Training rooms in The Convo are getting a facelift that should be completed in time for basketball season.
For the past month, the training rooms located between the men’s and women’s basketball locker rooms have been renovated to add space for the Bobcats.
Jason Farmer, assistant athletics director for facilities and operations, outlined the plans for the renovations.
“We are going to increase our usable square footage,” Farmer said. “One of the biggest additions wiell be a set of hot-cold plunge tanks. We didn’t really have that ... in the past.”
In order to increase the usable floor space, several staff offices are moving across the hall, and the plunge tanks will replace them. The coolers and ice machines will move into one of the bathrooms as well.
Other equipment is being updated, and more treatment tables are being added.
The cost of construction sits close to $250,000 alone. The total project nears $350,000.
The project was funded through private donations. Robert and Margaret Walter gifted $10 million for the renovations and new multipurpose facility.
“The Walter gift is a portion of it. The first year of the Walter gift, which I believe after some degree of taxes, … (is) about $180,000,” Farmer said. “The rest is from individual donations.”
With the training rooms out of commission, teams based in The Convo have to adapt to the temporary situation.
But the teams do not have to go anywhere off campus. They only have to move to another area of The Convo.
“We’ve obtained, on a temporary basis, some square footage from another part of the building,” Farmer said. “We have access to four different spaces, where the athletic trainers have moved. That’s kind of how we are meeting the need now. We’ve just really relocated.”
The four different spaces that are being used are classrooms housed in The Convo. They used to be computer-science classrooms but now house the Ohio Program of Intensive English.
The change of scenery hasn’t upset the teams’ normal regimens.
“I don’t think the move of the training room has been that bad. I mean, it’s only about 50 yards from where it was,” volleyball coach Ryan Theis said. “... I don’t think it’s actually been that inconvenient.”
Theis said the only change is that the team trainer is not able to watch practice as closely.
He sees the rooms as an asset to the program once completed.
“I think it’s a nice feature when recruiting,” Theis said. “We can show kids that we care about athletics, that we care about volleyball.”
nr225008@ohiou.edu
