For one day, Carmelo Anthony is back in Syracuse. But soon, his name will be a permanent staple of the athletics complex around Manley Field House.

Anthony, the former Syracuse men’s basketball star who led the Orangemen to its first national championship in 2003, will be on campus for the first time in almost four years to help break ground on the new Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center.

Syracuse Director of Athletics Daryl Gross, men’s basketball head coach Jim Boeheim and women’s basketball head coach Quentin Hillsman will join Anthony at a 3 p.m. ceremony in the parking lot north of Manley Field House behind the Roy Simmons Sr. Coaches Wing. That will be the eventual location of the facility.

Construction could take up to 18 months, an athletic department official said earlier this week.

The building, which Gross has already affectionately referred to as ‘The ‘Melo Center,’ will house two full practice courts, locker rooms and office space for both the men’s and women’s coaching staffs.

Anthony donated $3 million toward the construction of the facility last November. He has not been on campus since he played for the Denver Nuggets, his current team, in an NBA exhibition game in the Carrier Dome on Oct. 19, 2003.

‘It’s a legacy thing,’ Anthony said of his gift at a press conference in November. ‘It’s not just for this year or the year after. It’s for a lifetime.’

The total cost of the building is unknown, but Gross said last year it could run between $10 and $25 million. The facility will ease space issues inside Manley Field House, which is used as a practice facility by many of SU’s sports teams. Once construction is completed on the basketball center, the plan is to renovate Manley and turn it into an indoor football practice field, with a track running around it.

‘Carmelo has already given Syracuse University more than anybody who has ever played there with what he did on the court, and how he has helped us not only when he was there, but since then,’ Boeheim said last November. ‘The profile he has left us with has helped us tremendously in recruiting and will continue to help us because people admire and respect him, especially high school kids.’

Published on September 25, 2007 at 12:00 pm