BEARING DOWN—Southeastern QB Mike Neville puts some grunt in his squat work while Ryan Anderson (top) sweats a river on the bench press during a weightlifting session in the Ole Men’s Gym — AKA, ‘The Dungeon’. SLU’s no-frills weightlifting facility is a boon to team chemistry and toughness, but it is soon to be replaced by a brand new facility. Photo by Fred Batiste

The sweat beads into puddles and creeks along the body of Southeastern football lineman Ryan Anderson as the grunts of straining and the clanging of weights echo off the walls of the Old Men’s Gym.

The thick, hot air circulating through the cavernous facility blankets players as they take part in voluntary workouts in preparation for fall camp the 2008 season.

Strength and conditioning coach Matt Moore affectionately refers to Southeastern’s Sports Performance Complex — the official name for the building everyone knows as the Old Men’s Gym — as “The Dungeon.”

For Lion footbal players, it’s basically a trade-off — a few ounces of torture and sweat here in the summer for a shot at greater glory at season’s end in late November.

“This is a critical time,” Lions head coach Mike Lucas said of the Lions’ summer workout period, the longest time that a team can lift and run as a unit. The spring semester is broken up by spring drills and spring break, while the Lions have eight uninterrupted weeks of lifting of running in June and July.

All but four returning upperclassmen are on campus and working out, Lucas said. All incoming junior college transfers are working out with the team, along with most of the incoming freshmen within driving distance of the campus.

“It’s so important to have as many of your players together on campus,” Lucas said. “That seems to be a huge goal of all Division I programs now is to have as many guys as you can, hopefully your whole squad.”

The workouts now have an added bonus — preparing for the heat of the early season. Southeastern’s Aug. 30 season opener at Alcorn State has been moved up to a 1 p.m. kickoff from its initial 6 p.m. start. Lucas and the Lions open fall camp Aug. 3.

“Imagine the heat and humidity at 1 o’clock in Lorman, Mississippi,” Lucas said. “There’s no way, between the third (of August) and the 30th, you can get your team in shape ready to go. Our guys are out working in the heat, getting used to the heat.”

Moore, of course, loves it. He notes that the work the team does in the building is preparing it to go through the two-a-days of fall camp and handling the heat that comes with late summers in the South.

“If they come into two-a-days out of shape or can’t handle the heat, it limits what we can do practice-wise,” Moore said. “We worked all spring on strength, and now we’re trying to take that strength, turn it into power and make sure we’re in shape to play in football shape.”

The Spartan weight training facility does not have the creature comforts of newer weightlifting facilities teams use, but Moore said it is more about atmosphere than accoutrements. He cannot do anything to simulate the intensity of a football game, but he tries to get it as close to gametime conditions as he can — and he comes pretty close.

“You should get a little dirty playing football, a little nasty and sweaty,” Moore said. “That’s what we’re doing here. It’s not about aesthetics or any of that, it’s about how much work you can do. Nothing fancy.

“Forty-five pounds is 45 pounds, whether it’s in a fancy Bally’s weight room or in here.”

The same box fans the Lions use on the sideline during games circulates the sweat-accented air in the Dungeon as a mix of arena songs blasts loudly through huge speakers. Dimly lit even in the brightest of summertime sunshine, the score from “Rocky” is the only thing that would fit this no-frills gym.

“It’s not a bad facility because of the space available,” Lucas said. “There’s so much room over there you can get a lot done. There is no heat or air conditioning, so imagine now with our lifting groups at 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock in the afternoon. It’s like an oven in there.

“The most difficult thing is our guys trying to gain weight. You can’t step foot in that place without being soaked in sweat, so it’s difficult with our guys to maintain or gain body weight because of that temperature.”

Lucas and Moore agree that part of the process of working out in the old gym is the players building chemistry and camaraderie. Lucas said the players are learning to depend on each other during the workouts while Moore said the players build upon their experiences working out during the summer.

“The good thing about this weight room, and I think (offensive coordinator) coach (Tommy) Condell said it best when he said you have to make a decision just to enter the doors here,” Moore said. “When you have 50, 60 guys working in this environment together, you can’t help but to build chemistry.”

Some feel working out in the gym puts the team at a disadvantage, Moore said. But he likes the conditions in the gym as a training tool.

“In the max strength department, like how much you can squat, it probably hurts us a little bit,” he said. “But, we’re not necessarily power lifters, we’re football players.”

However, the Dungeon’s days as the Southland Conference’s largest weight room are numbered. Southeastern is currently building a new weight room attached to the Dugas Center, and officials said it is expected to be ready for late fall.

The players ask him when the new facility will be built, Moore said, and they wonder if the old gym will be torn down once the new weight room is up and running.

“It’s a split vote. They are split between keeping this old place and moving into the new one,” he said. “I know (wide receiver) Luis Sobalvarro loves this weight room. If you talk to him, he’s pretty upset that we’re moving out of it.”

But Moore said the new weight room will help with recruiting when it moves into the Dugas Center. Everything in the facility will be brand-new and easily accessible from Strawberry Stadium.

But there will be something missing when that day comes.

“We’ll lose a little bit of character, but we can build some new character over there,” Moore said. “I might shut off the air conditioning every now and then just to remind them of where they come from and what got them where they are.”