Wesley Brown Field House - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Wesley Brown Field House is a sports

College athletics

College athletics refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education . In the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system. The first tier includes the sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies...

arena

Arena

An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...

at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...

. It is located between the 7th Wing of Bancroft Hall

Bancroft Hall

Bancroft Hall at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is the largest single dormitory in the world. Bancroft Hall, named after former Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, is home for the entire brigade of 4,000 midshipmen, and contains some 1,700 rooms, of corridors, and of...

and Santee Basin. The 140000 square feet (13,006.4 m²) facility houses physical education

Physical education

Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....

, varsity sports, club sports, and personal-fitness

Physical fitness

Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness , and specific fitness...

programs and equipment

Sports equipment

Sports equipment is a general term for any object used for sport or exercise. Examples of sports equipment include:-Exercise equipment:Examples for exercise include swiss balls, weights, equipment for the gym...

. It is home to the Midshipmen

Navy Midshipmen

The United States Naval Academy sponsors 30 varsity-sports teams and 12 club-sports teams . Both men's and women's teams are called Navy Midshipmen or "Mids"...

cross country and track and field teams, the sprint football team, the women’s lacrosse team, and sixteen club sports. It also serves as the practice space for the football

Navy Midshipmen football

The Navy Midshipmen football team represents the United States Naval Academy in NCAA Division I-A college football. They are a Division I Football Bowl Subdivision independent school and coached by Ken Niumatalolo since December 2007...

and women's volleyball teams. There is also a centralized sports-medicine

Sports medicine

Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness, treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise...

facility. The building has a total room area of 5,800 sq. ft., eight locker rooms, and 300 lockers

Locker (cabinet)

A locker is a small, usually narrow storage compartment. They are commonly found in dedicated cabinets, very often in large numbers, in various public places such as locker rooms, work places, schools, transport centres, and the like...

.

The field house has a full-length, 76000 square feet (7,060.6 m²), retractable Magic Carpet AstroTurf

AstroTurf

AstroTurf is a brand of artificial turf. Although the term is a registered trademark, it is sometimes used as a generic description of any kind of artificial turf. The original AstroTurf product was a short pile synthetic turf while the current products incorporate modern features such as...

football field. When the field is retracted, students can then use the 200-meter AstroTurf track with a Mondo track surface and hydraulically

Hydraulics

Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...

-controlled banked curves and three permanent basketball court

Basketball court

In basketball, the basketball court is the playing surface, consisting of a rectangular floor with tiles at either end. In professional or organized basketball, especially when played indoors, it is usually made out of a wood, often maple, and highly polished...

s. In four to six hours, the indoor track-and-field can be changed to an indoor football practice field, including target goalposts for placekicking practice. The synthetic

Synthetic fiber

Synthetic fibers are the result of extensive research by scientists to improve on naturally occurring animal and plant fibers. In general, synthetic fibers are created by forcing, usually through extrusion, fiber forming materials through holes into the air, forming a thread...

playing surface (with football-field yard-lines) is stored on a spool at the field house's south end. The surface is put in place by nine winches and an 18-port air-blower that makes the turf

Artificial turf

Artificial turf is a surface manufactured from synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass. It is most often used in arenas for sports that were originally or are normally played on grass. However, it is now being used on residential lawns and commercial applications as well...

float across the field-house floor while being deployed and retracted.

The weight room

Health club

A health club is a place which houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise.-Main workout area:...

is one of three "strength and conditioning facilities" at the academy. With 6500 square feet (603.9 m²), it serves the members of the following teams: men's and women's cross country, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's track, golf, sprint football, volleyball, water polo, and women's lacrosse.

The facility is named for the first African American to graduate from the Academy, retired Lt. Cmdr. Wesley A. Brown

Wesley A. Brown

Wesley Anthony Brown was the first African American graduate of the U.S Naval Academy , in Annapolis, Maryland. He served in the Korean War and the Vietnam War and served in the U.S Navy from May 2, 1944–June 30, 1969.-Early life:He graduated from Dunbar High School, where he was Cadet Corps...

, who graduated in 1949. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on March 25, 2006. Brown wielded a shovel in the groundbreaking. Hensel Phelps Construction Company constructed the field house, which was completed in March 2008. The U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) administered the contract for construction. The building was dedicated on May 10, 2008. Brown participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony

Ribbon cutting ceremony

]A ribbon cutting ceremony is a public ceremony conducted to inaugurate the opening to the general public of a new building or business.Often, the ceremony is conducted in just the manner the name suggests: by tying a ceremonial ribbon across the main entrance of the building, which is then cut in...

with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. Also present were almost one thousand guests.

External links

Wesley Brown Field House official webpage
Photos of interior (26 images) and exterior (30 images). By Blake Marvin. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
CDR Wesley Brown Field House / Ground Breaking Ceremony / March 25, 2006. USNA official website. Retrieved 2010-02-09.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

See also

External links