New area should help advance sports teams
Alec Munro, Fort Lewis College assistant athletic director-sports performance/wellness, shows Alex Tenorio, an FLC softball player, how to log into a tablet that will track her workout on Wednesday at the new FLC CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
What was once an eyesore is now the shining star on the hill at Fort Lewis College.
For decades, the Skyhawks’ weight room was way behind its peers and rivals, with local high schools having better spaces and equipment. Coaches steered recruits away from the weight room and some teams couldn’t work out together with the lack of space.
Now, thanks to years of planning by FLC and support from the Durango community, the Skyhawks have flown to the top of Division II and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference with the opening of the $6 million CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center.
The space, across from Whalen Gymnasium, is 10,000 square feet and has 24 weight racks, six treadmills, three rowing machines, three bikes, two stair steppers, 10 weight machines, a 250-square-foot fuel station and a turf area.
KB Broadus, a Fort Lewis College football player, works on his speed mechanics on Wednesday at the new FLC CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center on campus. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
“We evaluated the landscape in DII with our project team, and this facility sets us apart,” FLC Director of Athletics Travis Whipple said. “It will continue to take us to the top while we recruit and retain high-caliber student-athletes who are focused on their performance in the classroom, community and competition. The facility, combined with our best-in-class support services, will continue to enhance the student-athlete experience for years to come.”
Alec Munro, FLC assistant athletic director-sports performance/wellness, has felt the transformation in about every way. He now has a beautiful office inside the sports performance center with a glass wall overlooking the weight room. This allows him to keep an eye on his student-athletes while scheduling workouts and creating workout plans in his office.
The planning and talk about the sports performance center goes back about five years, Munro said, well before his arrival in November 2021. The ball really got rolling about 2½ years ago when CommonSpirit put forth a generous donation. Alpine Bank and several other local businesses followed with funding.
Then the design phase happened for about a year or a year and a half, Munro said. His ideas, alongside Mercy Sports Medicine, FLC athletic trainers, the construction crew, architects and Whipple brought the vision to life.
Senior women’s lacrosse player Diamond Velasco said Munro did a good job keeping the student-athletes informed of the progress on the sports performance center with reminders and videos. She and her teammates would try to take a peek at the progress of the center.
Velasco and Munro said some student-athletes got to test the equipment and use the space a few weeks before the grand opening on April 11. She and her lacrosse teammates felt some FOMO – fear of missing out – when they saw other athletes posting videos of themselves using the new facility while the women’s lacrosse team was on the road.
“For the upperclassmen, it feels like a dream come true,” Munro said. “They’ve been waiting for it, they’ve been told ever since they were recruited that we were looking into getting something like this performance center and they always had it in the back of their minds that it was coming. … What the student athletes are finding is now that we have a space like this, it’s more than just equipment, it’s more than just a place to do your squats and bench; it’s a place to feel comfortable … with the resources they need to have a solid performance career in their sport, so it’s been really cool.”
Diamond Velasco, a Fort Lewis College lacrosse player, works out on Wednesday at the new FLC CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center on campus. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
The sports performance center can be divided into four sections. A few smaller teams can work out in each section or a bigger team, like football, can have the entire team in the sports performance center.
Student-athletes won’t have to run across the room during a workout session; instead, they can do most of their workouts at their section.
Munro and the rest of the FLC athletic staff knew cardio equipment would be essential to the space. With winter weather in Durango for six months out of the year, athletes need a space to do speed, change of direction and agility workouts. That’s where the turf area comes in. Munro said training with sprinting and speed workouts year-round is essential to preventing injuries.
For cardio, the stair steppers, treadmills and rowers are essential for when the weather is bad.
Alec Munro, Fort Lewis College assistant athletic director-sports performance/wellness, places a sensor on a weight lifting bar that can track the athlete’s lifting performance at the new FLC CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center on campus. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
Munro thinks some of the technological advancements at the new sports center are unheard-of at the Division II level. The student-athletes and teams use an app called TeamBuildr, which is a program-design software where all student-athletes get a profile, get individualized programs and can track their progress throughout their career.
“That allows them to pull up their name and see exactly what they need to do in here, but also go home for winter break or summer break and still get those workouts and be able to have full access to them,” Munro said. “Or if an injured individual can’t do something, there’s a little button that says opt out and then they can opt out of that exercise and they can put in the notes what they did instead. They can also message me on that app so that they have full access to get a hold of me if they have any questions.”
