CCU athletic training room bulks up for pre-season

By Hannah Greene

With the completion date drawing near, the new Brooks Stadium Athletic Training Room at Coastal Carolina University has trainers and student-athletes pumped up for the upcoming athletic season.

The old football locker rooms at Brooks Stadium are undergoing an extensive $800,000 transformation into a new state-of-the-art training room. Completion is expected the first week of August, with staff hoping to move in by mid-August to prepare for the football and soccer seasons. 

The new location serves as a central location, easily accessible for most student-athletes. While most of the sports programs have their own smaller training rooms, the new one is a one-stop shop for all student-athletes, providing them with all the space and resources needed for a successful season.

The current training room in the Williams-Brice Recreation Center consists of two offices used by 10 staff members, a small open area for athlete training, and two plunge pools the size of bathtubs. The significant lack of space in the training room, which was converted from a classroom more than 10 years ago, forces athletes to use the hallway as a training area. 

The new facility has four times the space of the current training room and nearly two times more open floor space, allowing trainers to accommodate more student-athletes. 

The new facility will include staff offices, a private physician exam room, storage areas, and a hydrotherapy room housing two plunge pools and a therapy pool. The new plunge pools are each the size of a hot tub with whirlpool-like features, one pool being hot and the other cold. The biggest addition is the hydrotherapy pool, a swimming pool with a treadmill in it. 

“Therapy pools are something we don’t have right now,” said Dwayne Beam, assistant athletic director. “The current plunge pools fit only one body, and it’s difficult to even turn over in them. Our new pools can fit six offensive linemen at a time.” 

Another advantage is privacy. The private exam area allows physicians to work with student-athletes twice a week and on game days in a more private setting, and the addition of more staff offices allows the athletes talk to their trainers comfortably. 

“There are times when you need to have private conversations,” said Beam. “We’re health care providers, so there is patient/provider confidentiality. For a student to be able to sit down with us and discuss whatever’s going on in a private setting is important to us.” 

Eager student-athletes expect to use the new athletic training facility at Brooks Stadium by the beginning of the fall 2011 semester. Basketball and volleyball teams will continue to use the current training room in the Williams-Brice building until the completion of the Student Recreation and Convocation Center in February 2012.