Starting in 2024-25, the La Salle Explorers will play basketball in the same building off Olney Avenue, but shoot in a different direction. Tom Gola Arena is soon to get a renovation. The court will be turned kind of perpendicular so stands can surround the court on all sides.
Here we are, La Salle took it to the wire. That gift is now worth over $6 million according to a La Salle source with knowledge of it, saying it was “just north of halfway” of the money raised for the project. It did come with another caveat, a source said, that if the money were used, the new place would be named for Glaser, the owner of the Stutz Candy Company, and that there would be a hospitality suite with his name on it.
“I don’t think Tom was ever somebody who worried about his name being on anything,” said Dunphy, who played for Gola and stayed close to him until Gola died in 2014.