Major Changes Coming for Fordham Facilities

Construction of the football team's new locker room, slated to open for the 2010 season, began on April 5. The locker room will be located in the basement of the Rose Hill Gym .

The new space will feature a number of amenities, including over 90 lockers, a number of wide-screen televisions and a theater-type viewing area where the team can study film. The locker room will have approximately 4,800 square feet of space, which is over four times as large as the current football locker room.

"The new locker room is a tremendous addition to our program," Head Coach Tom Masella. said. "It's important for our players and everyone here to be able to identify themselves with having an excellent locker room facility of their own. Having our own locker room year-round for the first time will help our competitiveness extensively."   

The football locker room will officially be named the Beryl and John Lyons Football Locker Room after former football player John Lyons, who donated $1 million. This donation was later matched by a $1 million gift from a former player who wished to remain anonymous.

Masella commented on how the new facility would help the program's recruiting ability.

"We were probably the only program in the country that didn't have their own year-round space before this was built," Masella said. "Being able to show off Fordham and the facility will be key to our recruiting success." 

"The new locker room will be a real enhancement to our university," Executive Director of Athletics Frank McLaughlin said. "It's especially important that they will be a huge benefit while being of no expense to the school."

Fordham's squash team will be the recipients of four brand new squash courts, thanks to the generosity of the CitySquash program in the Bronx, which works in conjunction with the Fordham team. Construction started in early April and the courts should be ready by the end of August.

Though Fordham's courts used to be non-regulation size and in poor shape, meaning the Ram's could rarely host home matches, the four new courts will be regulation size and consist of a second floor with gallery viewing. There will be glass walls on the sides of the first two courts and a hallway between the two that includes a spiral staircase to the upper floor.

While the courts will be an essential part of improving the Fordham squash team and allowing the school to recruit better players, they will also be important for improving the CitySquash program, a non-profit school enrichment program based in the Bronx that assists disadvantaged young people by helping them find their academic and athletic potential.

Ram squash players have tutored and played with program members for a number of years and CitySquash put up the money for the courts as a means of both helping themselves and the school. Over the past five years, 32 CitySquash participants have won scholarships to private day schools in the city and boarding schools outside of New York.

"Before these new courts came alone, we weren't able to get any teams to come play us here or recruit serious squash players," squash Head Coach Bob Hawthorne said. "New courts will allow us to compete with serious programs at other schools."

CitySquash Executive Director Tim Wyant painted the squash courts as a gift to Fordham that was a long time in coming.

"Fordham's been an incredible partner and allowed us to use their courts without charge for eight years," Wyant said. "We needed a way to pay them back and this was an attractive opportunity."

McLaughlin expressed gratitude for the school's new facilities and the donations that funded the construction.

"We've been looking to build new courts and a locker room for a long time, but with the economy these plans were thwarted," he said. "Without the actions of our donors or CitySquash, none of this would have been possible."