Haunted Encounters in Sutcliffe Hall
The haunted history of Centre College is a popular topic among faculty and students, but how many of these stories can be backed up by facts? One building on Centre’s campus that has struggled to confirm the source of its supernatural presence is Sutcliffe Hall. Sutcliffe Hall, formerly known as Boyle-Humphrey Alumni Gymnasium, was built in 1912 and renovated for the first time in 1962 to expand its function beyond just the gymnasium. Even more recently, in 2004-2005, much of the original gymnasium structure from 1915 was demolished during the further renovation and expansion of Sutcliffe Hall. Today, it serves several functions for the students of Centre College, including three gyms, a fitness center, athletic training room, several locker rooms, coaches’ offices, and more (CentreCyclopedia). Many people have passed through this building over the years, and some even say there are spirits who never left. Interviews with Don Taylor and Wayne King, both faculty members at Centre College, as well as other members of the Centre community, include eerie recounts of their run-ins with supposed Sutcliffe ghosts. To understand the way these experiences contribute to Centre’s reputation as a haunted campus, we must first hear the chilling retellings of the witnesses’ experiences.
There are several consistencies that exist among these stories of people who claim to have had experiences with the supernatural in Sutcliffe. Some of these stories come from students, but most come from faculty and staff members of Centre College. One man who shared his experiences in Sutcliffe Hall was Don Taylor, who currently works as a general manager for facilities on campus. He first started working with the college in the 1980s as a custodian, which was before the most recent major renovation of Sutcliffe Hall. He was cleaning this building one night, just as he always does. This particular night, however, after he locked things up on his way out, he and his coworkers noticed the lights popping back on inside. After they returned inside to find that nobody was there, “all of a sudden, a basketball was rolling across the floor.”[i] A little freaked out, but not jumping to conclusions, they searched the building more thoroughly. Finding nobody, they decided to lock up again and head home for the night. However, the same lights turned back on. This forced them to go back inside, turn them off again and look for whoever was turning the lights on so they would not get in trouble for not locking up properly and allowing students to roam the building. However, when they searched the building again, there was nobody to be found.
Similar to Don’s account, Wayne King, retired director of facilities at Centre, had some experiences with what he believes to be the supernatural in Sutcliffe Hall. He shared that he was working on painting the old racquetball courts with three other facilities workers one day. They had taken a break for lunch, locked the door to the courts behind them, and went upstairs. When they were leaving, however, they heard a ball being thrown around the courts they had just painted. There is only one entrance to these courts, so there was no way anyone could have entered within this time without passing the workers. They went back to the courts where the lights remained off and saw nothing but a handball rolling round the room with paint on it. King stated in his interview that “one of the guys that was with [him] painting for him that summer, he went up the stairs, and [he has] never seen him since. He left, never came back from lunch.”[ii] Another extremely unsettling account from Sutcliffe Hall.
Retired President John Roush has commented that he always felt Old Sutcliffe was the most mysterious of all the buildings on campus. Natascha Loeb, a former member of the field hockey team, witnessed a shin guard fly across her locker room late one night. Ann Young was working in her office in Old Sutcliffe when she heard basketballs bouncing but was not able to find the source despite searching every room. “I go through the ballroom to look into the window, into the gym. Nobody in there. Get my key out, go into the gym, no basketballs. No basketballs anywhere.”[iii] These stories, among many others, come together to create a shared belief among many on Centre’s campus that Sutcliffe Hall is home to paranormal activity. The background of this building dates back so far that, even with its modern renovations, it holds so much historical value on Centre’s Campus. It is possible that the source of the supernatural experiences in Sutcliffe Hall are a result of the years and years of athletes that have gone through the building. With athletics comes competition, stress, and pressure. Perhaps the spirits haunting this building suffered a fate relating to one of these factors. Perhaps they are warning the current students not to put too much pressure on themselves to perform at maximum capacity all of the time. Centre students are notorious for having jam-packed schedules and constant pressure to succeed in several different areas.
These accounts contribute significantly to Centre College’s reputation as a haunted campus due to their similarities and the sources they are coming from being highly respected among the Centre Community. While the stories all occur in Sutcliffe Hall and there are similarities among them, the question still stands of whether this is one spirit or several. The most popular stories from this building tend to revolve around the racquetball courts and basketballs bouncing in the gym. Having paranormal activity in multiple locations is significant because distinguishing among spirits and determining their source could explain the consistencies in their actions. In the absence of a story that explains the presence of these ghosts, we are left to question the validity of these experiences. Just because the exact history behind this building’s hauntings is not known, it does not mean it does not exist. We must continue to listen to people’s experiences, search through the archives, and draw conclusions from the evidence we do have to make progress toward filling this gap in Centre’s history.
-Emily Fry
Bibliography
King, Wayne. “Ghosts at Centre: Oral History Project.” Interview by Mackenzie Conkling.
January 15, 2021. Audio, 13:30.
Loeb, Natascha. “Ghosts at Centre: Oral History Interview.” Interview by Emily Fry. January 19,
- Audio, 7:22.
Roush, John. “Haunted American History Oral Interview.” Interview by Mark Kaczocha.
January 17, 2021. Audio, 19:01.
“Sutcliffe Hall.” CentreCyclopedia. Accessed January 29, 2021. https://sc.centre.edu/ency/s/sutcliffe.html.
Taylor, Don. “Oral History Interview.” Interview by Ben Hodges. January 19, 2021. Audio,
15:43.
Young, Ann. “Centre Ghost Stories: Oral History.” Interview by Madison Malloy. January 13,
- Audio, 16:55.
[i] Don Taylor, “Oral History Interview,” Interview by Ben Hodges, January 19, 2021, audio, 15:43
[ii] Wayne King, “Ghosts at Centre: Oral History Project,” Interview by Mackenzie Conkling, January 15, 2021, audio, 13:30.
[iii] Ann Young, “Centre Ghost Stories: Oral History,” Interview by Madison Malloy, January 13, 2021, audio, 16:55.