South Carolina unveils a fresh look at Williams-Brice before a most unusual season
There was something just a bit auspicious even as Williams-Brice Stadium looked pretty good.
The University of South Carolina on Thursday unveiled upgrades to the home of its football team, the stadium’s first major seating changes in almost 25 years. New indoor areas have the look of something freshly finished and the reprieve of air-conditioning to help with a steamy early September afternoon game in Palmetto State.
In a normal year, these new seating areas would change gameday experiences more than 8,600 fans in those seats and help the economic engine of South Carolina’s athletic department. But this year isn’t a normal one during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Staffers for the department should be out pitching donors and showing off the building during what should be the first week of the regular season. Instead there are three more weeks to go until USC plays and those tours will have to wait until folks can safely congregate again.
“It’s certainly been a little bit of an emotional roller coaster,” said Steve Eigenbrot, South Carolina executive associate athletic director for development. “We thought at this point we’d be so excited about doing donor tours. ... We had a lot of things lined up and on the calendar.
“Emotionally it wasn’t really where we were hoping to be, celebrations and ribbon cuttings and all that kind of stuff. There will be a time for that.”
The stadium will hold a few fewer people, 77,559, than before the changes, but the four new club areas create some different environments.
All allow fans in certain seats to duck into the AC, get food or drinks at bar areas and look out across different views outside the stadium.
The different clubs tap into different themes. The Cockaboose Club has the distance by train to each SEC opponent, shown on an old-timey, clattering train station board. The Horseshoe Club welcomes fans in with lamps modeled after those in the central area of the campus.
The 2001 Club sits under a set of new loge boxes, small outdoor sections for four or eight, with windows to give fans an up-close look as players run out and onto the field (and offer high-fives when those are allowed again in coming years).
“This project has so much personality,” Gamecocks athletic director Ray Tanner said. “It’s so inviting. The spaces you went in today, sometimes people do upgrades and renovations and they’re a little bit more sterile and not as inviting.
“Our fan base is going to be excited.”
They’re the first major tweaks to Williams-Brice Stadium seating since the south end zone was expanded in the mid-1990s.
These upgraded areas aim to address a sort of middle ground in seating, something the school termed “affordable premium.” They don’t cost as much as the most in-demand suites up high, but they will offer more comfort and experience than an regular seat.
The project lasted nine months and cost $22.5 million. Eigenbrot said the planning started six years prior. As of Thursday, a few finishing touches were being done, but it was notable that there wasn’t much in the way of delays, despite a global pandemic.
Greg Hughes of Contract Construction said it helped the project was already subdivided into four smaller ones and amenable to social distancing.
“It’s easier than you may think,” Hughes said. “So you have small groups of workers. You may have a group of two electricians working in one area. And having a stadium this size, it’s a lot easier to spread out than your typical construction site. We were open air for the longest time until we closed in the glass on the east and the west side.”
He noted they didn’t have a single positive coronavirus case. There were challenges with getting materials, which means having to be dynamic in adjusting to various circumstances.
In a few weeks, fans will come through the gates on Bluff Road. They can still get to 50% capacity in the indoor club areas and show off all the changes.
And a different Williams-Brice will play host to an unplanned different sort of season.
“One of my favorite times is getting to the game 3 1/2 hours before kick,” Tanner said. “I hit the circuit. I get in the golf cart and I go visit people and they’re tailgating and they’re excited about the football game. It gives me a chance to engage. It’s going to be a different time this fall. I’m going to miss that. But we’ll get back to it.”
Gamecocks’ 2020 football schedule
Sept. 26: home vs. Tennessee, 7:30 pm (SEC Network)
Oct. 3: at Florida, noon (ESPN)
Oct. 10: at Vanderbilt
Oct. 17: home vs. Auburn
Oct. 24: at LSU
Oct. 31: OPEN
Nov. 7: home vs. Texas A&M, 7:30 pm (ESPN or SEC Network)
Nov. 14: at Ole Miss
Nov. 21: home vs. Missouri
Nov. 28: home vs. Georgia
Dec. 5: at Kentucky
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 4:44 PM with the headline "South Carolina unveils a fresh look at Williams-Brice before a most unusual season."
