By Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) – Spear Reporter // Photo via SJSU Athletics
Before San Jose State unveiled the Spartans Athletic Center [SAC] – a state of the art $70 million facility – a few wisecracks were made.
Back in 2018, senior defensive back Andrew Jenkins remembers “expecting to see a crazy locker room” on his visit to SJSU.
His expectations fell vastly short.
“Dang these lockers ain’t even as good as my high school lockers,” Jenkins thought to himself. “That just goes to show we came a long way.”
But no more jokes can be made now. SJSU football and men’s and women’s soccer have a towering, up-to-date and cunning facility. One that could help the program ascend from punchline to Bay Area powerhouse.
“There’s no better time to be a Spartan than right now,” SJSU’s Director of Athletics Jeff Konya said. The unveiling comes after SJSU football, men’s basketball and baseball each made the postseason for the first time in program history.
“This facility is the best possible way to kick off this new athletic season,” SJSU president Cynthia Tentiente-Matson said.
Per an SJSU press release, the building is “the most transformative capital project in school history.”
While ground was broken, Tuesday afternoon marked the narrowing of a gap – not a leap ahead. The theatre-esque meeting rooms, ice baths, hot tubs, cafeteria and roomy student-athlete lounge are standard for most of SJSU’s opponents.
It’s lackluster facilities plus downtrodden history were kryptonite to reeling in top-notch recruits.
Up the road at Stanford and Cal Berkeley, coaches can walk recruits through facilities that are half museums, half sanctuaries. Meanwhile SJSU football head coach Brent Brennan ushered recruits through facilities that were closer to a regular office space.
Because of this, Brennan chauffeured recruits through the SAC while it was being built. Even if it meant pausing construction and walking through with a hard hat on.
“We were trying to leverage this facility with the future of Spartan football,” Brennan said. “That helped us in the past two recruiting classes to be able to land two of the best recruiting classes we’ve ever had here.”
The Spartans have struggled in the NIL space – a major recruiting lure – but the facility shows donations are being made and there’s a push.
“Days like this don’t come around without tremendous support,” Konya, before a sly grin formed. “And for all our future donors out there that want to leave a legacy we have some opportunities and I’ll be right here to talk with you after this presentation.”
Konya’s pitch drew laughter from a crowd filled with longtime alumni who’ve been deprived of a consistent winner.
SJSU football has never won back-to-back bowl games. Last year’s bowl appearance marked the second time in program history SJSU’s made two bowl games in the span of three years. The 2020 Mountain West Championship campaign was the third time SJSU’s been ranked since 1950.
Until the last few years, it’s seemed like the athletic department was satisfied with subpar and imprisoned by inertia.
While standing at the podium, Brennan said he first heard talks about a new facility in 2006. No tangible progress was made by the time he left SJSU in 2010 for Oregon State.
But in December of 2016, when he came back to San Jose to interview for the head coach job, the topic came up again.
“[Former AD] Gene Bleymaier showed me an aerial view of South Campus. Over it the aerial shot said 1950, then 1960 – same shot. 1970 – same shot. 1980 – same shot. 1990 – same,” Brennan said.
The project still didn’t truly start taking shape until Konya’s arrival in fall of 2021.
A couple new facilities have been built added since 1950, but none match the magnitude – and price tag – of the SAC.
“When people walk through here and see it, now they’re blown away by how aesthetically pleasing and how functional it is. Like we have a real athletic complex in San Jose State,” Brennan said.
If there was an aerial shot of Brennan walking toward it on move-in day, they’d see a prideful, teary-eyed coach.
“It’s something that had been talked about for so long and dreamed about for so long. Finally to see it and walk into it was an incredible moment,” Brennan said.
The ribbon cutting at the end wasn’t just a photo-op.
It was about an athletic program hoping to cut ties with its woeful past and thread a new era.