Llano’s indoor facility to provide more space for athletes, coaches

CAPTION: The addition to the Llano Independent School District indoor facility. File photo

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series. Read part one here.

In a short while, the Llano High School Yellow Jackets will have a new locker room, laundry facilities, storage for football and new coaches’ offices thanks to additions to the indoor facility on the campus.

The indoor facility had artificial turf where athletes could work on the playbook, perform agility and quickness training and other drills to ensure they were at their best every outdoor contest throughout the year.

But the new additions, which also will include a start-of-the-art weight room, will accommodate an athletic department that has more than 100 football players in grades 9-12 wearing the orange and black.

Athletic director and football head coach Matt Green noted the way the department has ensured players have individual lockers is by being meticulous with the available space.

“We’ll do a better job of utilizing space,” he said. “I think we can house about 72-80 kids in our current weight room and 96 to 100 going forward very comfortably.”

The current boys locker room has lockers against the walls with more lockers in the center. But the new boys locker room will have all the lockers the department needs without having to put any in the middle of the room.

The new coaches offices will be divided into offensive and defensive rooms with a bathroom that separates them.

Currently those who coach boys share an office and those who coach girls share an office.

“We’re all crunched in here,” Green said. “We have five guys in one office and the other has six. One office has five girls coaches. We’ll free up one whole office. Everybody is going to gain and have more storage.”

With the football and most likely the baseball players moving to the new locker rooms, the locker rooms inside the athletic department hallway inside the high school will continue to be used, Green said.

“We’ll add locker rooms for our girls and give basketball and baseball their own if they want to stay inside,” he said. “That will give them more storage. We’ll look at all the equipment benefits for football as we free up space.”

The current offices for the football, basketball and baseball coaches also will be used though the staff hasn’t decided who will go where, the athletic director said.

Green believes the facilities won’t be used until sometime in November, when the fall sports wrap up.

“They will begin to experience the new era of what facilities have been put in place,” he said. “It’s all for growth, and we’ll be so much more efficient. We’ll have the ability to to really be more efficient and get more done.”