I can remember coming through the tunnel the first time. "He felt like our class had a lot of to do with good stuff happening. "It was very important to Coach Brown that we get to experience this building," defensive end Greg Ellis added. For the alumni to put their faith and trust in us, we're going to produce." "We were here when they started planning it, and our class was the first to use it. "I feel like this is our house," linebacker Kivuusama Mays said at the time. Floors two and four were still under construction (the third floor being the public-access stadium concourse to the 8,000-seat west end seating addition), but Brown had pressed the Carolina administration and building contractor to finish the first floor in time for a vaunted group of players to use during their senior year. Where the original Kenan Field House facility that opened in 1927 and was expanded multiple times over the years was moldy and leaky, the new building was fresh and clean and dotted with all manner of neat details-from personal dressing stools decorated with butting ram heads to color photos of each player identifying their respective lockers. John Swofford, Mack Brown, Kivuusama Mays, Chancellor Michael Hooker, Jeff Saturday and Greg Ellis in the fall of 1996.
Team captain and quarterback Chris Keldorf snapped the light blue ribbon with a pair of scissors, and the players filed into their sparkling new locker room. Players carried their equipment bags across the field and congregated at the tunnel leading to the new Frank Kenan Football Center, where Hooker and Brown said a few words to a team coming off a 10-2 season and annihilation of West Virginia in the Gator Bowl. Andy Griffith's What It Was, Was Football comedy skit wafted through the public address system along with rock hits like Queen's We Are The Champions. Strength coaches Jeff Madden and George Smith pulled the Victory Bell.
They carried a large wooden box containing a ram-head skeleton with horns painted blue representing the Tar Heel football team's "Bad to the Bone" moniker. Chancellor Michael Hooker and Coach Mack Brown led the way, leaving the dressing room on the east side of Kenan Stadium across the field to the new building on the west. The procession began shortly after 1 p.m.
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