Ground Broken for New Strength and Conditioning Center

Utah State University Athletics held a ground breaking ceremony May 30 for its new strength and conditioning center — a facility that will be located at the northwest corner of Romney Stadium.

The ceremonial shovel turning featured President Stan L. Albrecht, Director of Athletics Scott Barnes, head football coach Gary Andersen and current student-athletes McKade Brady (football), Pua Furtado (women’s basketball), Preston Medlin (men’s basketball) and Josselyn White (volleyball).

"I would just remind you that the bottom line is we're doing this for our student-athletes,” said Utah State University President Stan Albrecht at the groundbreaking. “We can talk about our coaches, we can talk about fans who will come out and enjoy the product, but at the end of the day what we're doing is for students, and in this case, specifically student-athletes.

“In order to get to where we are today, we have had to take some very significant steps,” Albrecht continued. “As we have been involved in this journey of finding ourselves where we need to be in the Mountain West Conference, our ability to get there has been absolutely dependent on our ability to upgrade our facilities so that we can be competitive in the ways we need to be.”

The $6.4 million, 21,000 square-foot strength and conditioning center will feature areas for weight training, cardiovascular workouts and speed and agility training, as well as staff offices. Built on existing university property at the northwest corner of Romney Stadium, the state-of-the-art multi-level facility will alleviate overcrowding in the existing 5,800 square-foot strength and conditioning center and will accommodate almost 400 athletes from 16 sports programs.

The facility, made possible by the largest single gift in the history of Aggie Athletics from an anonymous donor, is expected to be completed in April 2013, just in time for USU’s official move to the Mountain West Conference on July 1, 2013.

When the building opens it will be the largest such facility in the Mountain West and rival any strength and conditioning complex in the country. Of the schools Utah State will be competing against in the MW, Fresno State currently has the largest strength and conditioning center at 12,500 square feet, followed by Air Force (12,000 sq. ft.), Wyoming (11,100 sq. ft.), Hawai`i (10,000 sq. ft.), New Mexico (10,000 sq. ft.), Colorado State (10,000 sq. ft.), San Jose State (10,000 sq. ft.), UNLV (8,200 sq. ft.) and Nevada (8,000 sq. ft.).

“The location, programming aspects and amenities of the new strength and conditioning center will serve as a huge recruiting opportunity for all sports,” said Barnes.

All funding for the new strength and conditioning center will come from private donations.

The location of the facility may allow the athletic department to capitalize on potential new merchandise sales and customer service opportunities as well.

The project is the latest in a series of recent athletic facility improvements at Utah State. In 2008, the university completed construction on the 69,000 square foot Jim & Carol Laub Athletics-Academics Complex. In 2009, USU opened the Steve Mothersell Athletics Hall of Honor as well as its new off-court basketball facilities that include the Nate and Heather Wickizer men’s basketball and MerLynn Pitcher women’s basketball locker rooms. In 2010, USU opened the Dr. Randall and Julianne Stockham Student-Athlete Academic Hall of Honor and in 2011 a new synthetic turf was installed in the Stan Laub Indoor Training Center.

For more information on the new strength and conditioning center or to pledge a gift, contact the Utah State Athletics Department, (435) 797-1850.

Related links:

• Video of Utah State Strength & Conditioning Center Ground Breaking Ceremony
• Photo Gallery
• Utah State Strength & Conditioning Center Renderings
• Quotes From Ground-Breaking Ceremony

Contact: Doug Hoffman, (435) 797-3714