When Mike Hamrick took over as his alma mater’s athletic director in 2009, he brought with him a vision of bettering the lives of all his student-athletes both on and off the playing field.
Hamrick’s vision has become a reality through his dedication and that of around 1,000 men and women who donated time and nearly $38 million to complete the Chris Cline Athletic Complex. Named after the campaign’s key benefactor – mining executive, philanthropist and Marshall alumnus Chris Cline – the complex was officially unveiled last year on a brand-new, NFL-quality indoor football field. As Marshall’s new academic year gets underway, the full scope of Hamrick’s vision is becoming crystal clear.
“This isn’t just about the practice facility; this is the total package,” Hamrick said. “We have the indoor practice facility, yes, but we also have the sports medicine facility and the academic facility. What we have created here is a place where our student-athletes can have all their needs met without having to travel all over campus to do so.”
While Hamrick said he wants to focus on all three key facets of the new complex, he said he can’t overlook the importance of the indoor training facility. In addition to a full-size football field, the facility boasts the Jeff Small Track, which surrounds the field, and batting cages and other netting which drop from the ceiling when needed. Hamrick said the indoor facility not only benefits Marshall athletics, but also the local economy, as shown when the site hosted two large invitational track meets earlier this year.
Even though the indoor training facility is the most talked-about addition to the Chris Cline complex, Hamrick said he cannot stress how proud he is to have it combined with the new home of the Marshall University Sports Medicine Institute and the Buck Harless Student-Athlete Academic Center. He said all the pieces together create a perfect combination to enhance both the bodies and minds of Marshall student-athletes.
Future Marshall athletes visiting campus for the first time may view the indoor training facility with awe, but the parents of those young men and women will typically be more impressed with the equipment found within the sports medicine institute, Hamrick said. The facility houses a wide variety of physical therapy equipment, including underwater and anti-gravity treadmills, multiple hydrotherapy tools and a dedicated staff of medical professionals to focus on taking care of any problems Marshall’s student-athletes may incur.
“Before we had our sports medicine over at Cabell Huntington Hospital,” Hamrick said. “It could be disorganized sometimes but now it’s all under one roof, which is a great benefit to our student-athletes. Not all the young men and women understand the importance of this, but their parents do. They want the best for their children, and this shows them Marshall is committed to providing just that.”
With the training facility and sports medicine institute taking care of players’ athletic performance, Hamrick said he doesn’t want anyone to look past the work that has gone into the focus on enhancing their academic performance. The Buck Harless Student-Athlete Academic Center is unlike anything he’s ever seen, Hamrick said.
In the past, Marshall student-athletes could be found huddled inside a small computer room, where half the computers usually didn’t work, in the Shewey Building or scrambling around the Huntington campus looking for a computer to finish a paper or study. Not any more. The new academic center boasts a computer lab with 64 computers, a massive 75-seat auditorium equipped with a large video monitor, a 34-computer “quiet” computer lounge and a host of other amenities.
Tara Helton, director of the Buck Harless Student-Athlete Program for academic advising, told Herd Insider that this new center is an academic game changer for Marshall’s student-athletes.
“I never thought I’d see anything like this,” Helton said. “Absolutely not. It was always talked about, but even when you started hearing about the Vision Campaign … until you saw it and you walked in and it was finished.”
Helton said the student-athletes have been more than impressed with the changes, saying some players have mentioned how the atmosphere creates a space where they legitimately want to sit down and get to work.
While the new indoor training facility, sports medicine institute and academic center show where Marshall has come, and its continued commitment to bettering the lives of its student-athletes, for visitors to truly appreciate everything they must tour the new Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame.
The room features plaques and memorabilia from key university student-athletes, as well as two large interactive displays that people can use to watch videos about Marshall heroes such as Chad Pennington and Randy Moss. In the middle of the hall of fame stands a memorial dedicated to those who lost their lives in the plane crash on Nov. 14, 1970.
As a student-athlete himself, playing Marshall football just a few years after that fateful day, Hamrick said everything that has come from the Vision Campaign has been personal for him. He said he remembers playing for a university still fighting so hard to rebuild that it couldn’t offer its student-athletes the basics of tutoring and a proper weight room. While things had greatly improved from what he had as a student to when he came on as athletic director, he said he wanted to make sure things got even better.
“I just wanted all our student-athletes to have what I never had,” Hamrick said. “These young men and women work hard both on and off the field, and I think it’s important we strive to make them the best they can be. I think we have made this look easy, but it’s been years of hard work, late nights and the commitment of so many people to make this happen. I always knew we could do this, but I did worry about others not seeing the vision. But when Chad Pennington and Mike D’Antoni came on board, I knew we were going to be OK.”
After Chris Cline’s large donation, things could have been rushed, but Hamrick said it was the late President Stephen J. Kopp’s desire to do things the right way that kept everyone on
track to creating a top-notch complex that larger schools, and even some professional organizations, would look at and say “wow.” He said he wishes Kopp, who died suddenly last December, could be here to see the completed project, but knows he would be proud of what the Marshall community came together to accomplish.
Photos: (Top) The Buck Harless Student-Athlete Academic Center focuses on the minds of Marshall’s student-athletes. (Second from top) Freshman basketball player Kelsey Riley (right) meets for advising with Jillian Boys in the Buck Harless Student-Athlete Academic Center. (Remaining three images) The Chris Cline Athletic Complex offers facilities that cater to the body and mind of Marshall’s student-athletes from an NFL-quality, indoor football field, to the top-notch classrooms and study areas in the Buck Harless Student-Athlete Academic Center.
Shane Arrington is a freelance writer with more than 10 years of civilian and military journalism experience. He received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Marshall University and his master’s in integrated marketing communications from West Virginia University.
Photos by Rick Lee