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E-MailUSC tennis coach Josh Goffi will never play tennis for South Carolina, but he might go down as the first recruit lured by the new Carolina Tennis Center.
When Gamecocks athletics director Eric Hyman hired Goffi from Duke in 2010, it was with the promise that the school soon would provide him with a facility to help him compete at a national level. That promise came true Monday when the $4.5 million Carolina Tennis Center was dedicated.
“Before all this, (South Carolina) was a tough place to recruit to, to be totally honest,” Goffi said. “We were about 40 years behind in the recruiting battle because of facilities.”
Goffi’s first full recruiting class at South Carolina was ranked No. 3 in the country, and Goffi credits the facility as the chief reason.
“Obviously, it made a huge difference,” said Goffi, whose team is 7-1 this season. “It is absolutely top tier in the country. We’ve got everything we could possibly want here.”
The 700-seat arena is located off Heyward Street behind the Dodie Anderson Academic Enrichment Center and is a part of an athletic village overhaul in that area that includes the Rice Athletics Center, which will open in June and house South Carolina’s athletic administrators and the school’s coaches other than football, basketball and baseball.
“It is all coming together, and I think all of South Carolina can be proud of the presentation we make facility wise,” Hyman said. “This is part of the equation. It’s obviously a magnificent facility, and one we can be proud of.”
South Carolina has spent $154 million on athletic facilities in the past five years.
Facilities are “a very important part of the decision-making process for a young person,” Hyman said. “They want to be able to see the tangible evidence that you are committed to having a top-caliber SEC program. In tennis, now we do.”
The Carolina Tennis Center features six courts on each side of a wide concourse.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, and it’s finally here,” 29th-year women’s tennis coach Arlo Elkins said.
The women’s team (2-1) already christened the center with a 7-0 win over Furman on Jan. 25. The men’s team, which played in the Sam Daniel Tennis Center from 1977-2009, shared the women’s team’s facility at the Maxcy Gregg Tennis Center for the past two seasons after the Sam Daniel complex was bulldozed for the current parking garage at the athletics complex. The women’s team had occupied the Maxcy Gregg center for 38 years.
Also in the near future, the Gamecocks will add a $6.5 million video board at Williams-Brice Stadium (scheduled to be ready for the Sept. 8 home opener against East Carolina), a $30.5 million parking lot project at the Farmer’s Market (scheduled to be completed before the 2012 season) and a $3 million outdoor practice facility (which could be in use by 2015).
“We are competing in the SEC, and since we are competing, no matter what the sport is, we have to provide the support so we can compete on a very high level,” Hyman said.
