Facilities

Thompson Field

Serves as the home of the Virginia Tech men’s and women’s soccer teams as well as the lacrosse team. Located in the center of the Virginia Tech athletics complex, the facility ranks as one of the finest for both soccer and lacrosse in the Atlantic Coast Conference. 

Women's Soccer Quick Facts
Seasons in Use
18th Season
Overall Record 107-45-21 (.679) Games: 173
ACC Record 35-33 (.515) Games: 68
vs. Non-Conference 71-10-21 (.799) Games: 102
vs. Ranked Teams 16-33 (.327) Games: 49

Located across from Lane Stadium, the Hokies’ football home, and adjacent to Tech Softball Park, Thompson Field was completed in the fall of 2003 and dedicated in 2008 in the name of Sandra D. Thompson, a longtime supporter of women’s athletics at Virginia Tech.

The field is a bluegrass playing surface and measures approximately 75 by 120 yards. It is equipped with an underground irrigation system and a drainage system that allows for it to be ready for play quickly following rainstorms. The complex also features a wireless scoreboard, and a permanent Hubbell lighting system allows for night games.

The athletics department has made improvements gradually since the venue opened in 2003. In 2005, workers completed a new restroom facility for the field, and during the summer of 2008, a new game operations center was erected atop the stadium above the fans. The approximately 900-square foot facility includes two broadcast booths for both home team and visiting team radio broadcasts. The center also has two covered areas devoted to broadcasting and/or videographers’ cameras, and there is a large working area for media members covering the Hokies.

The climate-controlled facility also contains a state-of-the-art sound system and Ethernet capability. The Internet-ready facility allows Tech’s official athletics website, hokiesports.com, to originate live audio broadcasts and live stats of the Hokies’ matches from the press box. Above the grandstand is a wired camera deck.

Between each team’s bench area is the Sandy D. Thompson Press Box. Formerly the press operations center for the field, the facility is now used as a halftime room for game officials and as an auxiliary area for press and game operations.

Thompson Field, which has been expanded since it was opened, now features approximately 2,028 bench-back seats, where each fan has an unobstructed view of the playing surface. Spacious area around the field allows for nearly 1,500 more fans to watch games.

Beamer Lawson Indoor Practice Facility

Virginia Tech’s indoor practice facility fits in perfectly with the other buildings on the university’s sprawling campus – from its color to its design features to its architectural touches. The facility was built by Hokies, for Hokies and paid for by Hokies.

The facility, built by W.M. Jordan Company – a company whose CEO is John Lawson, a 1975 graduate of Tech – cost $21.3 million and was finished in the summer of 2015. It possesses all the features befitting of a nationally ranked football program, while also being flexible enough to help certain Olympic sports.

Tech’s facility is 210 feet wide and 400 feet long, with an artificial surface installed by Shaw Sports Turf. The synthetic turf is fast, firm and dense. The company boasts the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens as one of its clients, having installed the surface at M&T Bank Stadium, the Ravens’ home.

The height from the playing surface to the bottom of the steel ceiling trusses is more than 86 feet at its apex, thus allowing plenty of room for punting and kicking. Its’ eight-foot padded walls, wide
sidelines, full scoreboard and 40-second clocks on each end allow the football program to hold a full-contact scrimmage.

In addition, the facility features garage-type doors, which open quickly and allow the players to move rapidly from the outdoor practice field into the indoor facility in the event of inclement weather. Tech’s staff, though, uses the facility more than just when the weather turns ugly.

The facility also features a video platform that runs the entire length of the field. Three doors at separate locations lead out to observation decks to allow the video staff to film the portions of practice being held outdoors. The head coach also has his own observation deck in the facility, with a door that leads to a deck outside for the observation of the outdoor portion of a practice.

A graphics package, installed by Forty Nine Degrees, adorns the walls inside of the building and on banners along the back side of the facility. This package includes photos of great players and great moments in Tech history, including those from both football and from various Olympic sports.

The athletics department oversaw the installation of a new practice field as part of this project, with workers tearing up the bluegrass field and installing a cold-resistant Bermuda grass strain. A new sprinkler system was added, too.

W.M. Jordan handled most of the construction responsibilities for the facility, but HKS Architects designed the facility, and the architectural and design features of the building definitely give it a Virginia Tech feel. It possesses maroon trim and Hokie stone on the bases of each support column. The archway entrance resembles that at Lane Stadium.

Plus, the university’s core values – brotherhood, honor, leadership, sacrifice, service, loyalty, duty and Ut Prosim – have been etched along the bases of the columns. Architects borrowed this feature from the pylons above War Memorial Chapel along Tech’s Drillfield.

The number of teams and student-athletes that will benefit from the massive structure are almost as numerous as the many unique features of this addition to the Tech campus. The athletics department envisions men’s and women’s soccer, softball, baseball and lacrosse all using the building for training and conditioning purposes, particularly during inclement weather in late winter and early spring.