Fundraising for the DakotaDome

The Armory, now called the Belbas Center, was the first indoor athletic building constructed in 1905 at the University of South Dakota (USD) where enrollment was 450 students.  Aside from being a venue for military sciences, athletics, and physical education, it served as a place for social activities. Twenty-four years later a building was built as enrollment more than doubled and physical education, intercollegiate and intramural sports needs increased. A unique feature of the “New Armory”, as it was called, was a swimming pool.   

By the 1970s, student enrollment reached 5,000 students and the “New Armory” was inadequate to serve the needs of students. In addition, women now participated in intercollegiate sports such as basketball, track, gymnastics, and swimming.   

In 1972, the South Dakota legislature passed a funding bill to plan for a multi-purpose physical education and recreation facility. Envisioned were offices, spaces for physical education, swimming, recreation, athletics, and larger events used by students and community members. The building was called the DakotaDome.  

The photograph below shows Governor Richard Kneip signing the legislation providing planning funding for the DakotaDome. Sitting next to Governor Kneip are President Richard Bowen and USD Director of Athletics Dr. Carl Miller. The gentlemen standing flanking the governor are USD alums Lauren Lewis, a prominent lawyer in Sioux Fall, and Joe Robbi, lawyer, and managing general partner of the Miami Dolphins football team.  

” Picture of Governor Kneip signing the planning legislation for DakotaDome” from USD Photograph Collection, series 10, 11266.2 

Lauren Lewis and Joe Robbi, along with lawyer and alum Stanley Siegel served as national co-chairs for the USD fund drive to raise $4.5 million towards the construction of the DakotaDome (“DakotaDome plans underway”, The South Dakotan, April 1973). Groundbreaking for the facility occurred in 1976 and the building was completed in 1979.  Find more information in USD Archives and Special Collections about the strategies used to raise funds from alumni, students and community supporters. Archives also contains architectural renderings of the proposed building, and how the DakotaDome came to be an iconic structure on the USD campus.   

Photograph of an architect’s rendering of the DakotaDome from Series 2, USD Photographs (Color). Buildings/ Campus Views/ DakotaDome.   

References: 

Cummings, Cedric. “The University of South Dakota 1862-1966”. Dakota Press. 1975, pages 311-312 (enrollment numbers), 98, 109 (Old Armory), 193, 169, 180 (New Armory).