‘Decrepit, including ours’: SEC coaches dish on visitor locker rooms around league
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
SEC head coaches were asked a number of questions at SEC Media Days in Atlanta. One of those questions? Where the best visitor locker room in the SEC is. And based on the answers some coaches gave, let’s just say that teams in the conference don’t quite go out of their way to roll out the welcome mat in that regard for visitors.
“We take a lot of pride in a lot of things, but the visiting accomodations, there’s a lot to be desired,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said.
Kalen DeBoer, meanwhile, revealed that he hadn’t been in Alabama‘s visitor locker room since taking over as head coach.
“I don’t even know what our visitor locker room looks like in Bryant-Denny Stadium,” he said.
Eli Drinkwitz, though, was a little more direct.
“The worst? It’s Tennessee. Not even close,” he said.
Missouri‘s head coach told a story he had heard from Mark Robinson, the chief of staff at Georgia football and a former director of operations at Arkansas.
“When Coach Petrino was the head coach at Arkansas, they actually paid to make their visitor’s locker room worse,” Drinkwitz said.
Kirby Smart, when asked, felt that a deeper dive needed to be done into the matter.
“There should be a documentary done on SEC road locker rooms. They’re decrepit. Including ours,” Georgia‘s head coach said.
In a conference like the SEC, it’s a given that coaches will do a lot to get a competitive advantage over their opponents. Apparently, that includes a poor upkeep of their visitors’ locker rooms, as well. As for who ths best of the worst is, that might still be up for debate.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
