Britt Recording

Brittany Howard is the head women's lacrosse coach and strength and conditioning coordinator at Waver. The new weight room renovation cost around $50,000 and includes new flooring, equipment, and more space compared to the old weight room. The renovation helps with recruiting by providing a more appealing and functional space. Having more resources allows for better coaching and the ability for the team to do exercises together. The renovation was necessary due to damage in the old weight room and the use of outdated equipment. The decision to renovate came from the athletic director and involved input from various campus members. Access to the weight room is limited to athletes. Varsity coaches have mixed feelings about the renovation, but overall it was necessary for the department. Brittany believes the money was well spent as the weight room is a crucial space for athletes and needed an update. What is your name and can you spell it please? Brittany Howard, B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y, H-O-W-A-R-D. What is your title and role with Waver? I am the head women's lacrosse coach here on campus and I also am the strength and conditioning coordinator for the athletic department. Roughly how much money was put into the new renovation? I would say probably around $50,000 just with the expense of all the platforms that we used to renovate the new flooring which obviously has the logo on that as well and then all the equipment in there like the jump boxes and jump ropes, the bands, all of that. How does the new weight room help with teams recruiting? I think that the new weight room versus the old weight room has a lot of extra space compared to the old weight room. We were using old equipment from on campus which was wear and tear and so we took out the treadmills and put in the new platforms. Like I said there are 12 platforms in there. The cardio equipment got moved so I think having bigger space when we are showing recruits definitely helps and obviously having all the new equipment versus the old equipment. People like things that are appealing to the eye so I think that definitely helps with the process of recruiting. Does it change how you coach now that you have more resources available? Before it was definitely challenging with having the cardio equipment in there. Now having the 12 platforms allows the team to all be doing the same exercises at the same time. Each team definitely runs their weight program differently but specifically for women's lacrosse I would say it helps because there is space for the teams to be doing the same exercises but there is also space in the middle of the room to do body weight stuff or core in there as well. What was the reason behind the renovation? The biggest thing I think was this building is older so there was a lot of damage done in the weight room just because the water leaking on the walls and stuff. The renovation had to start with that, fixing that first. That happened in late spring last year and then they started renovating once the students left in May. Like I said there was new flooring so they tore up all the floors and then put in all the weight equipment but it took a while because you have to build each platform. I think that again just going back to using the old equipment from the fitness centers on campus was definitely part of the renovations. That's why the department needed an update in renovation of the weight room. Who or what committee decided it was time to make renovations? I believe that it all came from our athletic director and she put together the idea with talking to a couple different people on campus just about different ideas that she had and then tied in the coaches and the strength staff as well. Who is allowed access to the weight room? The weight room is strictly athletics so all the athletes are allowed to use it. Certain teams don't use it just because they have their own facilities elsewhere but the weight room is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday so those athletes can come in and use the weight room when it fits their schedule. What are the overall thoughts and feelings between varsity coaches about this renovation? I think it's a mixture. I know that some of the equipment is newer. They took away some of the older equipment that some of the other teams used so now we don't have those. Some of the coaches are frustrated with that but overall I think it was needed for the department to have these renovations to give the weight room and Laker a new look versus what it's looked like for the past several years. Do you believe that this was money well spent and why? I do. I think that this is one of the spaces that a lot of the athletes use on a daily basis so making sure we have up-to-date equipment and giving them the opportunity to work out every day is a positive. Renovating that area was definitely needed since it is probably the most used space in Laker Hall.