MALIBU, Calif. " College student-athletes spend countless hours training hard, either in the weight room or on the practice field or court. But what many people outside of the athletic community may not realize is that a big part of athletic training is watching, reviewing and learning from videos of either their own performance, or an opposing team's tactics.

As women's basketball coach Ryan Weisenberg explained: "Video never lies and if used correctly, it is a great teacher. We use the video sessions to point out key plays and individual performances from practices and games."

Yet there was one problem when it came to video training at Pepperdine " space.

Director of Athletics Steve Potts explained that while video training is integral, especially to men and women's basketball and volleyball, if teams wanted to have a meeting to review film they would have to sit down and do it in their locker rooms.

"Those areas are just not very well equipped for that function," he said. "And so we wanted to get that function out of the locker rooms."

After brainstorming a solution back in June, there was one space in Firestone Fieldhouse that would solve all their problems: room 125.

Room 125 has been used over the years for a variety of purposes -- "It was used for basically anything and everything," said Potts -- such as a general meeting room, a storage area, overflow space for the academic center, as a coaching classroom for Marv Dunphy and even as an occasional locker room for visiting teams.

But after about six months of strategic planning, this room now has a very special and specific purpose " a film training room for the teams.

The room is fully equipped with an 80-inch high-definition television and 30 movie-theater-style seats, each assembled with an attached desk space.

The room will not only provide a space more conducive to film training and team building, Potts explained, but it will also add value to the recruiting process.

"Now when we have a recruit on campus we can show them, ‘Hey, here's where we get together, here's where we watch our videos with the team,‘ " Potts said.

Weisenberg also said he plans to utilize it for both the team and in recruiting.

"We are really grateful for the new work space," he said. "With the desk tops the players can take better notes and it also gives the coaches more space to write notes and have plays drawn up for our players."

Many other universities have a film room similar to the layout of room 125, Potts explained, typically adjacent to the locker room.

"So this room is a lot better than what we had," Potts said.

Men's basketball coach Marty Wilson explained the importance of having the room: "This film room will allow our student-athletes to have their own classroom environment for their own individual learning when it comes to their game. It will be used by the team as a whole, but also can be used for one-on-ones with a coach and a player to show them what they're doing well and show them what they need to work on."

Wilson said once the season starts, he implements video watching into his team training every day. Before practices, anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes, he sits his players down and reviews what he describes as the good, the bad, and the ugly.

"We'll show GBU," he said. "Individually and as a team, what was good offense and what was bad offense, good defense and bad defense."

Wilson explained video training is also used as a way to research the opponents' strategies in the days before a game.

"We can show our guys the plays an opponent runs, and how the personnel on their team plays," Wilson said. "Is he a good shooter, does he like to go left, does he like to go right, stuff like that."

Overall, he explained, this new film room will be the best environment for that type of training and for the athletes to feel like they have their own special space.

"We were looking at different classrooms in general to borrow at first," Wilson said. "But then we realized it would be nice for us to have something right here in Firestone Fieldhouse. So it's really a nice way to improve our own facility and also have the athletes feel like they have their own learning environment."

--By Jenna Welsh, Athletic Communications Intern