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University of Tennessee at Chattanooga gets facility facelift

By: John Frierson
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Paint fumes are in the air this week in the hallway outside the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football locker room in McKenzie Arena. So too is a beat up Mortal Kombat arcade game that’s almost as old as the Mocs’ incoming freshmen.

For the first time in the Rodney Allison era at UTC, the Mocs’ locker room is getting a facelift that will include five flat-screen televisions, three computers, a lounge area and a new, more comfortable layout than the old bare-bones version that did little to encourage the players to stick around any longer than they had to.

“They’re going to re-do the inside; there’s going to be a reorganization of the lockers — it’s just going to be an upgrade,” Allison said. “We’re going to get it up to a level that works for us. It was not tolerable the way it was before.”

The project — which will cost around $100,000 — has been high on the priority list of both Allison and athletic director Rick Hart for the past two years, and Allison said it is the first significant facility upgrade since he took over in December 2002. Allison said the locker rooms were re-done shortly before he was hired, but this is a much bigger overhaul.

An upgrade of this magnitude was made possible by the 12-game schedule next season and decision to play two money games, against Oklahoma and Florida State, who will play UTC a combined $935,000.

The Mocs will use some of that money to pay for some one-time expenditures, such as the locker room, a new video-editing system and new headsets for the coaches to wear during games. Allison said the locker room will be completed in time for the start of fall camp and the other purchases will also be completed this summer.

In December, when the Mocs were putting the 2008 schedule together, Hart said renovating the locker room was about a lot more than just having a nice place to change clothes.

“I think you want to send a message with your locker room,” he said, “to not only incoming prospects but your current student-athletes and coaches, that we care about football and that it’s important to us — and that this is a place where you can come in between classes and hang out and feel welcomed and comfortable.”

The players are excited about the upgrade, junior wide receiver Blue Cooper said.

“The old locker room wasn’t anything special,” he said. “It wasn’t anything to compare to what we saw on away trips, and those were the visitors locker rooms.”

For the past three years, the Mocs’ locker room hasn’t been a part of the facilities tour prospects take on their recruiting trips, Allison said, because it was so inferior to the locker rooms of the other teams in the Southern Conference. Cooper said he didn’t see it until he arrived on campus as a freshman.

“We saw the locker room at Finley (Stadium), but not this one,” Cooper said. “I wouldn’t have shown it to us, either.”

Cooper said he doesn’t fully subscribe to the look good-play good notion, but he said there is something to the idea that if you feel appreciated and taken care of, then that can produce positive results on the field.

“It’s more of a mindset, I think, maybe you get a little swag in your step,” he said. “I think this will make us feel like a big-time program. All we got to do now is win.”

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