A couple hours before their first fall-camp practice of the season, Washington players got their first look at their new locker room at Husky Stadium on Monday afternoon — a rich reward for a team coming off its first trip to the College Football Playoff.

The locker room renovation comes just four years after the completion of a $282 million overhaul to Husky Stadium, which included a brand-new “W”-shaped locker room as part an 83,000-square-foot football operations center.

The new locker room cost roughly $1 million and was covered by a gift from a donor, multiple UW sources told The Times.

“It’s like a spaceship in there. It’s definitely the coolest locker room I’ve ever been in,” defensive tackle Greg Gaines said after practice Monday. “Coach Pete said he’s always been about having a championship locker room, so he wanted to put his money where his mouth was and build us a championship locker room.”

Lavish player locker rooms are the latest trend in an ongoing arms race around college football. Such facilities are viewed as a way to attract more recruits to campus.

Earlier this year, Texas Tech unveiled a $1.6 million renovation to its football locker room, and the Texas Longhorns spent $10,500 on each player’s locker, each of which includes a 43-inch flat screen TV.

 

Source:seattletimes.com

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