The Univ. of Minnesota's Athletes Village facilities project is "progressing as scheduled," according to Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. UM Associate AD/Facilities Scott Ellison, who is overseeing the project, said the school is "on time" and "on budget." Ellison: "The biggest building as part of this is the U indoor football facility, and you could actually fit the old football facility inside the new facility. We have 85 feet to the peak of the indoor facility so we can actually punt indoors; that was one of the problems we had in the old facility was you couldn’t punt indoors because we were at 65 feet." Ellison said the Center for Excellence, the "academic and leadership center along with the basketball practice facility, is ahead of the football facility" on construction. Ellision said this facility will "have a weight room that’s going to be twice the size of the weight room we have now for football, approximately 7,000 square feet to 16,000 square feet for the weight room." Ellison: "The athletic medicine area will be a much better facility for the football players and for the team. We’re going to have two what are called hydro-works treadmills in there, so if there’s a player who can’t put any weight on an injury it can actually get him into these treadmill pools and they can do non-weightbearing rehab sessions without any issues with their injuries." Ellison said the offices, team and position meeting rooms are "all on one level now." With the new facility, Ellison said both the men's and women's basketball teams will "have basketball courts," and there will be a "main practice court with two cross-courts." Ellision added, "Our facilities will be on par if not better than other Big Ten institutions" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 5/8).
