SU football ready to move in Mumford Field House

Take a walk into Jesse Owens Hall, walk up the stairs and you’ll find Southern University athletic director Greg LaFleur’s office.
There you’ll see papers scattered about, books he’s read and old videocassettes. Empty boxes along with several framed posters of him during his days as a tight end with the then-St. Louis Cardinals line the wall. The view from his window: the athletic dorms.
 If you don’t get the picture, the decrepit interior of Owens Hall is no place to house an athletic department, and that will soon change.
“The new facility is completed and we’re very excited to have it,” LaFleur said. “It’s all set for the football team to use this weekend.”
Days from now LaFleur, along with the football coaches will be trading their run down work spaces in Owens Hall for the newly constructed (84,000 square-foot, $17.5 million) A.W. Mumford field house in the north end zone, which turns Mumford Stadium into a horseshoe—less than 150 yards away.
Though ground was originally broken to start construction in 2004, lack of funding set the project back. After crawling at the pace of a snail for several years, all out construction finally went into swing last year.
“It has been a while to get it completed and we’re excited it is,” said SU coach Pete Richardson. “We’re looking forward to having the opportunity to move in.”
The team will be able to use the facility this weekend if Richardson gives the OK, LaFleur said. If so, Richardson’s dream of having his Jaguars jog out of the tunnel of their newly constructed field house will finally come to fruition.
According to Richardson, this building will be more than just a new weight room and coaches offices. He believes it will give his program a recruiting tool no other team in the Southwestern Athletic Conference has at this time.
“It’ll help us out a great deal, especially from a recruiting aspect,” Richardson said. “Most athletes want to take a look at what you have. We were a little shy about that before, but we won’t be now. That’s a big selling point for them.”
As for the moving in part, that’s a different story. Since construction started last year, the set date has been Sept. 21—two days after the Tennessee State game. Though the building is complete, The Lemoine Company, based out of Lafayette, is putting the finishing touches on things.
“We can move in at any time now, but we are going to do it in phases because of the timing of it,” LaFleur said.
Some of the finishing touches include remodeling LaFleur’s second floor office—originally set up to be a media room designed for news conferences and interviews—which overlooks the nursing college. Also, bronze letters were ordered to spell “A.W. Mumford Field House” on the outside of the facility.
As of Wednesday, the building’s largest suite, on the third floor, still served as the Lemoine Company’s office. That suite along with the others, and the end zone seats will be occupied on Saturday, LaFleur said.