STrib: Athletes Village will change nearly everything about Gophers athletics

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!!
 

The Athletes Village sounds pretty impressive. I wish it was getting more attention. Other schools open new facilities and they get national puff pieces, but this is just Minnesota, so...
 

The Athletes Village sounds pretty impressive. I wish it was getting more attention. Other schools open new facilities and they get national puff pieces, but this is just Minnesota, so...

This is a soft opening. They probably will have a more formal ceremony after kinks are worked out.
 

I didn't realize that MBB and WBB each have their own gym. That is huge for each program.
 

I got a tour a few weeks ago- it is really really impressive.

There are two basketball courts, which are stacked, meaning one is on floor 2 the other is on floor 5- you can see this from the rotunda area where the Minnesota concrete letters are. Check it out at night for full effect. Its the second only such designed gym in the country. The men's and women's facilities are identical. I think the expectations for women's ball need to be elevated at this point, it is really really nice.

The football program gets their own area- which is very nice- the players will spend a lot of time there. If we want to be compete with the big boys, this facility is certainly going to help with that. It is hilariously better than what they have now.

The non-rev schools will take over the old football and basketball spaces in old Bierman, which gives them some of the best non-rev facilities anywhere too. This thing is a big deal and should be celebrated.
 


Edma, how did you go about getting a tour. I am sure there are many of us season ticket holders that would also like a tour
 



I didn't realize that MBB and WBB each have their own gym. That is huge for each program.

I didn't either until today. I know that coaches were stating that their players were having a tough time shooting hoops due to the number of groups using Williams etc.
 



I'm excited about this... but a new stadium was supposed to change things too...
 

Edma, how did you go about getting a tour. I am sure there are many of us season ticket holders that would also like a tour

It was a "I know a guy" type hook up tour, without being specific, it was somebody from the construction/design team side that gave the tour. Any tour now, would have to be through the U.
I got a lot of insider, behind the scenes tidbits and design detail you're just not going to ever get from a U type tour- that part was almost as cool as seeing the actual facilities.

It should be a total game changer for recruiting in pretty much ever sport.
 

I definitely want to take a tour of the facility (I'm assuming there will be tours scheduled for the public, right?). A tour of US Bank Stadium is also on my "to do" list.
 





I believe they said any student can eat there, what about us non-students, can we hang out there as well?

I would assume it would work like any other dining hall. If you're a student with a meal-plan you can eat there and use guest passes on students without a meal-plan/non-students. Only reason I would see for non-athlete students to eat there is if they are friends with an athlete, since it is far enough removed from campus that most students wouldn't make the detour.
 

It is about time that we cater to our student athletes with a world class center. This will serve them really well and bring Minnesota pride to a new level.

Kudos collectively to Jerry Kill, Joe Maturi, Eric Kaler, the BOA, donors, boosters and others who made this gift possible.
 

It is about time that we cater to our student athletes with a world class center. This will serve them really well and bring Minnesota pride to a new level.

Kudos collectively to Jerry Kill, Joe Maturi, Eric Kaler, the BOA, donors, boosters and others who made this gift possible.

Don't forget Glen Mason. He started everything as far as the new fb stadium and thinking about FINALLY investing in the revenue sports.
 

Well, it gets us in the neighborhood of what we need. Yawn.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Well, it gets us in the neighborhood of what we need. Yawn.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ve always said, and I tell everyone this, the great thing about the facilities is we don’t have to have the biggest house in the neighborhood, but we’re in the neighborhood. And I don’t mean we necessarily have a house in the neighborhood, but we’re just physically in the neighborhood. We’re looking in the windows and admiring the architecture. We’d like to have a house in that neighborhood. We actually live across the tracks, Section 8. Someday, if we can get more money, I’d like to buy a little fixer upper, maybe with a little garden out back and a patio with a grill. You know, live the good life. It’s great to be here.
 

It is about time that we cater to our student athletes with a world class center. This will serve them really well and bring Minnesota pride to a new level.

Kudos collectively to Jerry Kill, Joe Maturi, Eric Kaler, the BOA, donors, boosters and others who made this gift possible.

One of the people you are forgetting is Norwood Teague. Another would be Beth.
 


<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Sam Darnold says it's the best facility he's been in.
 

I’ve always said, and I tell everyone this, the great thing about the facilities is we don’t have to have the biggest house in the neighborhood, but we’re in the neighborhood. And I don’t mean we necessarily have a house in the neighborhood, but we’re just physically in the neighborhood. We’re looking in the windows and admiring the architecture. We’d like to have a house in that neighborhood. We actually live across the tracks, Section 8. Someday, if we can get more money, I’d like to buy a little fixer upper, maybe with a little garden out back and a patio with a grill. You know, live the good life. It’s great to be here.

Okay, I laughed!
 

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Sam Darnold says it's the best facility he's been in.

It's a great video and should be a nice tool for recruiting, but he visited Oregon and Stanford while being recruited out of hs. If he said it was one of the best (top5), I'd take him more seriously.
 




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