08/06/2008

By DOUG TUCKER  / Associated Press

The Kansas football program is no longer trying to support a champagne taste on a beer budget.

Coaches won't feel like hiding their eyes any more when visiting prospects see the locker room. Players won't have to stand in line to get treatment for injuries. And they'll no longer suffer the peonage of having to ride a bus to their own home games.

It's a new era in Lawrence. The Anderson Family Football Complex, gleaming a state-of-the-art facility, now sits on the southwest side of Memorial Stadium like a bright and shining monument to last year's amazing 12-1 season.

When the doors swung open just in time for fall practice, the Jayhawks leapt forward about 60 years, from the squiggly lined black-and-white 1950s to the high-tech, high-impact HDTV of today.

"This place is awesome. I'm telling you it's awesome," said junior safety Justin Thornton, sitting in the spacious auditorium. "The first time I came in here I felt like I was being recruited all over again."

Recruiting is the name of the game in college athletics, and ultimately that will be the main benefit of the $31 million complex that now houses the training tables, locker room, weight room, training room, video room and spacious coaches offices.

"The No. 1 thing, it's going to be a good recruiting tool," coach Mark Mangino told a larger-than-normal contingent of reporters and photographers at Kansas' annual media day. "That's the No. 1 thing. We were able to do some good things at the old place. But for long term, it helps recruiting."

Calling the drab and outdated facilities the Jayhawks used to work out of "the old place" is being kind. No only was everything outmoded, everything was also inconvenient. There wasn't enough of anything, and nothing was close to the stadium.

Now, not only do players have a state-of-the-art building and equipment, they have it all in one place, and they have plenty of it.

"It's 1,000 times better than the old facilities," said wide receiver Dexton Fields. "I think it shows how much our program has evolved from where it used to be."

Like a freshly painted automobile that's just been driven off the showroom floor, the Anderson Family Complex even smells new.

"I love it. It's top of the line," said linebacker Joe Mortensen. "We have flat-screen TV's everywhere. Our locker room is huge. Our players lounge is great. I'm so glad my senior year I get to have facilities like this."

Even if the Jayhawks had not gone 12-1 last season and beaten Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl, the new complex would have been built. Construction began more than a year ago. But having it open just as players return following the greatest season in school history makes it all feel like a grand reward for a job well done.

"It's pretty unreal," said quarterback/wide receiver/punter Kerry Meier. "We almost have too many things. And that cant be a bad thing. Its got everything we need and then some. Hopefully, it boosts everything about Jayhawk football as far as recruiting and everything."

The head coach's office is larger than a lot of apartments people live in, and includes an enormous private shower.

"You need to have a place in college football that you have access to everything you need when you need it," said Mangino. "When you need to be in the weight room, you're there. When you need to use the auditorium for meetings, it's there. When you're having two-a-day practices and you have a lot of kids who need taped or treatment, the tables are ready. They're not sharing them with others who are waiting."

It may not sound like a big deal, but having to pile onto a bus, all dressed out in uniform, and ride across campus for a home game had coaches and players muttering under their breath for decades. Now they'll get dressed and march right onto the field just as their counterparts — and recruiting rivals — at places like Oklahoma.

"The thing the kids will really enjoy more than anything else is coming over here and actually relaxing in their complex and being able to concentrate on game day," Mangino said.

"They don't have to worry about having meetings in one facility and then getting on a bus. A lot of times coming (to the stadium) on the bus on game day, there are people stopping traffic to try to sell tickets. Our buses are sitting in the traffic waiting while somebody is trying to scalp some tickets."

Like somebody once said, there's nothing like a new pair of shoes to put a bounce in a fella's step.

"I always felt like KU was a big-time program," said wide receiver Marcus Herford. "It was just a matter of turning the program around and getting the facility to show it."