54 Years at Freedom Hall: Great Events and Memorable Moments at One of America's Premier Arenas

Since its opening in 1956, Louisville, Kentucky's Freedom Hall has been one of the nation's premier sports and entertainment venues. Published during the arena's final season as the home of the UofL Cardinals basketball teams, this fully-illustrated, full-color commemorative coffee-table book celebrates Freedom Hall's 54-year history as both a gathering place and a crossroads for millions of Americans and almost every Kentuckian.Over more than half a century, Freedom Hall has been the home of six NCAA Final Fours, the World's Championship Horse Show, Muhammad Ali's early professional fights, the Kentucky Colonels of the ABA, and an untold number of concerts, circuses, rodeos, ice shows, monster truck and motocross races, track and field events, tractor pulls and other family events. Mostly, though, it has been the home of the University of Louisville Cardinals basketball teams, who will move to a new downtown arena late in 2010. Going with them will be the memories of the UofL men's basketball team's two NCAA title wins, in 1980 and 1986, and their 54 years of competition while at Freedom Hall.Here, in a nostalgic tribute and loving send-off to the arena that the Rev. Billy Graham once called "the most beautiful auditorium in the world," award-winning journalist Billy Reed has collected a bevy of well-researched photographs and original stories to recapture some of Freedom Hall's greatest events and its most memorable moments.