The Miami Dolphins are coming home. Tell the world they are coming home. The distance away was only 13 miles; however, it was not home.
“Nobody has ever won a Super Bowl training in Davie,” Mayor of Miami Gardens Oliver Gilbert stated. “You want to win a Super Bowl; you train in Miami Gardens.”
That training will take place in a new construct a state-of-the-art training complex and sports performance clinic in Miami Gardens, Fla. The $135 million newly named Baptist Health Training Complex will open in Spring 2021.
Location is one thing, but it was long overdue from the current facilities the Dolphins needed to modernize. The Dolphins had to build portables outside their Davie facility to house the analytics department, and the team’s sleep chambers, furthermore share Nova Southeastern University facilities to assist in the rehabilitation of injured players called for change.
“Buildings don’t win championships, but cultures and environments do, to some degree. Coaches and players certainly do,” Miami Dolphins CEO Tom Garfinkel said, who will lead the franchise’s third major building project in Miami Gardens. “If we can support the coaches and players with a better environment to work in, a more efficient environment to work in, one with more resources around them, it can only be a good thing.”
The 217,200 square feet complex (125,000 sq. feet training facility and 92,200 sq. feet indoor field) is more than 50,000 square feet larger than the team’s current facility. The Baptist Health Training Complex will house an innovation hub for new technology, spatial computing and a walkthrough space, a state-of-the-art hydrotherapy area, fuel bar, dedicated recovery area including cryotherapy and isolation tanks, an athletic training room with expansive rehabilitation space, meeting rooms with direct access to the fields, a two-story weight room with a cardio deck, locker rooms, equipment space, dining hall, auditorium, an outdoor practice area with two full natural grass fields, entire indoor practice facility, a lobby with a grand staircase, office area, press area, fan amenities and a broadcast area.
The facility is being built right next to Hard Rock Stadium. The Stadium completed $600 million in renovations in addition to the creation of the tennis complex that houses the Miami Open.
All of those renovations and projects were privately funded by Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who missed the ground-breaking ceremony because of a scheduling conflict.
“It’s 100 percent privately funded and built on private land,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said. The state-of-the-art complex will be a boom to Miami-Dade job creation both during the construction phase and decades into the future as it helps us attract sporting events to our county.”
Wins on the football field is what will keep the facility pristine. Following the retirements of quarterback Dan Marino, head coach Don Shula and the legendary rise of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, the Dolphins suffered a decline in the 2000s, including a 1–15 season in 2007 that was the worst in franchise history.
Dolphins only made the playoffs three times in that decade and were unable to find a consistent quarterback to replace Marino, shuffling 13 quarterbacks and five head coaches. However, the Dolphins have been surprisingly competitive against the Patriots despite their decline, with notable wins coming in 2004, 2008, and 2018. They also are the last team in the AFC East to win the division championship aside from the Patriots, doing so in 2008. While quarterback Ryan Tannehill provided some stability at the position throughout most of the 2010s, the team has nonetheless been mediocre, only having made the playoffs once during the decade.
Hopefully, the added home field advantage will prove Super Bowl wins.
Photos/MiamiDolphins/twitter
