Williams Brice nearly complete

On the heels of a makeover to the training area at Williams-Brice Stadium last year, workers are sprucing up South Carolina’s locker room, lobby and recruiting room this summer.

And though the projects will not be visible to fans attending the Gamecocks’ games this season, they will be on display for a couple of other important groups — USC’s current players and visiting recruits.

Kevin O’Connell, USC’s executive associate athletics director in charge of facilities, said the goal was to give the locker room and lobby areas the “wow factor” that athletics director Eric Hyman often mentions when discussing facilities.

Designers appear to have achieved the desired effect in the lobby, which features spotlighted photos of players inlaid on oak and stainless steel panels and a pair of flat-screen TVs with interactive features that will allow players to call up highlight videos and bios of ex-Gamecock greats.

Coming this fall: A cast-bronze sculpture of a fighting gamecock that will stand guard in the middle of the lobby. Architects envision a tradition where players rub the sculpture before games or practices.

“We’re always here before practice or after practice,” said Todd Sease of Jumper, Carter & Sease, the West Columbia architectural firm that designed the lobby. “Those guys are looking for themselves in these images, and that’s kind of neat.”

USC has a budget of nearly $4 million for the projects, more than half of which went toward converting the former weight room for spring sports teams into a new training area.

“We did an Extreme Makeover, training room edition,” said John Kasik, USC’s sports medicine director.

The training room covers 7,500 square feet, including an 1,800-square foot hydrotherapy area that looks more like a spa for the country club set than a rehab room for athletes with sprained ankles or rebuilt knees.

Kasik said a woman who mistook the facility for a private gym walked in recently inquiring about membership fees and hours of operation.

“I said, ‘Well, how much do you want to pay?’” Kasik said, jokingly.

The hydrotherapy area includes two large hot (or cold) tubs and another whirlpool with an underwater treadmill for injured athletes to start walking or running with less strain on their joints.

Kasik said the whirlpools are a significant upgrade from the “horse troughs” where football players used to cool off in ice baths following hot practices.

Officials turned a hallway leading to the training room into a tunnel-like passage that replicates the Gamecocks’ “2001” pregame entrance. Hologram panels depict players running on to the field, although officials disabled the built-in fog machine after reporting a secondary NCAA violation because such game-day simulations violate recruiting rules.

While Hyman is reviewing a feasibility study for expanding Williams-Brice, the project appears to be several years away. In the meantime, officials will continue to fix up the 75-year-old stadium.

Two of the latest projects were dictated by maintenance issues rather than aesthetics.

Workers checking out a six-inch rust spot ended up re-tiling the showers and bathroom, ripping up the carpet and replacing a 25-year-old heating and air system throughout the Gamecocks’ 5,000-square foot locker room.

“It was one of those projects that just morphed,” O’Connell said.

It turns out the rust was caused by a leaky pipe that had been plugged with a rag. Other discoveries included asbestos in the ducts above the former training room, ventilation issues in the locker room and a drainage problem at the Gatorade dispenser.

“If you stood too long, you got stuck on the carpet,” said Barbara Haller of Quackenbush Architects and Planners, the Columbia firm overseeing the locker room work.

Stadium workers also have removed the seats on the lower west side to waterproof the concrete stands.

Though the $495,000 recruiting room and players’ lounge, which will feature flat-screen TVs and video games, will not be completed until late in the fall, players should be able to move back into their locker room in a couple of weeks after using the visitors’ locker room this summer.

O’Connell is confident they will like the new digs.

“I do think the players really are going to appreciate what’s transpired over the summer.”