No coach wants to be searching for one of their athlete’s missing equipment just moments before running on the field to verse your rival team. In the collegiate sports regime, an efficient athletic storage facility makes the difference between benching your best player for their lack of organization and winning the championship game.
Locker rooms are utilized for more than changing into and out of uniforms. For a united team and coach, locker rooms are for pep talks after a hard first half, celebrations of a championship win and encouraging one another after a disappointing loss. These events are hard to handle when crammed in a distracting and disorganized locker room.
Below, we discuss the beneficial impacts an efficient athletic locker room and storage system have on a collegiate sports program.
A Boost in Team Morale
Teaching your team responsibility and accountability can happen through many forms. If someone arrives to practice late, the entire team could face extra drills. If a player is missing essential equipment or uniform elements, they may be benched or disqualified from their meet. Upgrading your locker room to be an efficient athletic storage facility could increase the incentive to maintain upkeep as your team will want to appreciate and take care of the area. Less time spent sifting through piles of miscellaneous equipment or sorting out jerseys allows for more time devoted to team-building moments. Furthermore, the act of giving your team the responsibility of cleaning up after themselves and being responsible for where their belongings are stored could boost team accountability and morale inside and outside the locker room.
An Increase in Staff Efficiency
The cliché phrase, “A place for everything and everything in its place,” can apply seamlessly to the issue of chaotic locker and athletic storage rooms. Instead of dodging piles of athletic equipment scattered everywhere in the supply closet, an organized athletic storage facility could save your staff time and spare any frustration when all they needed to find was a set of hockey pucks, a new referee whistle or a pack of tees and golf balls. Less time spent finding your equipment means more time in preparing your athletes for the season ahead. With a prominent athletic department supported by the school and faculty, the pressure is on to have a winning season. Every minute spent distracted by disorganization could be the difference between losing sectionals and taking home a champion’s trophy!
A Quality Check on Hygiene and Crowding
In an already crammed facility, disorganization could make the room feel even more crowded and could even become a safety hazard. Imagine sweaty jerseys, worn hockey sticks and grimy footballs piled all over the locker room floor or thrown lazily into the athletic storage closet. Mixing the sweaty uniforms with an already dirty floor can become a germ and bacteria breeding zone. When the custodians get around to washing the jerseys and disinfecting the equipment, an efficient and organized storage system can help with the process and increase the level of sanitation so that the cleaned gear doesn’t go back on the floor. Instituting an efficient locker room layout can help your teammates be more mindful where they throw dirty uniforms and store additional athletic gear.
Impress Professional Recruiters
Collegiate sports programs such as basketball, football and golf often bring recruiters who plan to watch and interview players to see if their skills and sportsmanship could be taken to the next level after graduation. Sometimes, those interviews take place in the locker room after the game or match. If any of your teammates slack in locker room tidiness, a recruiter could construe that as potential sloppiness in the field or on the court. Like showing off a model home free of clutter to highlight what the house has to offer, your teammates want to have the recruiter’s full attention in the locker room, not distracted by the mess.
An Ease in Security
College campuses often open their facilities to the public for several occasions, especially during the winter and summer breaks. The campus could host a middle school soccer camp, a volleyball tournament or allow the public to pay a small monthly membership fee to use the exercise equipment. For any reason, you want to make sure that your athletic equipment does not mysteriously disappear, especially when additional groups and companies are borrowing your gear. With an efficient athletic storage facility and organized locker room, you will be able to keep better track of where your equipment goes and can easily notice when something goes missing.
Where We See the Impact of Athletic Storage: A Case Study
The Falcons football team was struggling to maintain and organize their equipment in the cramped and messy athletic storage closet. At University of Wisconsin River Falls, the athletic department faced the same, recurring issue of chaotic disorganization. It was time for a change! When the Falcon Center Design Team contacted us at Aurora Storage® in need of a renovated space, we took their requests for maximizing the square footage for each of the three departments into consideration.
After visiting the site and mapping out our strategy, we set to work reconfiguring the space in an efficient manner since there was no option to expand the facility’s existing footprint. Once completed, our final product entailed custom-designed solutions for football shoulder pads, re-purposed golf bag storage to host hockey sticks and a polished final look that incorporated their school colors. Now, their efficient athletic storage facility is organized and displayed in a way that the Falcons are proud to show off.
Aurora Storage: Where We Design with Efficiency in Mind
We want to help find the solution to your facility’s storage space and organizational dilemmas. At Aurora Storage, we strive to pursue custom storage solutions that transform your athletic storage space or locker room, protect your equipment and create an efficient, organizational flow. Contact us today to see how we could help transform your storage space from suffocating and chaotic to sophisticated and efficient.