From the entrance where fans will walk past a statue of Dick Butkus and into the stadium, to the players’ locker room and bowling alley, to Lovie Smith’s new office, associate athletic director Brett Stillwell took multimedia specialist Anthony Zilis on a tour of the Henry Dale and Betty Smith Football Center, which is set to be complete in advance of next season.
The center will house amenities for players, coaches, and staff that simply aren’t available to them now, including increased space for equipment, weight rooms, coaches’ offices and spaces for players to hang out.
For now, it’s still a construction site, but in a year it will connect the indoor practice facility to the stadium and the outdoor practice fields.