Coaches have a lot to deal with from a day-to-day basis as they plan practice, manage their staff and deal with the other things the day throws at them, but there’s always one thing always in the back of their mind: recruiting.
A lot of things coaches do are designed to streamline recruiting efforts, trying to make them as efficient as possible, and the new renovations at Williams-Brice are no different.
“Coach Muschamp had a lot of input in the area below and the recruiting area and where the players come in and out and the opportunity for the fan base to be engaged,” Ray Tanner said.
Under the $22 million project, the Gamecocks upgraded bathrooms, kitchens and premium areas but one of the other much-needed areas that was upgraded was the staging area for recruits in the south end zone.
The south end zone is where the old weight room used to be and, since the Gamecocks moved over to the Long Operations Facility in 2019, the weight room and the surrounding team meeting rooms aren’t being used for much so got a much-needed facelift.
The weight room area, which used to host recruits for games, is now the Cockaboose Club and the meeting rooms are now a large, renovated area for recruits to eat and hangout on game days when they’re not watching the game, touring the facilities or interacting with coaches and players.
Walls in the room are currently plastered with a mural from 2001 and right outside is a picture of Jadeveon Clowney sacking Tyler Bray.
The room is designed to feed close to 400 people—recruits and their families, primarily—on game days before finishing their either unofficial or official visits.
It’ll then lead to its own stairwell down to the field where recruits will have their own entrance to the field where they can watch pregame warm-ups on the field before going to their seats right above the locker room.
The Gamecocks already have something like the recruit staging area at the ops building, complete with gaming systems and other things to occupy their times before going on a tour.
“(Muschamp) got here at just the right time to have his fingerprints on the building and practice facility. I remember going to him and saying, ‘I know you’re a football coach and I know how you guys are wired, but we have this project that’s coming. If you choose to engage, it’s going to take some time, you can be invested. He said, ‘I very much want to be,’” Tanner said. “He jumped in on this one as well. We’ve been able to do things that are very important.”
Recruits will sit right next to the loge seating above the 2001 Club, which allows fans a chance to take part in the tradition (in a non-COVID-19 impacted season).
It’s one of the first set ups like it in the SEC with Ole Miss having something similar but not quite like what South Carolina has, associate athletic director Steve Eigenbrot said.
The renovations continue to build South Carolina’s facilities up from what they were just even five years ago, and it’s a far cry from what it was when Muschamp arrived and a lot different than some of the other schools he’s had stops at in his career.
“He’s been around the block a little bit. He’s been at some schools," Tanner said. "His input was very important to this project.”
