Naval Academy unveils $52 million field house | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

The Naval Academy showed off its brand new field house this week a $52 million facility that is to be dedicated today and named for the first African American to graduate from the school, retired Lt. Cmdr. Wesley A. Brown.

The huge building still has a new-car smell, and midshipmen athletes beamed as they looked over the facility on Tuesday.

"It is absolutely phenomenal," said Midshipman 2nd Class Ashley Waddle, a junior mid-distance sprinter and hurdler from Raleigh, N.C. "I got a chance to run on it last week, and it feels great. It is the best track I have ever run on; I have never run on a banked track before."

Mids in power sports also love the facility, according to Midshipman 2nd Class Chris Bordino, a weight and hammer thrower who also is from North Carolina.

"This new facility is top-notch," he said. "It is state-of-the-art, it screams Navy."

The 140,000-square-foot field house on the bank of the Severn River cost about $52 million in federal funds to build and furnish, academy officials said, and Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Chantilly, Va., built the field house over a two-year period.

The facility includes track and field areas, such as sand pits for broad jumps, that can be covered by a retractable artificial turf football field.

When being put in place or retracted, the 76,000-square-foot, 100,000-pound carpet floats on a bed of forced air created by fans hidden in the floor. The goal is to reduce friction and make the turf last longer, said retired Cmdr. Tom McKavitt, an associate athletic director at the academy.

Cmdr. McKavitt said the facility will house the men and women's cross country and track teams, the women's lacrosse team and the sprint football team, as well as supporting 16 club sports.

"The facility will contribute to the overall physical mission at the Naval Academy," he said.

Cmdr. McKavitt said the building's wall overlooking the Santee Basin is designed to serve as dike in case of severe flooding.

The wall is mostly blast-resistant glass and is designed to reduce the need for artificial lighting. It is tinted toward the top to make the building easier to cool, according to Lt. Bob Kendall, the project supervisor.

The building has its own storm water management system that includes channeling run-off into flower beds, he said.

Cmdr. Brown, 81 and the man for whom the field house is named, was at the academy this week for the facility's unveiling.

He was the sixth African American admitted to the academy, which was founded in 1845, but the others did not graduate. He received his degree in 1949.

Cmdr. Brown's life is chronicled in the book "Breaking the Color Barrier," by naval historian Robert Schneller Jr.

Cmdr. Brown repeatedly has declined to name, or "bilge," midshipmen who displayed prejudice against him. But, he has said that some mids refused to sit next to him in the dining hall, and upperclassmen would heap demerits on him for minor infractions, in an effort to discourage him from continuing on at the academy.

He never had a roommate during his four years at the academy, partly because some mids didn't want to room with a black, and also because he didn't want to make it an issue.

Today, about four percent of the Naval Academy's 4,300-member Brigade of Midshipmen are African Americans, or well below the 21 percent of blacks in the enlisted ranks in the Navy.

Cmdr. Brown praised the academy for recruiting minorities, generally, and women.

Academy officials said that 22 percent of the student body are minorities. The academy has graduated 1,723 African-American midshipmen and is working to recruit more minority students, officials said.

Cmdr. Brown said he hopes that having the new field house named for an African American will help.

"I hope they can use this building symbolically for the Navy and the Naval Academy, to show that they take diversity seriously," he said.

Cmdr. Brown, the father of four grown children, said he didn't know what advice to give to young people because they live in a world that is completely different from the one he grew up in.

"It is difficult to bridge the generation gap because circumstances are so different," he said. "We didn't have the drug problems, we didn't have the shooting problems, we didn't have problems with breaking into houses," he said.

But, Cmdr. Brown said his generation had to cope with pre-Civil Rights Era discrimination and with the Great Depression.

"I can't describe what the depression was like, when my dad was the only dad on the block with a job," he said.

Brigade Commander Midshipman 1st Class Zerbin Singleton, who is African American, was beside Cmdr. Brown at the press briefing.

"It is an honor to be able to sit next to him," Midshipman Singleton said. "I know he paved the way."

The Wesley A. Brown Field House will be dedicated today at 11 a.m. in a ceremony that is open to the public. Academy visitors age 16 or older will need a photo ID to enter academy grounds. For more information about the field house and academy security policy, go to www.usna.edu or call 410-293-1523.