BleedGopher
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per Joe:
When you open the main entrance to the Gophers’ new $166 million Athletes Village, it’s like stepping inside a maroon-and-gold themed Times Square, with nine scoreboard-sized video screens lining the wall, flashing an endless loop of Minnesota highlights.
The sixth floor of the Land O’Lakes Excellence Center, one of five buildings in the complex, offers sweeping views of the Minneapolis skyline, the University campus, TCF Bank Stadium and other Gophers venues.
The athletics department wanted a “wow factor” to capture recruits’ imagination, when it commissioned this project to upgrade the football and basketball facilities, while adding nutrition, academic and career development space for all 750 student-athletes.
The new facilities feature plenty of Minnesota-inspired charms, including Cambria countertops, Kasota stone and Sage Glass adjustable tint windows from Faribault. But what coaches and players talk about most is how functional the village is, how efficient it will make them.
“Our lives are going to change drastically,” Gophers women’s basketball senior Carlie Wagner said before the village opened this month. “The university’s never had something like this before.”
The Gophers added an indoor football complex in 1985 but did little to improve it for three decades. By 2013, the year before Rutgers and Maryland joined the conference, Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo said: “You can make a case that [the Gophers are] 12th of 12, when it comes to resources in the conference. Facilities-wise, it’s not even close.”
The new indoor football building is big enough to swallow the old one whole. The new football weight room measures 16,000 square feet, or about 10,000 more than the old one. Instead of jumping into rubberized bathtubs filled with ice after practice, players can plunge into hot/cold pools and rehab injuries on an underwater treadmill.
“Back when I played, we had everything we needed, but it wasn’t as efficient as it’s going to be now,” said Joe Bjorklund, a Gophers lineman from 2012 to ’15 who worked on the project for Mortenson Construction. “Take the weight room: We used to split into groups — offense and defense. Now we have so many racks, you can get the whole team in there at once.”
http://www.startribune.com/athletes...erything-about-gophers-athletics/469652863/#2
Go Gophers!!
When you open the main entrance to the Gophers’ new $166 million Athletes Village, it’s like stepping inside a maroon-and-gold themed Times Square, with nine scoreboard-sized video screens lining the wall, flashing an endless loop of Minnesota highlights.
The sixth floor of the Land O’Lakes Excellence Center, one of five buildings in the complex, offers sweeping views of the Minneapolis skyline, the University campus, TCF Bank Stadium and other Gophers venues.
The athletics department wanted a “wow factor” to capture recruits’ imagination, when it commissioned this project to upgrade the football and basketball facilities, while adding nutrition, academic and career development space for all 750 student-athletes.
The new facilities feature plenty of Minnesota-inspired charms, including Cambria countertops, Kasota stone and Sage Glass adjustable tint windows from Faribault. But what coaches and players talk about most is how functional the village is, how efficient it will make them.
“Our lives are going to change drastically,” Gophers women’s basketball senior Carlie Wagner said before the village opened this month. “The university’s never had something like this before.”
The Gophers added an indoor football complex in 1985 but did little to improve it for three decades. By 2013, the year before Rutgers and Maryland joined the conference, Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo said: “You can make a case that [the Gophers are] 12th of 12, when it comes to resources in the conference. Facilities-wise, it’s not even close.”
The new indoor football building is big enough to swallow the old one whole. The new football weight room measures 16,000 square feet, or about 10,000 more than the old one. Instead of jumping into rubberized bathtubs filled with ice after practice, players can plunge into hot/cold pools and rehab injuries on an underwater treadmill.
“Back when I played, we had everything we needed, but it wasn’t as efficient as it’s going to be now,” said Joe Bjorklund, a Gophers lineman from 2012 to ’15 who worked on the project for Mortenson Construction. “Take the weight room: We used to split into groups — offense and defense. Now we have so many racks, you can get the whole team in there at once.”
http://www.startribune.com/athletes...erything-about-gophers-athletics/469652863/#2
Go Gophers!!