With help from some of its alumnae, Clemson has elevated the female student-athlete experience with new lakefront facilities
Clemson University announced plans in 2021 to expand its women’s athletics programs with the addition of lacrosse and gymnastics. Allison Kwolek (lacrosse) and Amy Smith (gymnastics) were hired as the inaugural coaches soon thereafter.
But where were the teams going to train and compete?
“We had no idea where we were going to put them, but we knew we were going to need facilities,” said Stephanie Ellison-Johnson ’98, M ’01, Clemson Athletics’ senior woman administrator. “We went through a scenario of, in our current footprint, how could we make it work?”

Clemson ultimately decided to give them a centralized home. Building next to the existing rowing facility on the banks of Lake Hartwell, the University added a gymnastics operations facility and the country’s only collegiate operations facility dedicated solely to women’s lacrosse. The $37.5 million expansion project also included a roughly 1,200-capacity lacrosse stadium, rowing renovations and a state-of-the-art Athlete Recovery Center, which opened in March 2024.
“I have not been a part of anything like this before,” said Chelsey Williams ’14, a project manager for Brasfield & Gorrie. “This is pretty impressive.”
Williams, who earned her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences, helped oversee construction of the facilities for the general contractor’s Greenville, South Carolina, office. Liza Brockman ’04, an architecture graduate from the College of Architecture, Art and Construction, also worked on the project as an interior designer for Garvin Design Group, which Clemson hired in partnership with sports architecture firm HNTB for the facilities’ design. Essentially given a one-year deadline, an efficient method of construction was needed, Brockman said.

The University broke ground on the project in December 2022, and the first phase had to be completed in time for gymnastics to train in its facility ahead of its inaugural 2024 season. So, the construction and design teams started with a pre-engineered structure for each facility.
Input from coaches and student-athletes helped Williams’ and Brockman’s teams customize functionality and personality for each sport, and nights and weekends helped them stay on schedule despite the occasional inclement weather. By the fall of 2023, gymnastics had moved into its new digs. Lacrosse’s operations facility was completed last January, and the field was done in time for the 2024 season opener a month later.
“All the right people came together,” Ellison-Johnson said. “It meant something. And we got it done.”

Before last year, lacrosse shared Riggs Field with the soccer programs, and gymnastics trained off campus. Now, Clemson’s newest women’s sports programs have facilities they can call their own, which Ellison-Johnson said has helped with recruiting. For Williams and Brockman, contributing to an enhanced female-athlete experience at their alma mater comes with a sense of pride.
“I just can’t even describe it,” Brockman said. “Clemson is investing in women on the athletic side and bringing in these new women’s sports. And on our team, we had several women on the design side. On the construction team, they had several women leaders. You don’t see that every day, and so it was so exciting to bring all that energy together for women’s sports.”
State-of-the-Art Recovery
The Athlete Recovery Center was designed with athletes’ mental and physical restoration in mind. The 10,000-square-foot facility is equipped with a spacious yoga area, massage tables and a variety of recovery modalities aimed to help them quickly return to peak performance.
“The goal is, if an athlete can come in and find one thing to utilize, it’s going to be beneficial from a standpoint of keeping the mind calm, the body still and just having that time to really reset,” ARC wellness coordinator Megan Cato ’13 said.
Modalities include:
- A restoration room equipped with Cocoon Fitness PODs, infrared saunas designed to
relax tight muscles - TheraLight 360 beds using medical-grade red light to promote cell regeneration and improve circulation
- HydroMassage chairs described by Cato as a car wash for the body that utilize pressurized heated water and air jets to deliver a rejuvenating soft-tissue massage
- ZeroBody Dry Float beds allowing the body to decompress within spatial gravity
- Cryotherapy chambers using subzero temperatures to treat inflammation and muscle soreness
Photos courtesy of Kickstand Studio