West Virginia State University’s $3.5 million Gregory V. Monroe Athletic Complex opens today.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — When opposing football teams previously came to play the West Virginia State University Yellow Jackets, the school had to set up a large tent for them near the field to change in.
“It just didn’t look good,” WVSU Athletic Director Sean Loyd said.
Now, the other team can use WVSU’s old locker rooms beneath the bleachers of Lakin Field at Dickerson Stadium. The Yellow Jackets themselves will get the new, $3.5 million Gregory V. Monroe Athletic Complex, whose mostly glass facade looks out on the western end zone.
Through the windows — illuminated by the automatic lighting that activates and deactivates as occupants move throughout the building — lie 100 new solid-white oak lockers, laundry facilities for cleaning uniforms and new showers and restrooms with fast, no-touch Dyson Airblade dB hand dryers, which automatically activate as you place your hands inside.
“This puts us more in line with the competition from our Mountain East Conference,” Loyd said during a media tour of the facility Tuesday.
WVSU will have a private opening today for donors to celebrate the complex’s completion after almost a year of construction. Loyd said the building could help attract athletes to the NCAA Division II university…