The Soul will move in the week of March 5, after their Arena Football League season opener against the Orlando Predators on March 1. They will practice at the NovaCare Complex during training camp, which begins today.
"Ninety percent of the [AFL] players come from the NFL and big-time colleges," Munsey said. "That's what the business is down to now: whoever has the nicest toys and facilities. That's where the better players go, and those are the teams that are winning games."
The major renovations at the Coliseum are nearly finished, general manager Rich Lisk said. They cost about $500,000 and were incurred by Develcom, a real estate company that rents the facility to the Soul. The next priority is bringing in equipment, such as lockers, weights and training tables.
"All the pictures will be up, and you'll have the finishing touches," Lisk said. "I want it to look really good when the guys walk through the doors."
In addition to featuring a regulation turf field equipped with blowup walls, the Coliseum has a meeting room, three breakout areas, a weight room, a kitchen, and larger training and locker rooms. It also has offices for the front office and coaches.
The old facility had a cramped locker room and did not have a meeting room or areas for breakout sessions. Instead, players crammed into corners of the locker room for position meetings. Because the playing field was inadequate, the team took buses to either the NovaCare Complex or Widener University to practice and then returned to Aston for weight training.
Now all those amenities are in the same location.
"I'm telling you, in our old place, there was a maze of tunnels where you would walk through. And it was dark, it was gray, it was dingy, and it was old," Lisk said. "When you go to your office and you walk into a dark, gray, dingy place - that's your attitude. The minute those guys walk down that stairway, that attitude changes."
Defensive back Mike Brown, who joined the Soul in 2006, said the improved Coliseum has allowed the players to focus on football by removing all the distractions that came with the former facility.
"It's like any business. You want to be comfortable," Brown said. "The more relaxed your employees are, the better they should perform."
Several Soul players, including Brown, have been voluntarily training with Nexxt Level Sports, which has developed a series of workouts designed to increase their speed, agility and strength. It also doesn't hurt that Nexxt Level Sports is the Soul's neighbor at the Coliseum.
"It's unbelievable," Brown said. "Just having them being a part of the Soul and the attention we get and the workouts they put us through, we're definitely going to have an advantage."
