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Making more with less

SIU's weight room is a tiny, dungeon-like area tucked away in the bowels of Lingle Hall.

Cramped and hot, the miniscule fitness center looks more like a fall-out shelter with exposed pipes and wires snaking throughout the ceiling. It's not an area likely to elicit many "oohs" and "ahhs" from student-athletes.

Athletes often spill out into the hallway or outside with medicine balls or other various training equipment. It is common to see several people repeatedly jumping on and off a giant plywood cube outside the north entrance to Lingle Hall.

There just isn't enough room.

Eric Klein, SIU's strength coach, estimated the weight room covers about 1,500 square feet. Getting more than 15 Saluki football players in the room is an almost impossible feat.

Then there are the other athletic teams Klein must juggle in the weight room. Needless to say, student-athletes quickly become acquainted with each other in the course of training.

Klein said many high school weight rooms, not to mention most college facilities, are larger than SIU's.

"Most schools can handle half of the football team at one time," Klein said. "We can't handle the entire basketball team at once."

Brandon Jacobs transferred to SIU from Auburn University and has had experience with a grand-scale weight room. The senior running back said there was equipment in Auburn's weight room that probably wasn't even needed.

The two-story James T. Tatum Jr. Strength and Conditioning Center of Auburn covers over 14,000 square feet. The building contains a plethora of strength-building equipment on the first floor and aerobic equipment on the second.

In addition to more traditional pieces of equipment is the Astroturf hill used for speed and endurance training. The hill, next to the weight room, is 20 yards long and set at a 45-degree angle.

A school as large as Auburn will naturally have more resources available. But Klein said the Salukis' success in the Missouri Valley and Gateway Conferences isn't always reflected by the facilities.

Some of the equipment in SIU's weight room is almost a decade old, and while Klein said that is a testament to their quality, he is hoping they manage to hold out a bit longer.

Should some of the equipment break, replacements would be hard to find as Klein said some of the companies have gone out of business.

"There are kids on this equipment every single day," Klein said. "Think about how many people hold onto a car they drive every day for 10 years."

Klein said most of the equipment still works for his purposes, and certain pieces have been upgraded, but there are still things he would like to experiment with. He said he sometimes gets frustrated with his available resources.

But Klein said he knows his limitations and is happy with the results in student-athletes. SIU head football coach Jerry Kill is amazed with what Klein has done with available resources - or lack thereof, in Kill's opinion.

"We don't have any resources, we have to invent them," Kill said. "There's nobody in America that's done a better job than that guy."

Kill's reverence for Klein will likely grow with the construction of the Troutt-Wittmann Center, expected to be finished sometime next year.

The building, funded by a $3.5 million donation from Thomas Wittmann, will house a myriad of athletic training equipment as well as study areas for student-athletes. The center will cover 12,000 square feet, and assist Klein in the changes he would like to make to his training methods.

The center will be almost 12 times larger than SIU's current weight room, which takes care of Klein's foremost concerns - space and layout.

Klein said efficiency and the speed of workouts will increase dramatically with the ability to train more athletes at one time. An increased amount of equipment will also aid in Klein's quest to produce faster, stronger athletes.

Klein said he is focusing on getting more free weights, benches and squat racks for the training center. He is obviously excited at the prospect of having such a facility at his disposal.

"We're going to be in the upper tier," Klein said. "It's going to be an incredible recruiting tool."