May 15, 1993: San Antonio's Texas-Sized White Elephant

May 15, 1993: The Alamodome opens in San Antonio. The 64,000-seat facility was intended to be a larger home for the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, and to attract an NFL franchise.

It had been built because San Antonio, from the 1980s onward, has been one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in America. And the existing Alamo Stadium, built in 1940 and seating 18,000 (with an additional 14,000 temporary seats), proved unsuitable for use by the San Antonio Wings of the World Football League in 1974 and 1975, and the San Antonio Gunslingers of the United States Football League in 1984 and 1985. So the Alamodome was an improvement, and predictions that the NFL was coming seemed pretty good.

Well, in 1993, the NFL gave its 1995 expansion teams to Charlotte and Jacksonville. In 1994, the 2 Los Angeles teams moved, the Rams to St. Louis and the Raiders back to Oakland. In 1995, the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore. In 1996, the Houston Oilers began the process of moving to Nashville. In 2002, Houston got a new team. And, that same year, the Spurs moved into a modern arena, after winning their 2nd NBA Championship at the Alamodome.

The Houston Oilers played 2 preseason exhibition games there in 1993 and 1994. The Dallas Cowboys were the opponent for 1 of those 1993 games. They played each other in the 1995 preseason. The New Orleans Saints, having played a preseason game there against the Minnesota Vikings in 2001, played 3 "home games" there in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina left the Superdome unusable for that season.

The NCAA has hosted the Final Four there in 1998, 2004, 2008 and 2018, and will again in 2025; and the Women's Final Four in 2002, 2010 and 2021. The Canadian Football League's brief U.S. experiment put the San Antonio Texans there for the 1995 season.

The stadium has hosted the annual Alamo Bowl ever since. It's hosted the Big 12 Conference Championship Game in 1997, 1999 and 2007; and the Conference USA Championship Game in 2021, and it is scheduled to do so again in 2022. And, on the TV show Coach, fictional Minnesota State won the 1993 National Championship there.

The University of Texas at San Antonio, a school in the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, what used to be known as "Division I-AA"), began playing there in 2011. It's been home to the Arena Football League's San Antonio Talons from 2012 to 2014, and the Alliance of American Football's San Antonio Commanders in 2019.

Setup for UTSA football

Mexico's national soccer team played 2 games there in 2004, another in 2014, and was beaten by the U.S. team in 2015, to date the only game the U.S. men's team has played there. The U.S. women's team also played a game there in 2015. Mexico played there again in 2017. Several Mexican club teams have played there.

The International Hockey League's San Antonio Dragons played a few home games there in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 season. Baseball has even been played there, Spring Training games by the Texas Rangers from 2013 to 2017, although the artificial turf field is bad, and the right field fence is only 272 feet from home plate. So, if San Antonio ever gets a Major League Baseball team, they will not be playing in the Alamodome.

The building remains a "white elephant." It’s beginning to look like the NFL will never put a team there, either moved or expansion. As I said, MLB isn't going to play there. And the current plan for a proposed Major League Soccer expansion team is for them to use a smaller, soccer-specific stadium.

(UPDATE: The United Football League's San Antonio Brahmas began play there in 2023.)

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May 15, 1993 was a Saturday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium. Mélido Pérez outpitched Al Leiter. Mike Stanley went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Don Mattingly was injured, and did not play. Paul Molitor went 0-for-4.

* The New York Mets lost to the Montreal Expos, 2-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Chris Nabholz outpitched Bret Saberhagen.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Greg Maddux outpitched David West. Mark Lemke hit a home run for the Braves, and Darren Daulton hit one of the Phils. This result would be reversed in the National League Championship Series.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Colorado Rockies, 5-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 14-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 9-5 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Greg Vaughn hit 2 home runs. Robin Yount, in his last season, went 0-for-2 with a walk.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-4 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Florida Marlins beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Ryan Bowen pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-4 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Rafael Palmeiro hit a home run in the bottom of the 11th to win it, driving Iván Rodríguez in ahead of him. The former was eventually proven to be a steroid cheat, and the latter has long been suspected of it.

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 3-0 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Trevor Wilson (4 hits over 7 1/3rd innings), Dave Righetti (2/3rds) and Rod Beck (1) combined for a 4-hit shutout.

* The California Angels beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). George Brett, in his last season, went 1-for-4.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with 2 walks. Ken Griffey Jr. went 1-for-3 with a walk.