Munro and the athletic training staff at FLC can also post educational content on TeamBuildr.
FLC will also use Output Sports’ devices that track an athlete’s velocity on any movement. It can be put on a barbell and an athlete can do a squat. The device will then show how fast they moved in that squat.
The new Fort Lewis College CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center recently opened on campus for student-athletes. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
“It’s an assessment tool that we’re going to use very heavily with our athletic trainers,” Munro said. “We will pick the three most common injury areas for that sport. We’ll do an assessment to track maybe their mobility or their stability or their balance, because you can put it on your wrist and it’ll show an exact angle of measurement in an external rotation. … We’re going to do this with all freshmen as they come in. We have those numbers so if they get injured, now we can retest and we can make sure we get them back to where they need to be before we put them back on the court, the field or the track.”
The new area has energized the current student-athletes. During finals week, the NCAA mandates that schools can’t do structured workout sessions with their student-athletes. A weight room can be opened for optional workouts.
Each workout station in the new Fort Lewis College CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center has a tablet that can track each athlete as they work out. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
In the past, at this time of year, the old weight room would get five to 10 visitors a day for optional workouts. This week, Munro said 75 to 100 student-athletes have been showing up for optional workouts per day. Munro thought those kids were gone by now, but the sports performance center has opened his eyes.
One of the biggest reasons the student-athletes are excited for the sports performance center is because of how poor the old weight room was.
At 2,000 square feet, it was five times smaller than the sports performance center. There were half racks from the 1980s that were starting to fall apart. There was no cardio equipment, no turf and only one set of dumbbells for every number.
The new Fort Lewis College CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center recently opened on campus for student-athletes. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
Teams could barely fit into the old space and some had to split up. Therefore, the time student-athletes could use the old weight room became limited because so many sessions had to be scheduled since the space was so small.
There was also no fueling area. Munro would haul around what he called a “fuel wagon” with a few snacks. Now, with a dedicated fuel station, athletes can get fruits, protein sources and bars. Also, because of the partnership with Coca-Cola Durango, the fuel station has things like Core Power Protein Shakes, Powerade and Body Armor.
Velasco said student-athletes didn’t want to go into the old space because the hours were so limited and it was very dirty because of how many people were using the small space. She said student-athletes now feel intrinsically motivated to go into the sports performance center.
FLC football head coach Johnny Cox said the old weight room was what he used when he starred for the Skyhawks’ football team in the 1990s.
The new sports performance center allows Cox to continue the upward trajectory of the program. When he became the head coach, the program had only about 60 kids; now that number is close to 120. FLC football has signed one of its biggest recruiting classes in years. The sports performance center is a big part of that.
KB Broadus, a Fort Lewis College football player, works out on Wednesday at the new FLC CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center on campus. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
In the past, Cox would rarely show recruits the old weight room and if he did, it would be the last thing, almost to try to make it an afterthought. Now it’s the first thing he shows recruits. Munro said he tries to meet with most of the recruits and their eyes have widened and they’re amazed by the sports performance center.
“Once I saw it, I thought, ‘This is top-notch; this is unbelievable,’” Cox said. “All the little details. … Then, once they got the demonstration and I saw how many more movements can be trained, we’re going to have a better football team. You’re going to train a better athlete, because you can isolate it and strengthen it in all different ways.”
Jacob Ramos, a Fort Lewis College soccer player, works out on Wednesday at the new FLC CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center on campus. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
FLC has all the tools for a student-athlete to be great. Whipple said it’s a one-stop shop for athletes and it helps the athletic department and college with its focus on its mission of graduating champions while serving the campus community. Also, starting in the fall, members of the Student Life Center will use the facility.
“We’ve built the staff and now we have the facility,” Munro said. “I’m a firm believer that this is one of the best Division II sports performance centers in the nation now. I have no problem saying that.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
Alex Tenorio, a Fort Lewis College softball player, changes what her next workout will be on a tablet that will track her performance on Wednesday at the new FLC CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center on campus. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
The new Fort Lewis College CommonSpirit Sports Performance Center recently opened on campus for student-athletes. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
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