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For the past eight years, the sport that won the last NCAA championship at University of Utah has been housed in a shed near the football practice fields.
That, ski director Kevin Sweeney said, was a marked improvement. The skiers used to wax and store their skis in a basement in the HPER building. Before that, they worked out of a room in the Huntsman Center.
"A lot of people helped us get that shed," Sweeney said. "I don't want to sound ungrateful. It was a good home for us. But we couldn't be more excited for what's next."
Next: A $2.3 million, three-story building in the middle of campus that could be an unprecedented investment in a college ski program. A team that didn't have air conditioning in their last home expects to enjoy a new one with locker rooms, a ski tuning room, storage and a lounge that is conveniently located near academic buildings.
Athletic director Chris Hill called it "long overdue."
Utah administrators, coaches and boosters broke ground on the site Wednesday afternoon in mid-90-degree heat that the skiers sweated through. They are hopeful that the building will be open in early 2017 in time for ski season.
"On that day," said Spence Eccles, whose name will garnish yet another building on campus, "I expect we'll have snow."
Besides being the name-donor booster for the building, Eccles has a personal connection to this project: He was an All-American skier for the Utes in 1957, and he said still enjoys skiing to this day at 81.
While other projects with Eccles' name went up — including the Utes' football facility and the tennis center — he worked with other former skiers to find donors to build a new home for the ski program, which has won 11 NCAA team championships and is one of Utah's top-performing academic teams. It took roughly three years to break ground on the site, located between the Utah softball field and track complex.
Sweeney said no other collegiate ski program has a 5,800-square-foot building they call home. Eccles referred to the facility as both "Shangri-la" and "Valhalla" in his remarks.
In his part of the dedication, funding chairman and former NCAA skiing champion Jim Gaddis pointed at Eccles: "Thank God you were a skier."
Athletic director Chris Hill noted that the ski building will be the first Utah athletic facility named for a former All-American in the same discipline as the team it houses. But the project was also funded by the largesse of a small group of dedicated alumni, including those overseas. Gaddis mentioned the committee got some late help from former Utes in Norway, where donations are not tax deductible.
With great facilities come great expectations: The Utes haven't won an NCAA team title since 2013. While the program has enjoyed at least one individual champion each year since 2010, they're looking to get back on top.
With their new building, that's what they intend to do.
"Here's to many, many NCAA championships," said Gaddis, to hearty applause.
Twitter: @kylegoon —
Utes break ground on Spence Eccles Ski Team Building
• 5,800 square feet, three stories
• $2.3 estimated construction cost (donor funded)
• Men's and women's locker rooms, ski tuning room, film room, conference room, storage