Take a walk into the new weight room facility outside the Iocolano-Petty Football Complex. You will breathe in that new car smell. It’s the scent of a new, but more importantly, well-maintained facility.

When you look around, the fresh smell is just one of the many features that leaves you amazed. The sight of the new structure, finished in December 2005, impresses you enough.

A Syracuse block ‘S’ is etched on all the weights. ‘Orange Pride’ is written on the dumbbells. Then you realize this new facility looks good on the outside and the inside; but better yet, the state-of-the-art equipment will help you improve athletically.

Daryl Gross, Syracuse’s director of athletics, imagined a ‘wow factor’ when he envisioned a newly constructed weight room facility. It’s a facility that would meet the demands in hopes to ensure a successful football team and to open workout space in the old facility for other teams. The completion of this weight room is the first step.

‘It continues to be tweaked, refined and more specified for the individual,’ Gross said. ‘That’s training; it’s just like any other medium, whether it be technology or anything. It improves and improves and improves. We have to keep up with the nuances with weight training.’

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There are platform safety bars on the free weights. Don’t worry about any of the weights falling off – they stick magnetically. There are also stainless steel, rust-free dumbbells.

The padding on the dip machine serves as a counter balance to body weight, ensuring maximized strength and comfort level. The custom-made cable links and the two work stations on each side of a pull down bar machine are there for convenience. The weight plates are octagon-shaped, not round, so there is no chance for the weights to roll on the floor.

The floor is soft enough, so a pad is not needed to perform an ab workout. Handles are neatly arranged alongside the walls of the facility to provide easier access with the floor being spotless.

It’s what Gross and the athletic staff imagined after visiting Niketown in New York, recalls Mark Jackson, SU’s executive senior associate director of athletics.

‘We felt it was something the program needed in order to be competitive,’ Jackson said. ‘The initial plan began with previous administrations but it was really Dr. Gross who saw it through.’

When Gross attended the Big East tournament in New York in March 2005, he walked around Niketown to formulate marketing ideas. In that store, five floors of shoes and athletic wear are displayed in polished metal surroundings. It was also maximizing the facility’s space.

Gross wanted to adopt a similar model. Will Hicks, SU’s head strength and conditioning coach, said the gym was divided into four separate parts. The first section includes heavy and free weights, as well as squat racks. The second consists of pull down bars and the third has three sets of dumbbells.

The cardiovascular and rehabilitation machines make up the fourth part on the second floor, which are mainly used for endurance and rehab purposes. The upstairs dumbbells are lighter, ranging from 10 to 50 pounds, for athletes who may have suffered an injury. Pectoral and shoulder machines are also available for athletes who have experienced hand, wrist or finger injuries.

The design of the facility categorizes the sections based on an athlete’s workout plan, allowing the strength and conditioning staff to spread the athletes around the facility.

It’s something Gross, as well as the whole athletic administration, would be proud of displaying. But there hasn’t been a public unveiling yet. Gross wants to display frames of former Syracuse athletes, similar to what he did in the Carrier Dome’s halls, along the walls of the training facility.

‘The facility is functional now,’ Jackson said. ‘But all the bells and whistles aren’t finished, which revolves around the recruiting elements. The former athletes showcased there will relate to marketing and our experiences.’

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The football team has already used the new weight training facility. Finishing 1-10 last year, the Orange hopes the expanded weight training program will help eradicate its past failures and lure more recruits.

Some could see a struggling program. Or they could see a program in transition, experiencing possible hardships while also making the necessary steps to stop the losing. A spacious weight training facility can be part of the successful formula.

‘The new weight room makes it a lot more fun to work out,’ sophomore wide receiver Quinton Brown said. ‘It’s like a new toy. We were pretty excited to work out in it.’

That new toy Brown describes includes an expanded surround system that echoes throughout the complex. On Wednesday, a handful of football players pumped iron while rap music blared over the sound speakers, creating, depending on your taste in music, a pumped-up atmosphere in a relaxed yet hard-working setting.

