By Alfonso De Falco
Contributing Writer
St. Bonaventure University plans to refurbish the locker rooms for Division I athletes and potentially add a few more locker rooms.
St. Bonaventure Athletic Director Tim Kenney talked about the steps that have to be taken for the plan to unfold.
“The plan of attack is to first get the space allocation. We are working right now with the master plan of the university to see what we have to work with,” said Kenney.
One thing is for certain, according to Kenney. The school has the space for additional locker rooms.
“We want everyone to have a locker room, doesn’t mean it’s going to have showers, but a place where the cross country team, for example, can have a place to put [its] bags instead of outside or in the hallways,” said Kenney.
Kenney said once they know how much space is available, they will be able to proceed to the next step.
“Step two, knowing the space allocation, is identifying where we are putting locker rooms and to make them right,” said Kenney.
Step three is to then raise the money.
“It won’t be as bad because you are going to go team by team and dealing with people who like to give money to support things they are a part of,” Kenney said.
While the plan is to keep the locker rooms in the Reilly Center, Kenney is looking at other options for a backup.
According to Kenney, ideally you want to keep the lockers in the same building because the student athletes have the coaches and treatment centers there.
“Butler gym is on option or possibly adding to the Reilly Center. Ideally, we don’t want to build just to build. What is going to be the right way to take care of our student athletes?” said Kenney. “Baseball and men’s soccer share a locker room and it gets hectic with the seasons crossing over. The efficiency is not good.”
New teams like men’s lacrosse and club sports are also included in the upcoming plans.
“Since we knew when we started the process with the space that that was probably going to happen,” said Kenney. “Rugby is a perfect example. It’s a large number and so the question is, can you do something like that? Those are all in the conversation. It extends beyond just the Division I discussion, it is kind of everything.”
The idea of new locker rooms comes from looking at other collegiate programs.
“Go to most D III schools, they have it. Then you go up to D I, where the competition is tighter and you are trying to get higher caliber students. Part of it is to be able to recruit and the student athlete welfare,” said Kenney.
As far as the timeline, Kenney said he wants to make sure the first step of finding appropriate space takes precedent.
“The first stage is to get space, so people have their own area. Pretty much the majority of teams from DI to DIII already have that. This is what it comes down to,” Kenney said.
According to Kenney, when the plan comes together, it can help with the university enrollment.
“When you put those together, you want to attract student athletes to help with enrollment, you have to have these things so we kind of put that on the forefront,” said Kenney.
Once the timeline is set, then the cost would be looked at next.
“We will have a better grasp once we know the space. That can take two months. We can have the cost on it in four or so months give or take. We hope so, then we can bring enough people for support,” said Kenney.
defalcaa13@bonaventure.edu
