End of an Era: W. M. Scales Field House Set for Demolition
The W. M. Scales Field House once the heartbeat of Pirate Football is scheduled for demolition, marking the end of a historic chapter in ECU Athletics. Located just beyond Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium’s west end zone, the building served as the program’s primary home for decades, housing locker rooms, training areas, and team meeting spaces for generations of Pirates.
While it has since been replaced by newer facilities like the TowneBank Tower and Smith-Williams Center, Scales Field House remains a symbol of ECU’s grind and the tough, blue-collar brand of football that defined so many teams over the years.
Opened in 1968, the facility has aged significantly, and after years of evaluation, the cost of renovating the outdated building proved to be too steep. With that in mind, university officials determined that the best course of action would be to remove the building entirely.
Its demolition is part of a broader effort to modernize and revamp the west side of the stadium. In the immediate aftermath of its removal, a green space will be constructed where the building once stood. Plans are also being finalized to recognize the Scales family appropriately on the site, ensuring that their legacy lives on even as the facility itself is removed.
Honoring the Namesake
Any history of W. M. Scales Field House would be incomplete without remembering the man behind the name Waightstill “Booger” Morehead Scales, Jr.
A Greenville native, Scales played a pivotal role in shaping the future of East Carolina Athletics. After graduating from Fishburne Military Academy in 1942, he returned home and worked for John Flanagan’s Buggy Company and a local Ford distributor before building a successful career in insurance.
But his greatest impact at ECU came through fundraising. Scales became one of the university’s most influential athletic supporters part of the elite group known as “The Untouchables.” In the early 1960s, he helped spearhead the campaign to construct Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, serving as chairman of the stadium committee.
Just a few years later, in the late 1960s, Scales led another major campaign — this time raising $100,000 for the construction of what would become W. M. Scales Field House. The final piece of the puzzle came with a then-record $25,000 donation from the Minges family, the largest single gift in East Carolina College history at the time.
Scales would go on to become the first president of the East Carolina College Century Club known today as the Pirate Club. His name on the field house wasn’t just an honor it was a symbol of everything he helped build, brick by brick.
Remembering What It Meant
Though no replacement building has been announced yet, the decision to remove Scales Field House reflects ECU’s continued push to elevate its athletic footprint and stay competitive in an evolving era of college sports.
For decades of players, coaches, and fans, Scales wasn’t just a field house. It was a proving ground a place where walk-ons became starters and where Pirate toughness was forged behind closed doors.
"I never went to a college football game until I dressed out for one," said former ECU letterwinner and Board of Trustees Chair Vern Davenport. "So, the stadium and college football and going into Scales, those were very impressive experiences. I can still remember what the locker looked like and where the helmet went, where the shoes went, where the jerseys went, and all that kind of stuff and how close they were together. It was this kind of a miniature version of what the guys have now, but it didn’t have glitz and glamour. It was pure function."
“Any time you look at the history of a facility, the first thing that you have to look at is the people who went through that facility,” added longtime ECU assistant coach Steve Shankweiler. “If you look at the history of East Carolina football, obviously the Scales family put money into that facility and it stood the test of time for an awful lot of really, really good coaches and really, really good players. I never looked at it as a facility so much as the people who inhabited it.”