Graham Neff details facilities update, including Tiger Walk and Lot 5 improvements

Tiger Walk will have an improved look in 2023.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Apr 14 16:49:07 GMT-04:00 2022

CLEMSON – New Clemson athletic director Graham Neff was officially hired on December 23rd, and in the 112 days since he’s had his hands full with a bowl game, a soccer National Championship, a coaching search, and facilities upgrades across a number of sports.

Neff sat down with TigerNet Thursday afternoon for 45 minutes and covered a lot of ground, including basketball and baseball and the expectations for each program, facilities, and NIL. We will start, in a Q&A style, with new sports and facilities.

What is new within the Athletic Department that people might not know about?

Neff: “So, we're about to hire a gymnastics coach probably next week or so. We announced the two new sports (gymnastics and lacrosse) and we have hired a lacrosse coach. And they'll start competing next academic year, next spring, and we intentionally separated them by year. So, gymnastics won't start until 2023-24. So, there's still a way to go there. But obviously hiring a coach and beginning to build a program and all that is first, and we are going through the interview process there and we should announce a coach for gymnastics, first-ever here, next week. So, there'll be some good momentum. And that's a cool story. It's fantastic. It's going to be awesome here. It really will.”

Where will those teams compete?

“Here on campus. The gymnastics meets will be in Littlejohn, and it's winter, so it's December, January, February, March. And it's concurrent with basketball season. And it's usually Friday nights, so it'll be Friday nights in Littlejohn and it will be awesome. So that's where they'll compete and I like how that environment will be really different and I think that Clemson will really wrap our arms around it. But we're going to build up by rowing - we're going to build a practice facility and operations and locker room, along with the lacrosse practice field and stadium and operations and practice, all up by rowing. So that was a project that was approved in February, first phase. We're going through architecture and designs and we'll start with that construction later this year. So gymnastics will compete in Littlejohn, practice up at a new facility. Lacrosse will practice and compete up at a new facility with stands and a stadium up by the rowing facility. However, that won't be done for lacrosse's first season. So lacrosse's first season, which is again this upcoming academic year, 22-23, they'll play in Riggs (Field) for season one, and then in season two and beyond, they'll play up at the new lacrosse stadium.”

What are the plans for updating the volleyball facility and Jervey?

“Jervey Gym and all things Jervey is one of the next big projects. Jervey has been the hub for a lot of our Olympic sports for years. Obviously, we've grown our facility footprint. And soccer, baseball, basketball, football, tennis - there's a lot of dedicated, separate facilities. But Jervey still serves as a big hub for a lot of those Olympic sports from sports medicine, training room, weight room, equipment, and nutrition. So, we have started designs and we anticipate probably later this fall to have basically what a renovated, expanded, and redone Jervey and Jervey Gym would look like. So a big effect on volleyball from a volleyball gym standpoint, volleyball locker rooms, all of those things. But again, we plan to have significant investment in weight room sports, medicine training room, NIL opportunities, branding, things like that in Jervey that would serve really all of our sports except maybe football and basketball. So they would kind of have their own setups.

Speaking of facilities, the paint might still be drying on Sept. 9th ahead of the first home football game in Death Valley?

"Yes (laughing), the night before the game. The paint might be drying, the wires might be getting plugged in on the video board. But yeah, but both of those, they're on schedule, so to speak. But there have been some material and logistics issues that a lot of our society is struggling with these days. But yeah, we'll be ready with the video board. I think everyone saw or saw the pictures from just with the steel that's up and you can really feel it. Just the size and the order of magnitude. And then there is the new club, the Masters Family Club, that'll seat 650, and we've sold just about 600 there. So about 90% sold to that, which has been a great reception to that. So, both of those components of the stadium project will be done in early September and then for next year, a year from now, we'll be under construction of the second phase of that project, which would be Parking Lot 5, Tiger Walk, and tailgating, and the environment on the west side of the stadium leading up into the stadium and Oculus. And then a lot of renovation in the football team area on the bottom of the west side, football locker room, training room, kind of game day, training room, game day, locker room, recruiting area, things like that."

What will Lot 5 and that renovation look like?

“It's part of the Memorial Stadium $65 million project. We just kind of broke it up into two components in two different times of construction. So, phase one that we're doing now, video board and the new club will be done for ‘22 season. And then we'll play the season and then in December we'll start this construction for Lot 5, Tiger Walk, and tailgating down in that area.”

How will that look?

“It's going to look awesome. We're still working on it. So, we are getting different sketches and things like that. But it's going to be a much more pronounced Tiger Walk experience and a really renovated Lot 5, which is one of our prominent parking lots. And we're looking to pull back some of the berms there on either side and even really align Tiger Walk more directly through into the Oculus. Right now, it kind of cuts through Lot 5 a little bit at an angle, and everybody tailgate next to it, and then people gather. So we're looking to have Tiger Walk more organized. It's just a better setup for the actual Tiger walk of the team and the players and people to be able to come around it. But then also have still good tailgating and parking in the rest of Lot 5.

“It'll be really cool. But we haven't released any specifics on what that Tiger Walk tailgate experience looks like yet. But we will coming up. It's going to be really cool. When the three team buses come and park down on Perimeter Road for the team to walk out and walk through Tiger Walk, it jams up traffic ridiculously on Perimeter Road. And just the time of the day, it's just about two hours before kickoff and it's just a lot of congestion. So, we want to have those buses be able to park off of Perimeter Road. So a little bit of a bus landing parking area there at Lot 5 just to help the traffic flow and logistics on Perimeter Road.”