There were 3 games in the NBA Playoffs:

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 96-90 at The Coliseum outside Cleveland in Richfield, Ohio. Michael Jordan scored 32 points.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 97-79 at The Summit in Houston. (It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.)

* And the San Antonio Spurs beat the Phoenix Suns, 111-96 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

There was 1 game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 6-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

And the FA Cup Final was played at the old Wembley Stadium in London. North London team Arsenal and Yorkshire team Sheffield Wednesday played to a 1-1 draw. A replay was scheduled for the following Thursday, and Arsenal won it, 2-1. The rules were changed, so that, if the game ends in a draw, there would be extra time; if still level, penalty kicks.

March 30, 1998: A Black Coach Wins the Title at Kentucky

March 30, 1998: The University of Kentucky basketball team, coached by Orlando "Tubby" Smith and led by Nazr Mohammed and Jamaal Magloire, beats the University of Utah 78-69 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, which is also where the Final Four will be held this weekend.

Smith played at High Point College in North Carolina (it became "High Point University" in 1991), but was never an NBA prospect. He went into coaching, first as a high school head coach in his native Southern Maryland, then in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina.

He became an assistant coach in college, including under Rick Pitino at Kentucky, alongside Billy Donovan, who went on to win National Championships at the University of Florida. In 1991, Smith was named head coach at the University of Tulsa, and in 1995 at the University of Georgia. Twice and Tulsa and once at Georgia, he got his team to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16.

Pitino led Kentucky to the National Championship in 1996, and reached the Final but lost in 1997. He then left to accept the head job of the Boston Celtics, and Smith was hired, the 1st black head coach at the school that long seemed to stand for white supremacy in college basketball.

Smith got the Wildcats into the NCAA Final with a 34-4 record. They lost to Number 1 Arizona, who had beaten them in the previous year's Final, in a Thanksgiving weekend tournament in Hawaii. Their other losses were all at home at Rupp Arena in Lexington: By 3 points to arch-rival Louisville; to Florida; and to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss).

They won the Southeastern Conference regular-season title, blazed through the SEC Tournament; and, in the NCAA Tournament, beat South Carolina State, easily beat St. Louis University, crushed Number 19 UCLA, edged Number 3 Duke, and beat Number 10 Stanford in overtime to get to the Final.

Coached by Rick Majerus (who was considerably tubbier than Tubby Smith), Utah made the Final Four for the 4th time, but the 1st since 1966. They had won the National Championship in 1944, but not since, while Kentucky had won it 7 times.

Utah jumped out ahead, and led 41-31 at the half. But, as they had in their last 2 games in the Tournament, the "Comeback Cats" came back, and won the game, 78-69. Jeff Sheppard was named the Tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

For Kentucky, whose old-time coach Adolph Rupp had been seen since the 1960s as a protector of white supremacy in college basketball, to be coached by a black man to a National Championship, was considered a very big deal.

This was the 4th time that Kentucky won the title in a year ending in an 8, having also done so in 1948, 1958 and 1978. It would turn out to be the 6th time the Yankees won the World Series in a year that Kentucky won basketball's National Championship (1949, 1951, 1958, 1978, 1996 and 1998).

Smith led Kentucky back to the Elite Eight in 1999, 2003 and 2005; and to the SEC Championship in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005. But he couldn't get them back to the Final Four, and UK's "blue blood" fans got frustrated. Some UK fans went as far as to place "for sale" signs on his front lawn. I'd like to think they would have done the same thing to a similarly struggling white coach.

In 2007, Smith was offered a lifeline, the head coaching job at the University of Minnesota, and took it, leaving Kentucky. Things settled down, and he was elected to UK's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013. He coached at Minnesota until 2013, then at Texas Tech for 3 years, then at the University of Memphis for 2 years.

In 2018, he was named head coach at his Alma Mater, High Point University, lasting 4 years, long enough to raise enough money to build them a new arena, the 4,500-seat Qubein Center, with its playing surface named for Tubby and his wife: The Tubby and Donna Smith Court. In 2022, he retired, turning the job over to his son, G.G. Smith, who had previously coached at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore.

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March 30, 1998 was, like most NCAA basketball Finals in the modern era, a Monday. The NBA had no games scheduled. Major League Baseball opened its regular season the next day. Football was out of season. There were 5 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-1 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Bruins lost to the Colorado Avalanche, 4-1 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the San Jose Sharks, 6-2 at the Kiel Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat their Provincial arch-rivals, the Calgary Flames, 3-1 at the Edmonton Coliseum (as the Northlands Coliseum was then known).