Until the coaching staff moved into KSU’s new football facility on October 16th, most of the program’s developments were only theoretical.
Coaches, a corporate sponsor, and a football-only membership in the Big South were all announced since football was officially approved in February. Those are all vital steps, but none had the physical presence of giving the long-anticipated KSU football program a personal home.
Taking advantage of Cobb County’s abundance of nondescript office parks, the area’s most impressive natural resource, KSU converted warehouse and office space into its first physical facility. Offices, exercise space, and meeting rooms are all located in the new building, which took just over two months to complete.
Media and invited guests were allowed into the 29,500-square-foot space for a special KSU unveil on November 13th, a month after head coach Brian Bohannon and the seven other members of the football staff moved in. Bohannon and KSU athletic director Vaughan Williams showed the enthusiasm that has become expected of the two faces of KSU football.
“We want to do it right,” Williams said in his opening statement. “We want to do it first class.”
“This is an unbelievable step in what’s going on at Kennesaw State University and with the football program right now,” Bohannon added during his turn.
Exploring his new playhouse, the first-time head coach appeared to have the same mixture of excitement and duty that a new college freshman would have while guiding his family around campus. Yes, he’s ecstatic to live away from home for the first time, but does he really have to show grandpa the student center?
The tour began in a meeting room with capabilities to divide into thirds, and we headed toward the strength and conditioning portion of the facility. A 4,300-square-foot weight room is the centerpiece of that branch, with an office and also an adjoining turf field for speed and agility work. Bohannon says that it will remain empty until the first of the year, when the head coach expects to announce a strength coach who will make layout and equipment decisions. We pass offices for the offensive coaches and the director of football, Jay Bailey. Quarterbacks and B-backs coach Brett Gilliland is on the phone and someone assumes he is hard at work. He very well could just be ordering a pizza or buying a juicer from QVC, but for now he has most of us fooled. The offensive coaches are all clustered in a section of the building, leading back to Bohannon’s own office like it is the final room of a footballing Pokémon gym.
Leather seats, family pictures, a gigantic TV for film study (or Netflix)—the head coach’s office is everything you’d expect from the ethos of a college football figure. There are KSU graphics and “Win the Day” slogans all over the place, but Bohannon is insistent on the interlocking “KS” logo.
“That ‘KS’ has got to one day be the ‘G’ and ‘GT’,” he said, invoking the two flagship football programs in the state.
If it sounds like the former Georgia Tech assistant is recruiting us through the building, it makes sense: with practice not starting until the fall of 2014, KSU football’s new home is really just a base camp for the pursuit of the prospects that will make up the Owls’ first team. Every salesperson needs his or her showroom, and now that Bohannon has his, the habit of recruiting is tough to break.
On KSU basketball’s Flight Night, the football staff hosted 60 recruits and their families in the new facility. Bohannon was asked Wednesday about how recruits reacted, and since he cannot directly comment on individual recruits per NCAA rules, he had to somewhat avoid the question.
“Some good things that I can’t technically talk about have happened since then,” Bohannon said. “But it’s been really, really positive.”
He was, in a roundabout way, talking about receiving commitments from the class of 2014. KSUOwlHowl.com, a fan site that closely tracks recruiting, lists 11 players already committed for a class that Bohannon says he expects to reach 25-30 members when they sign in February.
While the coaches in the new facility are at work building a foundation for the program, Williams reinforces the fact that it is only temporary. As committed as he says the school is to the objective of football, he insists the new building is more of a catalyst to what the program could be.
“We look at it as a short-term situation,” Williams said. “This is not something we’re going to be in for 30 years. This is something that we need to get the program started.”
After the tour ended, Williams spent extensive time detailing his hopes for everything from the future press box to game day atmosphere, using the large visualization of a football edition of Fifth Third Bank Stadium that hangs on the wall. The optimistic athletic director’s mind seemed like it could have gone on for hours as he listed possibilities like streaming games on big screens outside the stadium, or having fans walk on closed streets to the stadium.
For now, though, simply existing will have to do. A hopeful trophy case in the hallway emphasized the triumph of even having this football building. Encased in the glass was a simple memento that represents both a victory and a beginning: the golden helmet, with Brian Bohannon’s preferred ‘KS’.
