To get out of her teammates’ way, Loren Ziegler usually avoided staying in Syracuse’s overcrowded locker room too long. She instead carried her belongings back and forth.

But a world-class renovation later, the Orange’s new locker room has become a second home, the senior midfielder said.

“Honestly, we pretty much all live in there,” Ziegler said. “Just being that great it also brought our team closer together because we’re always in there doing work, eating together.

“Whether we’re going to practice or not, in between classes everyone just gets back to the locker room.”

It took a $1.2 million fundraising effort and subsequent planning and building, but this year the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team finally upgraded from its outdated locker room. In the fall, it relocated within Manley Field House to a new, state-of-the-art facility in a space that was previously a weight room.

Phase one of the project has been completed and the $1.2 million has been collected and exhausted, SU head coach Gary Gait said. The next step involves the completion of a video room and a few other minor changes, a phase that he said will require at least another $300,000 and has an undetermined timeframe.

But he went “above and beyond” to provide his team what it has now, Ziegler said.

“Having a life? What’s that?” Gait said with a laugh. “It’s just — I love what I do. It’s not tough. It’s easy to go meet some alums who love Syracuse and the people who’ve gone here.

“Just trying to find people who want to help and support women’s lacrosse and provide these young ladies with the greatest facility and experience possible here at Syracuse.”

In the previous locker room, most if not all of the players had to share metal lockers because there weren’t enough. They often had trouble accessing their locker due to the volume of players and equipment in the room. There was a tiny wooden bench in the middle for players to put cleats on.

Ziegler called the carpeting “creepy.” The showers barely worked, she said, and the bathroom had only one sink and only a few stalls.

The locker room also served as a punch line for the Orange, she said, when jokingly interacting with opposing teams, pointing to how much SU has accomplished on the field despite such a limited facility.

“A little cramped is an understatement,” said Gait — who doesn’t want photos to be taken of the new locker room until it’s completed. “It was a storage room converted, throw some lockers in it, put a bathroom in the end.”

But just as easily as Ziegler rattles off the flaws of the old locker room, she seamlessly raves about the amenities of the new one.

A kitchen. A larger bathroom. Steam showers. Three TVs throughout the locker room, and Ziegler says more are on the way. A sectional couch that seats approximately 25, and then three more couches near the lockers.

And not only does each women’s lacrosse player have her own locker with plenty of space for cleats and other belongings, but there’s also an iPad in each locker with a slideshow of that player.

While Syracuse’s recruiting pitch was strengthened with the addition of the Ensley Athletic Center, Gait pushed it a step further with the upgraded locker room, all while providing his players a more comfortable team environment.

“It’s his baby and he’s very passionate about it,” associate head coach Regy Thorpe said of the locker room. “The administrators were behind him and to go out and raise that kind of money for an Olympic sport is unbelievable, I think.

“We were very fortunate to have some very generous people that want to contribute to our sport here.”

As much work as Gait put in while taking matters into his own hands, fundraising isn’t an uncommon necessity in SU Athletics. John Desko, the head coach of SU’s men’s lacrosse team, said his program gathered its own money to modernize its locker room, which was completed in 2011.

Desko added that the costs of moving from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference are still affecting SU financially.

“I think it may be a year or two before we get caught up to that,” Desko said. “I think most of the sports here recognize that until we catch up financially that if we want to do extra things that aren’t in our budget, then we have to fundraise to do that.”

Gait reached out to parents, alumni and others close to the program and held fundraising events to reach the goal of $1.2 million, and then worked hand in hand with the architects to design it and add his own personal touches, he said.

There’s still more to be done, Gait added, pointing to the film room. He said everything is accounted for, but not quite finished. Ziegler said Gait plans to add a big island table near the lockers and that music will be set up at the players’ lockers eventually.

But what Gait’s installed to this point has already reversed the culture of the locker room from being a spot Ziegler sidestepped to being one where players eat breakfast, socialize during the day and even study in at night.

“It’s spectacular and I don’t think there’s a nicer locker room in the country for any women’s sport in the country,” Gait said. “They’re lucky now. They worked hard and they’re enjoying it and truly love it and we’re happy to have it.”

Published on April 22, 2015 at 9:41 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb