Mocs’ new weight room about more than muscle

When B.J. Taylor made his official visit to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga last January, the defensive tackle wasn’t impressed by the Mocs’ weight room in McKenzie Arena. The weight room was on the campus tour all recruits take, but it was by no means one of the highlights.

“They showed it to me, but I was like, my (junior college) and my high school had better than that,” Taylor said.

That’s no longer the case. The football Mocs began offseason workouts last Monday in UTC’s new weight room, the Wolford Family Strength and Conditioning Center in the $3.25 million, 20,000-square-foot and privately funded Brenda Lawson Student-Athlete Success Center.

The new facility has a lot more room, a lot more equipment and a much bigger “wow” factor, Taylor said.

“If you’re a recruit and you come in and look at this, it’s a real nice facility and I think they’re going to be impressed,” he said.

The Mocs had nine recruits making official visits this weekend,and recruiting coordinator Jason McManus said having top-of-the-line facilities makes a huge difference in getting top-of-the-line players.

“Whoever has the best is going to get the best talent, and if you’re marginal facility-wise, you’re not going to get the best talent,” said McManus, one of two assistant coaches retained by new coach Russ Huesman. “It makes them feel that there’s a commitment to athletics; it makes them feel wanted. It makes them feel special, makes them feel cared about, and in turn they’re going to have fun and produce on the playing field.

“The old weight room we had, it was an older facility and a lot of the kids we recruited had better high school facilities than what we had. Now you can take them to our weight room because it’s an awesome facility. Not many people in the Southern Conference or in FCS football have a facility as nice as we have.”

When Huesman played for the Mocs from 1978 to ’81, he said the team’s weight room was a little room — “I think it was a classroom at one time,” he said — at Chamberlain Field. Last Friday, he got a tour of the Wolford Center from strength coach Scott Brincks and came away excited and impressed.

“We can get a lot of work done in here,” Huesman said as he walked among the different pieces of equipment.

The $150,000 worth of equipment was selected by Brincks, who said the new facility has virtually everything he could have wanted to train not only the football team but the athletes in all 17 of UTC’s sports. There are 10 full-sized power racks — the McKenzie Arena weight room had seven half-racks — for weightlifting, pull-ups and dips, as well as a speed-work mat, two treadmills and numerous other machines and stations.

“We weren’t able to do (in the old weight room) about half of what we’ll be able to do in here,” Brincks said. “Our guys can be faster; our guys can be stronger; our guys can be leaner; our guys can be in better shape and better football players; and this will help us get there.”

As recently as a year ago when Taylor visited UTC, the Mocs were lagging far behind most of the SoCon in everyday facilities. While Finley Stadium remains one of the top stadiums in the Football Championship Subdivision, the UTC weight room and locker room hadn’t received significant upgrades in many years.

With the new weight room and the $100,000 face-lift the locker room received last summer, the program has made a lot of off-the-field progress in a short amount of time.

“There have been a lot of changes just since I’ve been here, and that’s going to help towards recruiting and helping us get the guys that we need,” Taylor said. “And the better the facilities, the better the performance you’re going to get out of us as far as strengthening us and getting us quicker. It’s going to make a big difference.

“I know one of the things I really like is because this weight room is so much bigger, we can get more guys in there together, and that’s going to help us push each other and bring us closer as a team.

“It’s like a new era around here. There’s new energy and new life.”

UTC athletic director Rick Hart hopes the Lawson Center will be a good recruiting tool not only for athletes but also for boosters.

“We’ll showcase this (facility) to prospective donors,” Hart said, “because not only does it get people in the mind-set of contributing and doing something like this, but also they can come in and see the manner in which it was done.

“This is a first-class facility ... and I think it also establishes some additional trust (for donors) to know their investment is going to be well utilized and represent what they want it to represent and what we represent, which is excellence.”