UNC Football Locker, Weight Room See Major Upgrades
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's football locker room and weight room received a facelift over the summer, and players saw the renovated spaces for the first time Monday. As expected, the new facilities were well received by the players.
Each of the lockers are 3 feet wide and stainless steel with plenty of storage and charging space and will have fans inside to dry the equipment.
Twenty-three custom Sorinex lifting racks were introduced to the weight room, and a Gatorade fueling station with high-tech equipment and healthy ingredients will allow players to create their own protein shakes to their liking.
Improvements of the team's facilities have been high on head coach Mack Brown's to-do list since he was hired by the Tar Heels in the off-season.
"We’ve got to be the cool place to be in recruiting, and the lockers are old, they are outdated," the Hall of Fame coach told 247Sports in March. "They don’t have a cooling system to dry all the shoulder pads, knee braces and helmets when they are in there, so kids would have to lay stuff on the floor. They don’t have a place to plug in their iPads and their phones, and y’all know how drastic that is for young people right now, so we’ve had to bring in some charging poles."
This news comes just days after LSU unveiled multimillion-dollar changes to its locker room, which includes individual "sleeping pods" for players, according to CBS Sports.
These upgrades are not the only changes the football team is seeing this summer. New seats and artificial turf were added to Kenan Stadium, replacing the natural grass, and a new indoor practice facility was recently opened.
The Tar Heels will open up the 2019 season against the South Carolina Gamecocks in Charlotte on Aug. 31. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.