Skirvin Hotel – The Most Avoided Place by NBA Players

Skirvin Hotel, the oldest hotel in Oklahoma City, sends NBA athletes packing. But why?

As this month of October opener, we will talk about the reason why this particular hotel sends goosebumps to NBA stars, let alone avoid stepping in front of the premises of the building as much as possible.

The History of Skirvin Hotel

Before we dive into the creepy part, let’s talk briefly about the Skiven Hotel and its history and why it became a hub for the paranormal.

Skirvin Hotel is a 225-room hotel in downtown Oklahoma City. It was built in 1911 and was considered the city’s oldest hotel.

The hotel had 224 rooms cramped in a ten-story, two-winged tower. To add space, a 12-story wing was built in 1925. But from 1929 to 1930, the building had been leveled to 13 floors, making it a 525-room hotel.

Built by William Balser “Bill” Skirvin, the Skirvin Hotel closed down in 1988 due to low occupancy after being sold to local hotelier Dan James in 1945.

However, in 1999, then-Oklahoma Mayor Kirk Humphreys established a Skirvin Solutions Committee in hopes of re-opening the building. After it was considered possible, they found Partners in Development of John Weeman as the developer.

The renovation began in 2004, and the hotel was fully renovated three years later. Now, the Skjirvin Hotel has guest elevators and has brought the number of rooms down to 225 by building bigger rooms.

The Legend of the Hauntings

We mentioned earlier that the Skirvin Hotel was built in 1911, meaning it has been standing for 112 years now. Moreover, it was abandoned after it closed in 1988, meaning it was unoccupied for 19 years.

But besides being closed down for almost nearly two decades, the building had an eerily creepy past. According to Clutch Points, the founder of the hotel was sort of a sadistic man, forcing a woman to go crazy and jump her way to death.

Legend has it that Bill Skirvin had an affair with ‘Effie,’ one of the hotel’s maids. When he got her pregnant, Skirvin locked him up on the top floor of one of the towers, where she eventually gave birth.

However, here comes the devastating part – Effie killed herself together with her child. Maybe it was her postpartum depression or the fact that Skirvin imprisoned her, but one thing is certain: she does not want to continue suffering.

Effie threw herself and her baby out the window, down to their deaths.

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Players and their Creepy Experiences

Now, why would the NBA house their athletes in one building with a dark past?

Out of all the 225 rooms, room 1015 was the most haunted in the Skirvin Hotel. Why? Because that is where Effie was apparently kept hidden away until her suicide.

Spirits with tragic endings would probably haunt the place where they decided to seal their fates. As for Effie, that would be the entire hotel, and NBA players witnessed the haunted encounters.

Here are some of the most famous creepy Skirvin Hotel stories by NBA players who spent a night, and may now believe that ghosts are real.

Eddy Curry

Former Knicks center Ed Curry was a big man. He is a seven-foot, 300-pound man. However, no amount of size could compensate for the terror he experienced that night.

Curry was so unfortunate that he got room 1015, the place where Effie and her baby were believed to be most active. Not wanting to experience having the ghost creep on him in the bathroom in what Clutch Point described as “Solid Snake Plisken” style, he snugged with Nate Robinson as if seeking protection from a 5’9, 180-pound teammate.

 It may also have affected his performance because he and the Knicks got blown out by the Oklahoma City Thunders.

Tim Hardaway Jr.

Tim was a non-believer of ghosts until he stayed in the ancient hotel. In his first stay at the haunted establishment, nothing creepy happened to him, making him think it was all a hoax.

However, he was wrong.

In an article by the Players’ Tribune and by Hardaway, he revealed that he came out a believer when he stayed the second time in the hotel.

Apparently, he got spooked all night for his second time staying at this creepy location. It all started with a simple moving of his toothbrush, where he found it moved to the other side. But when nightfall came, he would have said, “The horrors were real.”

His first time staying, he had his TV turned on all night, thus no paranormal encounters. But the second time, he turned off his only sound source, which was a wrong move.

He began hearing loud screeching that originated from the walls. There were also little voices, described by Hardaway as “quick little whispers.”

But that was not the end of it.

He heard footsteps running towards him, making him run to the bathroom to turn all the lights to make sure no one was making a sick joke on him. No one was there. 

The sound of the running stopped, and he swore the thing might be standing at the front of his hotel door. Still, he had the balls to check who it was.

He grabbed the doorknob, and with one big yank, he swung the door open to see no one.

Ron Artest

NBA fans know that Ron is not a man to be trifled with. Well, the ghosts did not know about that, nor did they care.

According to the former NBA player, while staying at the hotel, he was sexually assaulted by the unknown.

“The ghosts were all over me. I just accepted it,” the Lakers forward said. “They touched me all over the place. I’m taking one of the ghosts to court for touching me in the wrong places.”

Taj Gibson

Back when he was still a rookie, Taj spent a night at the Skirvin. It might be some sort of rite of passage because he experienced a ‘welcoming’ when he stayed there.

“At one point, at around 12:15 at night, my bathroom door just slammed completely shut,” he said. “I don’t know what it was, but it just completely slammed. It took me a minute to kind of figure out what [it] was,” he said, according to ESPN.

Derrick Rose

Rose, with his stoic expression, is a killer on the court. But it is a different case whenever they have to battle OKC.

The former MVP admitted he was scared to spend a night at the Skirvin when he was still with the Chicago Bulls.

Upon hearing the ghostly tales of the hauntings, D-Rose was not taking any chances to have first-hand experiences. Instead of having a room of his own, he chose his teammate, James Johnson, who also knows a lot about martial arts, as a roomie.

“We were watching [out for] each other,” Rose laughed. “We were just up on the computer just talking, just having fun the whole night.”

Although he and Johnson were in a room together, they still could not escape the creepiness of the hotel, along with its multitude of scary tales.

They still heard strange noises outside, across the hallway. (So much for seeking protection.)

Final Thoughts

The Skirvin Hotel, with its tragic backstory, instilled fear among those who stayed, NBA players or not. But while the building is haunted, it most likely affected the visiting team’s performance. Regardless, there is still an option for players to check in on other accommodations rather than experience a hell of a night at the Skirvin.

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