All the football equipment has been moved out of the old weight training facility in Manley Field House and into the new one.

‘We have a new sense of urgency when we’re going in there,’ sophomore wide receiver Max Meisel said. ‘It’s specifically for us.’

The facility specifically is for the 73 players on the football team, but not exclusive for them. Since Hicks and Hal Luther, an assistant strength and conditioning coach, also work with the softball and women’s basketball team, those teams have access to the new facility. The new shift makes the availability of the old weight room more accommodating for other teams.

‘It was a scheduling nightmare,’ said Mary Jo Firnbach, SU’s head softball coach. ‘Honestly, it was hard to figure out. Normally the offseason sports went in the morning hours and the in-season sports had more flexibility because they didn’t want their team up so early.’

During the offseason, the softball team worked out in the new facility three times a week at 7 a.m. It’s a time schedule that senior outfielder Cassie Morales said she didn’t look forward to, a time pitcher Erin Downey thought was odd considering it was dark outside.

But Firnbach said most players eventually adapted to the daily grind. In fact, some players, in particular freshman Heather Kim, preferred the time because they finished their commitment early in the morning.

Since the team is playing now, it only works out two days a week, and therefore doesn’t need to work in the new weight room as much. But since the season has ended for the women’s basketball team, it has had access to the facility.

Breaking it down into three-day-a-week sessions, the players on the women’s basketball team work on their upper bodies on Monday, lower bodies on Wednesday and various activities, including boxing, in what sophomore center Vaida Sipaviciute calls ‘Fun Fridays.’

Freshman forward Lina Lisnere said some of the workouts have included exercises similar to what the football team uses, although the workouts also stress a stricter balance between strength and endurance.

Even though the new workout facility is open to the softball and women’s basketball team, they still use the old facility interchangeably. Players often use the old workout facility for individual workouts. Gross, for instance, tries to fit time in his schedule to work out three days a week and so he can interact with players. He uses the old facility; he doesn’t need top-notch equipment the football players might.

‘I get a good sweat,’ Gross said.

That’s not to degrade the old facility, though. Similar to the new one, the old facility’s spotless on the floor and has the necessities – treadmills, free weights and machines. But the weights in this facility are round, and the floor is carpeted. Hicks plans to make those changes in bringing in new equipment to the old facility by this summer.

It’s beneficial, given more teams are currently using the old facility than the new one. But that could change soon.

‘We’re still using the other weight room,’ said Roy Simmons III, SU’s men’s lacrosse defensive coach. ‘I think starting next season there will be a change, and there will be football (and) men’s lacrosse to spread out numbers so the room is taken up all the time.’

Hicks said there are various factors, including staff availability, scheduling and team agendas that can determine whether other teams will utilize the new facility.

Given that offseason conditioning is stressed more frequently, the strength and conditioning staff has only dealt with about half of the teams since construction was completed.

Hicks will have a better idea come fall semester. But there are some teams Hicks can rule out. Syracuse tennis coach Mac Gifford said although the new facility can be beneficial, his team doesn’t need to use it.

Chris Muldoon, a senior runner on the track and field team, said the team didn’t use either weight training facility too much because head coach Chris Fox wanted to bring incremental changes to the program. Next year it won’t be known to what extent the team will use weight training, if at all, given most of their conditioning is done outside.

Women’s volleyball coach Jing Pu said his team works out in the Women’s Building during the season and in Manley during the spring. The men’s rowing team conditions in Archbold Gymnasium.

Based on conversations with Hicks and other members of Syracuse athletic teams, the consensus is the new weight training facility brought positive changes with the football team and in terms of opening up space for other programs. But they all know more positive changes will occur.

‘People have been impressed, whether it’s a high school player or players who have come back from the NFL,’ Gross said. ‘Everyone has nothing but positive (things to say) and have felt that we are really committed to athletics here. There is a real opportunity to succeed and achieve here.’

Published on April 26, 2006 at 12:00 pm