Refrigeration mechanics had to call an audible.

With the clock ticking down before Illini football recruiting visits, someone had to “figure it out” at the Henry Dale and Betty Smith Football Center. The need was a real puzzler: how do you build and install two 8-foot-tall cryo freeze chambers, outfitted with neon striping glowing lights and able to hit -110 F in wind chill thanks to three powerful fans without an instruction manual or expert oversight? It’s not too different from a typical “-80” freezer used in research labs, but it looks like a TRON version of a phone booth that will leave you shivering in seconds. Football players last 3 minutes, 30 seconds inside.

Game plan: call F&S.

Refrigeration mechanics worked to put the pieces together, quite literally, but also figuratively, too. When Klint Schmidt, refrigeration mechanic tasked with this job, got to the football center, the chambers were still in their shipping containers. Schmidt and colleagues put it together, while also reaching out for more help with the German-made technology. Connecting with the company, or any experts who could help with trouble-shooting and other tips, proved difficult at first, but Schmidt eventually got ahold of the CEO of the company which made the freezers.

There’s lots of benefits to the cold, according to trainers, and players sign up early in the morning. This aligns perfectly with how the freezers are to operate. Once they are done cooling — often operating from 3 in the morning until 6pm — they actually completely reverse their operations and move around air in an attempt to dry out, because as cool air warms, that can cause condensation. This strategy even comes with an intuitive feature, a lever and lock that keeps the door open, so as to prevent humid air and water particles from invading the space; after all, there’s no drains.

But because of this dry-out period, which lasts up to 7 hours, that leaves little time when the machine isn’t operating in one manner or another. It’s typically done drying out at 2 a.m., only to start back up at 3 a.m. in order to ramp down to cooling temperature by 5 a.m. when players start to arrive.

Each freezer has a magnet door which cannot lock, shimmering edge lighting, and touch screen operations to ensure proper use. Each machine produces heat as it blasts the inside with cold, so more room ventilation and air movement was added to the room. The room also houses saunas, and is feet away from pools and tubs of different temperatures, depths, and features.

Said Schmidt: “We’re always called on. I’m a guy that, I’ll do anything. Kody (Egolf, foreperson) knows I like the challenge. We’ll figure it out. We were here within a couple hours and started right away. It’s cool to be a part of it. It’s cool to come work here.”