Virginia Commonwealth University’s Franklin Street Gymnasium has a date with the wrecking ball.

The Rams’ (and Green Devils’) long-time basketball home will be leveled next spring and replaced by a six-story STEM academic building.

A construction company can knock down buildings, but it can’t erase the history. Archives are built to be sledgehammer proof.

In the beginning ...

The original Franklin Street Gym at 805 W. Franklin St. opened prior to the 1952-53 season, and Willis McCauley was there.

The school was known as Richmond Professional Institute at that time, prior to its 1968 merger with the Medical College of Virginia to form Virginia Commonwealth University.

Ed Allen served as a one-man coaching staff, as well as the baseball coach and athletic director.

“When we started practice that fall (in 1952), the gym hadn’t been completed,” recalled McCauley, who was captain of the basketball team. “We practiced a few weeks with no backboards or rims. We just ran through drills.”

Before that, the Rams, then known as the Green Devils, practiced and played most games at the Downtown YMCA. The team’s nickname changed from the Green Devils to the Rams in 1963, in part, because Allen was an alumnus of the University of Rhode Island that had the nickname Rams. He preferred the name Rams to the Green Devils.

With little fanfare, Bill Woodson joined the program in 1960.

“I went to Coach Allen’s office in August and asked if I could play,” Woodson recalled. “He asked me where I’d played in high school. I told him Hermitage, and he said, ‘Fine, you’re on the team.’ ”

Woodson has remained with the program as the game night clock keeper since the 1980s.

The gym was expanded with an addition that opened in December 1970. The new building was immediately adjacent to the east of the old building, with the old and new gym facilities separated by double doors.

“When someone asks me about Franklin Street Gym, I asked them, ‘Which one? The one on the alley or the one on Franklin Street?’ ” McCauley said.

Spectators entered the “old” gym through a side door between Franklin Street and a cobblestone alley. The entrance to the “new” gym was right on Franklin Street.

During the 1950s, RPI had many veterans on the team and played against numerous military installations.

“We played against (baseball star) Willie Mays when he was at Fort Eustis and Don Newcombe when he was at Fort Pickett,” McCauley said.

Here is a sampling of highlights from the Franklin Street Gym:

The original gymnasium was the home court for the Rams’ all-time scorer, Len Creech, and all-time single-game scorer, Don Ross. That’s also where Charles McLeod, a transfer student from Virginia State University, became the program’s first African-American player.

It’s also where VCU defeated the College of Charleston 142-83, a one-game record that still stands.

The last game ever played at the “old” Franklin Street Gym was the Rams’ 87-81 win over Hampden-Sydney College on Feb. 19, 1970. Benny Dees coached VCU the final two years at the old facility.

The original gym was a photographer’s nightmare. One shutterbug said it was like “shooting in a mine shaft.”

Jim Granger, a sports reporter at the time for WWBT-12, pleaded on air with VCU to “add a few lightbulbs.”

The first game at the “new” and better-illuminated gym was a VCU 105-86 matinee victory over Bluefield State on Dec. 5, 1970. It was considered the Rams’ homecoming.

On Dec. 28, 1970, in the new building, the Rams, under Coach Chuck Noe and the NAIA umbrella, drew national headlines with a 63-56 overtime win over the University of Minnesota, a member of the Big 10.

On Feb. 20, 1971, Charles “Jabo” Wilkins scored 40 points (matching his jersey number) in a win over Virginia Union University. Prior to the game, Wilkins’ No. 40 was retired.

On Feb. 2, 1973, Virginia Union defeated VCU 77-75. It marked the only game VCU ever lost at the “new” Franklin Street Gym.

Rams basketball was slow in gaining popularity and good seats were always available.

But there was one notable exception.

On Feb. 10, 1971, a few hundred Old Dominion University fans arrived at VCU with pre-purchased tickets in hand. The problem was the gym was already filled to capacity and the Monarchs fans, understandably steaming, were turned away.

Because of that incident, VCU and ODU would not play again until 1977.

At that time, VCU had big-time talent even if it wasn’t a well-recognized basketball program.

Among VCU’s NBA-bound players who competed in the “new” Franklin Street Gym were Gerald Henderson, Jesse Dark, Bernard Harris and Edmund Sherod. Another notable Ram of that era was Richard Jones, aka “Dickie Red,” from state champion Maggie L. Walker High School in Richmond.

The “new” Franklin Street Gym drew attention in 1971 when the Virginia Squires, an ABA team, chose the gym for its preseason camp. Among Virginia Squires players running through drills at the Franklin Street Gym were Charlie Scott and a then-unknown rookie, Julius Erving.   

The “new” gym only seated about 1,500. At the time, it was said to be out-dated before it was ever built. To allow for more fan seating, teams sat on folding chairs at ends of floor.

In 1971, the Rams began moving their bigger games to the Richmond Coliseum. However, they continued playing some at the Franklin Street Gym through the 1978-79 season.

The final game at the “new” gym was a Rams 85-48 win over Baltimore on Jan. 31, 1979, under Coach Dana Kirk.

Here’s a secret. The rim at the west end of new gym was about 1.5 inches shorter than the standard 10-foot height. The Rams always shot at that end during the first half of their games and put the games away early. That’s a real home court advantage.

The Rams lost much of their “home edge” in playing for three decades at the Richmond Coliseum. During that period, VCU rarely got to practice on the same floor upon which it played its games.

VCU continued playing at the Coliseum until the opening of the 7,700-seat Siegel Center on Nov. 19, 1999, with a win over the University of Louisville.

Since the Rams called Franklin Street Gym home, the program has grown until now it is a perennial power in the Atlantic 10 Conference. The Rams have been to eight NCAA Tournaments in the last nine years, including a Final Four run in 2011.

Few people attending games at the Franklin Street Gym could have imagined the coming transformation.

Former Coach Noe once referred to his fledgling program as “the red-haired stepchild” in the state of Virginia. The Rams had no conference affiliation and had difficulty finding schools willing to play against them. The Rams played a puny 19-game schedule in 1971-72 and 20 games in 1972-73.

In 1970-71, VCU had an all-African-American starting lineup at a time when most majority white schools were just dipping their toes into integrating their teams and didn’t want to play against an all-black team. At the time, schools with as many as three African-American players in the lineup were referred to as “outlaw schools.” VCU was on the “most wanted” list.

The Rams grew out of the Franklin Street Gym much like a young child grows out of its training wheels and into a 10-speed bike.

But things have got to start somewhere. And with VCU, many of its first tentative dribbles were at the Franklin Street Gym.