Parkersburg High School christened its new locker room facility Sunday at the Mary Lou Hague Annex. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG – Big Red alumnus and current Parkersburg High School head cross country George Angelos christened their brand new locker room on Sunday afternoon with a grand opening inside the Mary Lou Hague Annex.

Albeit five years in the making, the PHS boss is more than pleased with the way things turned out.

Of course, without countless hours of support from a plethora of former Big Reds and the community itself none of this would’ve been possible.

That’s certainly not lost on Angelos, who wanted his team to have a place of their own they could be proud of.

“When the position came open Mr. (Chris) Way showed me the current locker room situation for the cross country team and it was just one abandoned room,” Angelos explained. “Having a nice locker room is not necessary for a program. There’s a lot of really good teams around the state that don’t have one, but certainly it’s a sense of pride and belonging, and kind of sets the tone for how important they are to us when they see other sports each have renovated locker rooms.

“You have lockers that were given to you from St. Joseph’s Hospital that don’t fit running shoes and no place to change. Then I thought this would be a neat little legacy piece to give and to pay it forward. Cross country has meant a lot to me and to my son and to my wife and to my family. It’s something we’re passionate about and so this was a little bit of a legacy piece to pay it forward and say thank you for everything the sport has meant to us, and to pay it forward to the next generation.”

Aside from an office for coach Angelos, the boys and girls have their own locker room with two dozen lockers apiece.

On one wall, all the former and current collegiate Big Reds have been honored who went on and competed at the next level.

Near the top of the walls, starting with the legendary Kim Nutter, various red and white standouts throughout the decades have their pictures proudly displayed.

“I had a rough vision in my mind of what I wanted it to be like. When I walked in and saw the finishing touches I was pleased. It matches very closely to what I’d hoped to have accomplished,” admitted Angelos, who had pictures and stories from various historical teams placed on the locker room side wall to honor a program that started in 1970 under head coach Gary Prater, who was on hand for the debut. “Very thankful. There’s some key people here who without their help this wouldn’t have been possible.”

Coach Angelos couldn’t say enough about the dedication of everyone involved who helped sponsor the project to completion.

That list featured Emily Flanagan, Scotty Barker, Benjamin Lake, Dave Winans, Earl Johnson, Kaleb Lawrence, Chris Way, Erik Musgrave, Karen Keller Cuda, Megan Rawlings, Nic Cheuvront, Martin Best, Ian Domenick, Chick-fil-A, Thorpe family, Angelos family, Martin Wagoner family, Metz family as well as Patty and Frank Metz alongside IUPAT Local 1144 (David Bland), Family Carpet (Rob Parrish), Tri-State Roofing & Sheet Metal, Pickering & Associates (Ryan Taylor) and the PHS Alumni for Athletics.

“Kaleb Lawrence from Wood County schools was a huge resource of help. Without him the project doesn’t happen,” Angelos admitted. “Without Ryan Taylor from Pickering & Associates who drew up the plans for free. The vision wouldn’t have been able to be put on paper, but then, once we had the vision we had to execute it.

“There were some key people who helped execute it and it wouldn’t have been possible without Kaleb and Martin Best. Then the PHS Alumni for Athletics, they gave us a donation that without that donation the project doesn’t happen. Even with that we couldn’t even afford to do this and the carpet, but Family Carpet and Rob Parrish stepped up and donated all the carpet.”

Another area of concern getting the project to fruition was having enough volunteer hours to finish things, which was aided greatly by David Bland with the IUPAT Local 1144 that donated more than 100 hours of free painting.

“Then we had alumni like Martin Wagoner, Earl Johnson and Brandon Edwards and all of our families stepped up to do countless hours of just manual labor in here,” added the coach. “The Alumni for Athletics were huge.”

Along with a storage area, PHS also has a recovery room that includes a hydration station and two bicycles thanks to the classes of 2015-2022 – Trenton Allman (’16), Cheuvront (’15), Joel Larson (’17), Franklin Angelos (’22), Aaron Dickens (’17), Will Lemaster (’18), Gillian Thomas (’18), Barker (’17), Domenick (’18), Musgrave (’16), Madison Trippett (’20), Anthony Bradford (’19), Lake (’19) and James Sams (’20).

“Ian Domenick, who is also a coach, organized a group from 2015 to 2022 who pitched together to create a recovery room with bikes and a refueling station,” said coach Angelos. “The alumni sponsored and paid for everything in this room.”

The PHS cross country program goals are based on – 4 C Culture – character, care, cohesion and consistency. The Big Reds enter the season ranked fourth in Class AAAA for both boys and girls by runwv.com.

“Our next goal maybe down the road is to add a weight room to it,” coach Angelos noted. “We’re just real excited about two things. Number one, capturing the best we could some of the history of the program.

Five years ago I started reaching out to people trying to get as many photos as I could. Nothing that was submitted from any era was omitted. I just didn’t get a ton. We were able to capture kind of a mini-Hall of Fame.

“We were able to capture history and we were also able to provide current space that makes our team feel important. A lot of people had to come through and what was interesting for the first couple years it was nothing but road blocks. Then it all just started flowing. It’s exciting to sit here and make it happen. The purpose behind the whole thing was the heart of it and just paying it forward and saying thank you to the kids and also maybe capturing a little bit of our history.”