her.
“I personally don’t necessarily like going where there’s a lot of young college age students working out. I’d rather go somewhere like the Tad Pad where I’m out of all that,” Bost said. “I like a contained area to walk. I don’t like trying to dodge cars and bicycles or people trying to get to class.”
For others, it is an issue of safety. Stephanie Carter, a fifth grade teacher at Lafayette Middle School, said she has walked at the Tad Pad off and on for almost 25 years.
“I know of no other place that you feel as secure as you do on campus,” Carter said. “Somebody would hear or see something if something happened. You would always have someone there. You feel safe there.”
Carter said there is no other free indoor walking track that she knows of in Oxford and said she believes this is something the university should have thought about when constructing the new facility.
“I think they should have taken into account the people of the community,” Carter said. “You have elderly that come out there and walk as well and I don’t think they would feel as comfortable or as safe walking on the trails.”
Carter said she has seen a community form around this facility.
“When you’re going there on a consistent basis, it’s kind of like you build a walking community within the coliseum,” Carter said. “I saw one lady that was there walking with her baby and her little boy. She didn’t have to worry about traffic because we were all watching out for each other. Now, everyone is losing that.”
The community’s relationship with the coliseum is reflective of its relationship with the university, said Robert Khayat, chancellor from 1995 to 2009.
“Every time we have something that the community can use to make it a better place to live we want them to use it,” Khayat said. “It’s really important for the university to be public and be accessible in a place like Oxford.”
This builds a reciprocal relationship between the Oxford and Ole Miss, Khayat said, each knowing they would not be the same without the other. Khayat said the doors to the coliseum have been open seven days a week from 5 a.m. – 10 p.m. since it was first built in 1966.
Even so, he said the Tad Pad has long passed complete functionality.
Once demolished, the Tad Smith Coliseum will become a landscaped area called South Circle, according to a Campus Master Plan Report from 2009.
These plans are still in effect, according to Director of Facilities Planning and university architect Ian Banner. But it’s uncertain when the coliseum will be torn down.
“Nothing is going to happen to it in the foreseeable future,” Banner said.
University Athletics Director Ross Bjork said, because walking in the Tad Pad isn’t a university-orchestrated program, it’s hard to know who walks there or where they might go.
“It grew organically into a neat convenience,” Bjork said. “What happens moving forward when it closes is a broader discussion.”
Many of the walkers said they hoped the Pavilion would also be open to them, but Bjork said it simply isn’t possible. Enclosed areas that will house the Pavilion Club and a food court block the concourse of the building, making it unsuitable as a track.
“The purpose of the Pavilion is really to provide a multipurpose entertainment venue on campus,” Bjork said. “Athletics – basketball, volleyball – concerts, graduation, family shows, the circus – whatever it might be we want it to be a multipurpose venue in the modern day.”
Many of the walkers said they understand the need for a new arena, but will miss their tradition.
“Whatever’s the best for the university,” Bost said. “I’m just one cog in the wheel.”
The only question left is where to go next. Woody Wilkerson said he understands the change, too. But he still wasn’t sure what he and Paige would do.
“It’ll be kind of melancholy,” Wilkerson said. “We’ll just have to see how it works out.”
