We Need to Talk About the Men’s Toilets in Stoddard
By Kedryn Chandler
Here’s the scenario:. You just finished munching down on two crunch wrap supremes and beefy tacos from Taco Bell. You have satisfied your hunger needs, so you head back to Southern Virginia University. You go to the Llofts, get ready for practice, and head down to Stoddard to meet up with the team. Once down there, you realize you desperately need to take care of business. You rush to the bathroom in the arena. The one and only stall is already in use. You rush towards the bathroom next to the front door. Already in use. Sitting there in despair, you think to yourself, There has to be more toilets than this in Stoddard, right? No.
A problem that is faced every day by the student athletes on campus is the lack of toilets available in the facility. Whenever four or five teams are getting ready to practice or have started practice from the 3:00 PM to the 4:00 PM period, there is always a backup on the bathroom line because there are so many people needing to use the bathroom. This is not the case on the women’s side who, according to Kira Farley (’26 Business), has “Four toilets in the Arena bathroom.” Including the toilet in the bathroom next to the front door, there are 5 toilets in the facility for women. That is more than double the amount for men.
This is different from other athletic facilities. Here on campus up at the Fields, there is a bathroom with more than 6 toilets, ensuring that lines rarely form — and that’s just for spectators! Competitors have their own toilets in the locker room they use. In Salem, Virginia, at Roanoke College, the Cregger Center — Roanoke’s basketball arena — has a men’s bathroom with six toilets. If other facilities have better bathroom solutions, then why doesn’t Southern Virginia University solve this bathroom problem?
This leaves us wondering: why is there a lack of toilets in Stoddard, especially for men? How did that happen? What can be done to fix this lack of toilets problem? For more information about Stoddard bathrooms, check out “SVU Campus Bathroom Reviews” by Jetty Huish in The Herald.
