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LAWRENCE, Kan. -- The Kansas program is no longer trying to support a champagne taste on a beer budget.
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Coaches won't feel like hiding their eyes any more when visiting prospects see the locker room. Players won't have to stand in line to get treatment for injuries. And they'll no longer suffer the peonage of having to ride a bus to their own home games.
It's a new era in Lawrence. The Anderson Family Football Complex, a gleaming state-of-the-art facility, now sits on the southwest side of Memorial Stadium like a bright and shining monument to last year's amazing 12-1 season.
When the doors swung open just in time for fall practice, the Jayhawks leapt forward about 60 years, from the squiggly lined black-and-white 1950s to the high-tech, high-impact HDTV of today.
"This place is awesome. I'm telling you, it's awesome," said junior safety Justin Thornton, sitting in the spacious auditorium. "The first time I came in here I felt like I was being recruited all over again."
Recruiting is the name of the game in college athletics, and ultimately that will be the main benefit of the $31 million complex that now houses the training tables, locker room, weight room, training room, video room and spacious coaches offices.
"The No. 1 thing, it's going to be a good recruiting tool," coach Mark Mangino told a larger-than-normal contingent of reporters and photographers at Kansas' annual media day. "That's the No. 1 thing. We were able to do some good things at the old place. But for long term, it helps recruiting."
Calling the drab and outdated facilities the Jayhawks used to work out of "the old place" is being kind. Not only was everything outmoded, everything was also inconvenient. There wasn't enough of anything, and nothing was close to the stadium.
Now they have it all in one place.
"It's 1,000 times better than the old facilities," wide receiver Dexton Fields said. "I think it shows how much our program has evolved from where it used to be."
Like a freshly painted automobile that's just been driven off the showroom floor, the Anderson Family Complex even smells new.
"I love it. It's top of the line," linebacker Joe Mortensen said. "We have flat-screen TVs everywhere. Our locker room is huge. Our players lounge is great. I'm so glad my senior year I get to have facilities like this."
Even if the Jayhawks had not gone 12-1 last season and beaten Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl, the new complex would have been built. Construction began more than a year ago. But having it open just as players return following the greatest season in school history makes it all feel like a grand reward for a job well done.