USC Football: John McKay Center Athletic Facility To Be Unveiled Aug. 21

Apr 5, 2012; Los Angeles, CA, USA; General view of the construction of the John McKay Center on the campus of the University of Southern California. The facility will house meeting rooms, coaches offices, an indoor football field and a locker room, along with an academic center, weight room, athletic training room and state-of-the-art digital media production facility for the 21 athletic teams. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

USC’s new multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art athletic facility will officially open its doors on Tuesday, Aug. 21st. The John McKay Center, named for the legendary Trojan football coach of the ’60s and ’70s, will be the new home of all 21 of USC’s varsity athletic programs.

The McKay center broke ground in January 2011, coming nearly four decades after the previous athletic department facility, Heritage Hall, opened its doors. The football players that comprise the class of 2009 were promised a new facility in their time at USC as a part of their recruiting pitch, and with its unveiling Tuesday, the Trojans have made good on their word. According to the Daily Trojan, USC’s student-run newspaper, an idea for the McKay center floated around about 10 years ago but was shelved for the construction of the 255,000-square-foot 10,258-seat Galen Center.

Here are some of the exciting new features of the McKay Center, specs that will surely entice prospective student-athletes:

A 60,000-square-foot, underground basement housing training and weight rooms. The new weight room is eight times as big as the one under Heritage Hall

A football locker room and a 40-yard AstroTurf practice field. Each individual locker is also equipped with an Apple iPad.

The main floor is a 20,000 square-foot area that consists entirely of academic support programs, because as AD Pat Haden noted in his “State of Troy” emails to the USC community: “[This] sends a signal that no longer is academics in the basement with no light shed upon it.”

Team meeting rooms, a players’ lounge and several football offices are the second floor

And surely a variety of other things, which will be unveiled Tuesday.

The John McKay center helps USC stay ahead of the games in terms of recruiting, as it can now boast a fabled athletic tradition and state-of-the-art technologies and facilities. Over the summer we have gotten a few glimpses of the new center as tweeted by various athletes, and on Tuesday we will finally get to see inside the finished product.

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