Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

From left: Radford University freshmen Jeff Burns, John Balog and Brett Warren cheer as Radford takes on VMI at the Dedmon Center, which has reopened for student-athlete use only.

RADFORD -- This time last year, student-athletes, students who weren't athletes and Radford residents were working out in Radford University's Dedmon Center. The Dedmon, which closed for renovations in April, reopened earlier this month with a lot of hoopla -- but it reopened for university athletes only.

Other students have to make do with two smaller facilities in Peters and Muse halls.

Many of the nearly 9,000 students who aren't athletes say they are not happy that 285 student-athletes have Dedmon to themselves.

"It makes me furious that Dedmon isn't open to the entire student body," junior Sarah Chambers wrote in an e-mail.

Chambers is one of more than 1,400 students who have joined a Facebook group advocating that Dedmon be open to all university students. Not every member of the group is opposed to the athletes-only policy.

Andrew Harrell, a junior studying criminal justice, started the group.

"I used to go to Dedmon all the time, freshman and sophomore year," Harrell said.

He used the indoor track, lifted weights and occasionally played basketball. Now Harrell doesn't have access to a track or an indoor basketball court, and he says he has to wait in line for weights and exercise equipment at Peters Hall.

"Every time we go there, it's just packed full of people," Harrell said. That wasn't a problem when Dedmon was available, Harrell and others have said. But Robert Lineburg, Radford's athletic director, said sharing was a problem for the athletic program.

"Here at Radford, the number of RU student-athletes is growing," Lineburg said in a Dec. 4 news release, "as is the reputation of our overall athletic program -- and to help them excel in the top-tier Division I environment we believe that their development requires priority usage of the Dedmon Center."

"Priority usage" may sound as if athletes will get first dibs. But the release also said: "Upon reopening, the center -- with the exception of the pool -- will be reserved exclusively for RU's athletic programs."

The pool is open to students and the general public for 59 hours each week -- the hours outside the university's swim team's practice schedule. But the rest of the building belongs to athletics.

This is particularly galling to some students, since athletes on scholarship pay a lot less to go to school than other students do. In addition, each full-time student is assessed an annual $897 fee that goes to the university's athletic programs. That will provide about $7.38 million of Radford's $8.9 million athletics budget this year.

And the recent $15.78 million renovation of the Dedmon Center was paid for from a university account funded by parking fees, bookstore sales, room and board and other student fees. So was a previous $704,573 renovation.

"The fact that I am banned from using the facility in the face of the fact that I aided in small ways to improve and renovate it is absolutely outrageous," said student Brianna Jones. "I will say that if the athletic department does not begin to stand behind its students -- all of them, not just the athletes -- that they will lose the already waning fan base that our athletes have."

Student Frank Driscoll said the facilities at Dedmon Center were among the things that attracted him to Radford.

"They made a big deal out of this when I was taking a campus tour, and I think that it is wrong and on the border of false advertising to take that privilege away," Driscoll said. "Not to sound self-centered, but why should my tuition pay for a facility that I can't even use?"

Student Kevin Hatton asked, "Why can't they just work out a schedule that includes all students? They act like the athletes are down there all day every day using all the equipment."

University spokesman Michael Hemphill said athletes often require different equipment than other students.

In July, while Dedmon was still being renovated, Lineburg said, "My vision for our student-athletes is to be self-contained in one area where they can -- where their locker rooms are, where their strength and conditioning is, where their training room is, and where their learning enhancement center is."

His vision seems to have become reality.

"The racquetball courts in the Dedmon Center were minimally used," Hemphill said, "and have been converted to a much-needed learning enhancement center, which is the academic advising and study center for our 285 student-athletes. Prior to this, the athletes studied in the back of Muse Hall in a converted loading dock space."

The university plans to build a new fitness center for non-athlete students. Hemphill called the center "the highest priority of non-academic construction" and said the university hopes to open it in early 2011.

Radford has an ambitious construction plan that includes the fitness center, residence halls, a parking garage and an expansion of the student center. But the first two projects in line are a new home for the College of Business and Economics and a new College of Science and Technology building. The state has agreed to provide $34.2 million toward the $44.2 million or more the business building will cost. Last year's General Assembly approved $1.5 million to plan the science building.