Shelbyville High School’s new sports performance center is nearing completion as the 2022-2023 school year is about to arrive.

“It’s kind of surreal honestly,” said Royce Carlton, Shelbyville’s strength and conditioning coach. “When I first thought about getting a new weight room, everyone said that won’t happen at Shelbyville. They won’t spend money on that.”

Carlton put together a presentation for the school board and the need was realized.

“The administration has been awesome,” said Carlton. “They have given me the freedom to design everything. I can’t believe it’s actually happening.”

Final touches are occurring this week before much of the equipment arrives for installation. Once completed, Carlton guarantees Shelbyville will have one of the top high school sports performance centers in the state.

“Once we get all the equipment and technology in here, we will be a top five weight room in (Class) 4A in the state,” said Carlton, who also serves as Shelbyville’s baseball coach. “There will not be very many facilities better than what we have.”

The high school’s current weight room offers 2,000 square feet of space. The new sports performance center is 8,000 square feet and was built along the west wall of the auxiliary gymnasium. The windows in the facility face J.M. McKeand Stadium.

The current weight room equipment will be shipped to the middle school to offer an enhanced weight room in that building. The sports performance center will feature all new equipment and technology.

“We have kind of a preliminary drawing once the equipment comes,” said Carlton of how the space will be utilized. “Of course, once it’s in we might move a couple things around. The company we went with, Pro Power out of Franklin, did a really good job of getting the layout organized and working with me on how the room will flow with the amount of athletes we have.”

Carlton envisions the new facility speeding up the workout process for athletes.

“When we have 50 or 60 kids in an undersized weight room, you are only getting about 50% of your work done with the time and space,” he said. “Now, partners of two can get stuff done and do more. After school, we can put two teams in here at the same time. We will get a lot more done and be a lot more efficient.”

With the new facility, Carlton now has a dedicated office on the north end with a window looking toward Arthur Barnett Field where the Golden Bears play baseball.

“I’ve moved offices like four times since I’ve been here,” smiled Carlton. “There is an office and a big storage room down there to keep things clean.”

The center is climate-controlled and includes windows for natural light, three television monitors and a dedicated speaker system.

“Hopefully we can start moving equipment in next week,” said Carlton. “There are a few things still to get from overseas that are taking a little bit of time. The rest of the month of July we should start slowly filling up with deliveries.

“I am very confident we will be ready to go that first full week of school.”