The athletic department of The University of Memphis is left to pick up the pieces after a fire destroyed part of the athletic facility.
Early Thursday morning, Fire Station 30 responded to a fire alarm on the South Campus, the indoor practice facility (Turf Room) was engulfed in flames. According to a fire official on the scene, a civilian called the fire department between 3:30 a.m. and 3:45 a.m. to report a fire nearby.
Firefighters were able to get the fire under control within two hours of arrival, and noone was injured.
The fire official said the fire department is assessing the damage and investigating the possible cause of the fire.
“It’s hard to determine the amount of damage right now,” the official said. “We don’t know the value of the building. We don’t know what actually was stored in the building, but we are sure the damage is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We don’t feel there was foul play at this moment,” he added.
The fire to the 31-year-old building made the roof and two walls of the Turf Room cave in.
The Turf Room, 170 feet long and 120 feet wide, was used for indoor football and soccer practices. According to the fire official, The University concluded the remaining walls were severely cracked and had to be knocked down to prevent further damage to surrounding buildings.
Assistant athletic director Bob Winn was one of the first University officials to arrive on the scene.
“I got here around 5:20 a.m.; the fire was already knocked down by then,” Winn said. “I called a lot of people. I called Mark Hohorst, the equipment manager, because I knew he had equipment stored in there.”
Some of the equipment lost in the fire was track and field paraphernalia, football practice uniforms and the new and old football coaches’ headsets.
All the game equipment was safe except for the shoes.
Athletic director R.C. Johnson said the fire has put the Tigers football team in between a rock and a hard place.
“We have to tally up what was lost,” Johnson said. “We have to get the equipment back bit by bit, even if we have to borrow and beg.”
Winn said that the next two days would be hectic for the football team .
“In less than 48 hours we will be playing Houston in homecoming. We need to make sure we have every bit of the equipment we need- clothing we need to be able to play that game without any inconvenience to Tommy (West) and his staff,” Winn said.
The rebuilding of the facility would be an addition to the construction already undergone for the Murphy Athletic Complex, Winn said.
“Instead of having half of the complex being new, now we are looking up to two thirds of it being new,” Winn said. “We will just weather through this.”
Johnson said that although the incident is demoralizing, he is glad the fire didn’t take any lives.
“I feel sick to my stomach-but thank goodness nobody was hurt or died,” Johnson said. “But saying all that, this is still pretty devastating.”
