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Charleston Gazette-Mail
HUNTINGTON — When Doc Holliday came to Marshall in December 2009, he had one major beef with his new surroundings — he called the facilities the worst in Conference USA.
For instance, the locker room was state of the art for Division I-AA in 1992, when the Shewey Athletic Building opened, but it became poor for major-college football. Marshalls brightest star of the Holliday era, Vinny Curry, has done something about it.
The Vinny Curry Locker Room opened Saturday morning to rave reviews. Sporting a charm with a No. 99 Thundering Herd jersey, Curry the former Herd defensive end and six-year NFL veteran with the Philadelphia Eagles grinned from ear to ear while taking pictures with the many former MU players who sponsored a locker for $1,000. Each locker, even the ones not being used this spring, have a donors nameplate.
The current players returned to the room for the first time this spring and were greeted with a brighter area with larger, more functional lockers. New plumbing and new showers, carpet and television sets were also installed.
Technically, the room didnt expand, but surely looks as if it did.
It looks bigger, but its really not, said athletic director Mike Hamrick. This is just another facility enhancement. This brings our total since Ive been here of either new facilities or enhancing facilities to about $43 million.
Jack Lengyel, the Herd coach who was at Marshall in the four years following the Marshall plane crash, enjoyed a nice new locker room at Fairfield Stadium. Compared to the old digs in the dungeon-esque stadium, it was palatial.
But it was cramped compared to the room that opened Saturday.
We were the first team to use that locker room. It was about the size of this section right here, he said.
The section right here represented about half the new room.
Contact Doug Smock at 304-348-5130 or [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @dougsmock and read his blog at http://blogs.wvgazettemail.com/dougsmock/.
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