Broos Training Room Provides Space for Healing and Learning

Walking through the new Mary G. Broos Training Facility in the basement of Alumni Gym, the first thing that strikes me is the huge space. The old training room only had four treatment tables, but now nine shiny crimson treatment tables flank two walls. In the old room, student-athletes often had to awkwardly hop on counters for treatment on. Now a large, low, gray table connected to an island provides ample work space.



The offices of the new training room



Two spacious offices for staff sit on the back wall next to a short hallway, which leads to an evaluation room for visiting team doctors. In the middle of the training room an island connects with the gray table, which holds various supplies. The old space only had two cramped offices and no private evaluation area. Opposite the offices and evaluation room, twin ice baths provide plenty of space for post practice and post-game soaking.

The old training room, now a refurbished locker room, will serve different teams based on season and need. Athletes and trainers packed in the old space like pedestrians in a subway. I remember vividly student-athletes packing the room looking for treatment. There was always a struggle to accommodate everyone. When we hosted teams there was even less room as visiting teams also needed treatment.

“We can take care of a lot more people a lot faster than we used to,” said assistant athletic trainer Danielle Duffy. “The fact that we can fit a soccer team and a volleyball team and a football team, plus visiting teams, makes our jobs a lot easier.”

Head athletic trainer Gary Rizza also noted how the new facility will help attract students to the college and aid coaches in recruiting.

“Coaches can bring recruits down here with their parents and see what we have in here, as well as what’s out on the field,” said Rizza.

The old training facility, now a locker room

One thing in particular that I like, and visiting recruits will like as well, is the ice bath room. I use the ice baths often after basketball practice and they are great for tired legs. In the old training room, the ice baths were in the main room, sandwiched between the ice machine and two treatment tables. The quarters were cramped and rubber mats were required because the floor was not slip-resistant. I almost fell several times. Now there is more space for the tubs and the floors are designed for wet feet.

Assistant athletic trainer Jared Siglin noted out how the old facility also did not stack up against the competition in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.

“You look at a place like Virginia Wesleyan, that doesn’t have a football team, and they had a bigger space than we did,” said Siglin. “Four treatment tables (in the old facility) were not enough for all the students we had coming in. We were behind the times.”

Duffy added the old facility did not fit all the people and waiting became an issue. It was also old, occupying the same space since Alumni Gym was constructed in 1950.

The space is named for Broos, Guilford’s athletic trainer from 1978 to 2008, because of her over 30 years of service and to honor her role as a trailblazer in the profession. When she started at Guilford in 1978 she was the only woman in charge of a college sports medicine program in North Carolina. Broos did not expect the room to be named in her honor and was very emotional about the new training space.

“I felt very humbled and very surprised to be honored. I never dreamed about this happening. It was just a shock,” said Broos. “The room will allow students more space to come in and work as well as learn.”

Story by Will Cloyd