Syracuse Orange Football Facility Renovations Unveiled

Last year, DOCTOR Gross put out a call for $4 million worth of donations to help upgrade the football facilities. I guess he got more than he expected cause Syracuse Athletics just unveiled $5 million worth of renovations to its current football facilities.

The home of Syracuse football is undergoing a major renovation to support the University mission to bring the program back to national prominence. State-of-the-art upgrades will improve the locker room, student-athlete lounge, cafeteria, Hall of Fame lobby, and team auditorium in the facility that is the center of the program’s day-to-day operation. The dramatic facility improvements follow construction of the cutting-edge Strength and Conditioning Facility in 2005 and the renovations of the football sports medicine facility in 2011.

Note that this is different than those plans for a completely new football facility that popped up over the weekend. Gross called those plans "inaccurate" and it was implied that those might have just been mock-ups for a possible future project.

Gross championed the new plans in SU Athletics' release:

"It is time that we do something spectacular for football. We have the Carmelo Anthony Center on one side of the Manley complex and the new football renovated facility, with an obvious entrance, will be the cornerstone on the other side. We will integrate the great history of Syracuse football into the present vision of Coach Doug Marrone's football team, which is vital as we climb back into prominence and eventually transition into the ACC. It is very important that we maintain the highest level of student-athlete welfare for our football program."

Some of the specifics mentioned include:

• Interactive exhibits, including touch screen monitors and video displays, that bring to life the legacies of folks like Jim Brown, John Mackey, Floyd Little, Dwight Freeney, Marvin Harrison and Donovan McNabb (what, no Quentin Spotwood?).
  
• A special presentation for the centerpiece of the facility, Ernie Davis' Heisman Trophy.
• A prominently-displayed section on Syracuse's bowl game history (lots of pinstripes).
• Renovations to the locker room, student-athlete lounge, cafeteria, and team auditorium.
• New interactive monitors throughout the facility, furniture, lockers and carpeting.
• Energy-efficient components, including skylights and a new ventilation system.
• Ghosts. Lots and lots of ghosts...

The new features are expected to be complete prior to the start of the 2012 football season, so, you know, very soon.