Brewer Fieldhouse
Brewer Fieldhouse, home of the University of Missouri Student Recreation Center, is a multimillion-dollar sports complex that has earned accolades from Sports Illustrated and Greatist for its design and the variety of athletic options it offers.
In 1905, it was Rothwell Gymnasium, a single-sex gym built for a then-extravagant $70,000. A 1904 article from the M.S.U. Independent described the soon-to-be-constructed complex as “fitted with every modern convenience” and said “the apparatus will be the best that can be purchased.” Rothwell’s original design was three stories high and included two running tracks, offices for various athletic faculty members and a 95-foot-by-60-foot cage for the exclusive use of the university baseball team. McKee Gymnasium, a women’s gym, was constructed for the university’s female students in 1922. McKee now hosts many of MU’s theater and fine arts productions.
Rothwell Gymnasium is named for Gideon Rothwell, a Missouri congressman who helped save the university’s iconic columns from demolition in the wake of the Academic Hall fire of 1892. The gym was renovated twice before the overhaul that transformed it into its modern incarnation: once in 1949 and again in 1973.
Students voted in October 2001 to renovate the facility on a massive scale, pouring close to $43 million into the Rothwell-Brewer Expansion and Renovation Project. Brewer Fieldhouse was constructed in 1930 as a small addition to the Rothwell Gymnasium, but the remodel joined the two buildings together as the Student Recreation Center. The new facility broke ground in 2003 and opened its doors for the first time in July 2005.
The modern facility contains 10 basketball courts, walking and running tracks, performance studios and a 42-foot climbing wall known as Scroggs Peak. The adjacent Mizzou Aquatic Complex consists of an Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool, an outdoor pool and the indoor Tiger Grotto.
The university continues to improve Brewer Fieldhouse today with additional equipment, expanded exercise spaces and new Tiger X programs. According to a Maneater article published in January 2014, nearly 32,000 students use the Student Recreation Center each week.