GOLD RUSH: Deacons' Delight
4/7/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
This article was originally published in the March edition of Gold Rush.
By Jay Reddick
Dave Clawson has a lot to say about McCreary Field House, but it can all be summed up this way: "Life got a whole lot better in a hurry, and it's only going to get even better."
Clawson and his football team are already reaping the benefits of the field house, which had its official dedication Feb. 24. Dealing with the cold North Carolina winter is a thing of the past for the Deacons, thanks to the new full-field indoor practice facility that adjoins the existing outdoor practice fields.
"It's a complete game-changer in so many areas," Clawson said.
To look inside the field house is to see the future of WFU athletics. It's as if the turf at BB&T Field were cloned and moved indoors and onto campus. Rising senior offensive lineman Tyler Hayworth, who has watched the structure rise behind the Manchester Center, still remembers the first time he saw inside.
"I was in shock at how amazing it looked," Hayworth said. "It's even more than I thought. We got in there, and I've never seen a weight room or facility like that."
Current players will have easier access to an all-weather spot to do drills and work out, which is music to the Deacons' ears.
"Weather-free practice time is definitely the best thing," Hayworth said. "The past two years, we've gone for drills, and it's been 20 or 30 degrees outside. You're fighting just to stay warm, rather than fighting to get better."
"We were in there this morning, doing things we could never do here in January or February," Clawson said one chilly day. "The turf outside stays so slick in the winter that it's hard to improve at football in those conditions."
"You can't train for speed and movement when you're cooped up in a weight room," said Director of Sports Performance Brandon Hourigan. "We can do a lot more different things this way, and guys are enjoying coming over to train."
The impetus for the facility started before Clawson's arrival in Winston-Salem in 2014, but he couldn't be happier to reap the benefits.
"They had the concepts and had the master plan laid out," Clawson said. "Fortunately for us, we had some alumni and donors step up and increase their funding to make this happen."
Clawson said that the team will spend most of spring practice in the new facility, immediately eliminating the need for schedule adjustments based on the weather.
He notices the little things about the field house as well. He said that the facility has a higher roof than some he has seen at other schools, which will be a boon to the kicking game and special-teams practice. The goalposts hang from the ceiling, which saves space on the turf for workouts.
Of course, this is only the first step. The planned Sports Performance Center, which will adjoin the field house, will bring even more dimensions to the improvement of the athletic program, with a dedicated nutrition facility, a bigger strength and conditioning area, coaches' offices and more.
Hourigan said that having workouts and practice in the same building will help the Deacons make the most of their practice time each day – something as trivial as the time spent changing shoes for different surfaces can make a difference.
"We spend a lot of time moving everybody from place to place, between practice and the weight room," Hourigan said. "Now, we can do everything all at one place, and that will probably save us 15 or 20 minutes in every practice. That's monumental."
In the arms race of the ACC, Clawson said, this is the heavy artillery.
"When all is said and done, this takes us from the lower end of facilities in the ACC to the upper end," Clawson said. "Every time I go over there, I get goose bumps."
