USU hopes future facility a sign of good things to come
If you’re looking for a bright spot at a Utah State University football game this season, just look north.
Ground was broken and construction began July 7 on the Romney Stadium north end zone complex.
It is a $10.5 million project for a 55,000 square-foot, three-level building that will eventually become a major benefit to all USU athletes.
Randy Spetman, director of athletics at USU since July 1, 2004, said the goal for completion of the structure of the complex is Aug. 1, 2007.
The first floor, which will feature locker rooms for the home and visiting teams, an equipment room and a sports medicine area, will be the only floor that is scheduled to be completely done by the Aug. 1 deadline.
The roofing, walls, electricity and heating for the other two levels will be complete, but work will continue on the inside during the 2007 football season.
Though the current construction has taken up nearly 130 parking spots and doesn’t yet give the complex the most aesthetically pleasing look, Spetman said it is worth it.
“It’s a mess,” he said. “[But] it doesn’t seem to have hurt the overall campus or anything. It more or less impacts my staff and the student athletes more than anybody else on campus. They are willing to put up with that to get a new facility. That’s for sure.”
Brent Guy, head football coach at USU, agreed, saying the new complex is a sign of better things to come for the football program.
“We talk about how we have to change and learn to win and create a winning tradition,” Guy said. “And right now you already see change happening. So these guys that are right here right now physically see change going on. The people that come in our stadium this season will see changes going on.”
Other uses for the first floor visiting team locker room will be for other visiting sports teams such as soccer, softball, and track. That is something visiting teams in sports other than football and basketball have never had when coming to compete against the Aggies.
“We don’t have a place, and that’s a problem,” Spetman said. “In their hotel rooms they dress, then get on the bus and come here.”
The second floor will feature offices for the USU coaching staff.
“Right now the football team meets all over the world,” Spetman said. “We go in the Stan Laub Center, we have some meetings in the Harris facility, we have some meetings in the visiting team’s locker room at the stadium. They’re spread all over, and that’s not very conducive to having good meetings.”
The third floor will hold the student-athlete academic center with tutor rooms, computer rooms and study rooms.
Currently, the athletic department is still about $1.5 million short of the needed $10.5 million, Spetman said, but that should be made up through fundraising by next August.
Spetman said the foundation for the complex has been dug and the cement will be poured within the next week.
-sbhislop@cc.usu.edu, graham@cc.usu.edu