Saint Joseph’s dedicated Ramsay Basketball Center last week in honor of Jack Ramsay, a 1949 graduate of the school and Hawks basketball coach for 11 seasons.

The two-story, 20,000 square-foot addition to what was Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse officially opened in May and includes men’s and women’s locker rooms, academic space, a video study room, the athletics communications office, coaches offices and locker rooms, and an athletics hall of fame room.

Ramsay’s record as the Hawks’ coach was 234-72, and his teams reached 10 postseason tournaments, including the 1961 Final Four. Among Ramsay’s assistants were Paul Westhead, Jim O’Brien and Jack McKinney. Ramsay also coached the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers to a league championship and spent 20 years coaching in the NBA.

Saint Joseph’s Athletics Director Don DiJulia, a former student-athlete who played for Ramsay, called his former coach “the Wilt (Chamberlain) of his era.”

“In life, he is a renaissance man,” DiJulia said. “His parents wanted him to be a medical doctor, and he entered Saint Joseph’s with that in mind, but he couldn’t juggle labs and sports, so he shifted his priorities to teach and coach.”

The Ramsay Center is part of a larger renovation project, which will also include an expanded and renovated fieldhouse that will be dedicated at the first men’s home basketball game November 13.