ANN ARBOR -- Perhaps the best part of Michigan's brand new, $168-million, 280,000-square-foot athletics facility is that women's rowing coach Mark Rothstein will no longer have to risk his life to properly prepare his team.
Rothstein, the team's head coach for the 20 years the program has existed, would spend the early spring trying to break up ice on Belleville Lake in order to train there.
Thanks to the South Competition and Performance Project, which officially opened last week and will hold its first public event on Saturday, the rowing team can use an indoor rowing tank that can simulate open water.