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Oregon Ducks Football Team Has Brand-New ‘Pond’ (Conclusion)

Laundry that took ‘half the night’ now done in 1.5 hours, says director of equipment ops

EUGENE, Ore. — Aaron Wasson was a busy man at the beginning of September.

As director of equipment operations for the University of Oregon, Wasson was in the middle of getting gear ready for the nationally ranked Ducks’ first football game.

He was also overseeing his department’s transition into a newly reconstructed facility.

“We’re in the process of moving in as well,” Wasson says. “It’s a pretty big equipment space, and we have construction trailers and tractor trailers, shipping containers around that we’ve had stuff in for a while.” 

The new equipment space is part of the university’s new Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Center, which was named after the university’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback (2014). Mariota is now the starting quarterback for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.

Included in Wasson’s equipment space is a new laundry area, fittingly called the Pond. And as he was preparing the team’s equipment, Wasson was preparing his laundry team for its first game-day processing.

“We’re about three weeks in to using the laundry,” says Wasson.

Up to that point, the laundry had only seen workout gear, not game-day laundry. But, with a doubled capacity, Wasson was sure the process would go smoothly.

CENTER TOUR

The new center is a combination of a sports performance center and an expansion and remodel of the equipment room for the football program and some of the other athletics programs, such as baseball, soccer and lacrosse. 

Oregon’s “spin” on both halves of the project has resulted in a stunning performance and equipment center. 

Entering from the west, student-athletes walk into a trophy lobby that is a tribute to the center’s namesake. Trophies for the Walter Camp Player of the Year, Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, Davey O’Brien Award, Maxwell Award and Manning Award are displayed in the lobby. 

One wall has a transparent LED flat-screen television that shows highlights of Mariota, and then reveals a shadowbox with memorabilia of his from Hawaii (where he played high school football). There is also a playful illustration of a Pacific Ocean scene, complete with the Duck on a surfboard.

This entrance leads to the junction under a new skylight at the heart of the center, where innovations and applied science gleaned from the research trips become the focus for Oregon’s student-athletes. 

“The goal of this project was to create one space where we could utilize the most state-of-the-art technology to improve student-athlete wellness and emphasize our commitment to the health and safety of our student-athletes,” says Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens. “Thanks to the incredible generosity of Phil and Penny Knight, we now have a world-class facility that is going to take the student-athlete experience at the University of Oregon to a level not previously seen anywhere on the collegiate level.”

From that central hub off the trophy lobby, student-athletes are just steps away from the new sport science and equipment areas, as well as the pre-existing sports medicine facility and weight room.

CONSTRUCTION

The new center is impressive, and so was its construction, says Wesson. The architect for the project was SRG, and Hoffman Construction Co. handled the build. Both companies are based in Portland.

“It was a really aggressive schedule. We moved out of our old laundry facility and equipment room December 2015, as we went to our bowl game, and we moved back in the middle of August,” he says. 

From January until August this year, the program’s laundry operations were a bit nomadic.

“We have a couple different laundry facilities on campus,” Wesson says. “Matthew Knight Arena is our basketball arena. We would take some product across campus to there every day. We have a baseball facility that is a few hundred yards away, and we’d take product out there.” 

He says that the laundry facilities in those two locations are about half the size of the Pond, so it would be a full afternoon of laundry for student managers. 

“It was a little bit of a challenge, but we knew the end result would pay off,” Wesson says. “We dealt with it. We added in a little more staff to take care of the laundry from January to August.”

POND OPERATIONS

The payoff is a laundry room that can process all of the program’s laundry quickly.

“We’ll collect the athletes’ laundry in the locker rooms after workouts,” says Wesson. “Once a laundry cart is full, we will bring it over and we’ll start it in the washers. Usually, one cart equals two washers. We start that and get that rotation going. In a matter of an hour and a half, we can have one cycle complete, and we will take it and put it back in the lockers.” 

On a game day, Wesson says staff used to have to spend three or four hours, two to three different cycles, to do uniforms, pants, coaches’ laundry and athletic trainers’ towels.

“We were there half the night,” he says. “Now, our plan is we can actually load it all at once and complete it in an hour and a half.” 

Wesson says that everyone in the football program, from the players to the coaches, use Laundry Loops to ensure each individual receives his laundry. 

The Laundry Loop is a strap with the number of the player or staff member on it. Each piece of laundry also has the number of the individual on it. 

“If for some reason the laundry would come unattached, or maybe it wasn’t put together correctly, every piece of apparel that they have has their number heat-transferred on it,” Wesson says. “So, if a T-shirt comes off or a pair of shorts comes off that Laundry Loop, it’s easy to recognize.”

While the season didn’t go as planned for the Ducks football team (it ended with a 4-8 record and Head Coach Mark Helfrich being fired), game-day laundry processing did go as planned.

“This new space streamlines our equipment operation, allowing us to service the student-athletes and staff in a much more efficient way, while also highlighting the unique Nike product Oregon is known for,” he says.

Wasson is still a busy man, but at least the Oregon football team’s laundry is processed more quickly in the Pond.

Miss Part 1 on the beginning on the project? Click here to read it.

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The University of Oregon Ducks’ new laundry facility has a unique, slide-up cart storage system. (Photo: Eric Evans, Oregon Athletic Communications)

Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].