When the Illinois football team walks into the visitor’s locker room at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, it’ll be like it stepped into Victoria’s Secret: pink everywhere.

From the walls to the showers to the sinks, even the urinals in the locker room are colored a shade of pink called “innocence.

When the Illinois football team walks into the visitor’s locker room at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, it’ll be like it stepped into Victoria’s Secret: pink everywhere.

From the walls to the showers to the sinks, even the urinals in the locker room are colored a shade of pink called “innocence.” Designed to weaken and relax opposing players, the locker room will just be another obstacle the Illini will have to tackle in Saturday’s road test.

“It’s a little crazy when you first walk in,” junior wide receiver Kyle Hudson said. “But when you’re getting ready to play, you’re not thinking about it. I really don’t understand it. It doesn’t take away from any of the hype you have before a game.”

The tradition of the pink locker room was started by former Hawkeye coach Hayden Fry.

In the late 1970s, Fry, a psychology major in college, chose to paint the locker room walls pink after reading that the color had a calming and passive effect on people. Fry’s philosophy was correct too, as studies by psychologists have shown that prisoners in pink cells said they felt calmer.

“I think that’s an overblown story,” head coach Ron Zook said. “In fact, really, it’s a nice locker room. We went there a few years ago. It’s a new facility. It just looks like a women’s locker room.”

During an $89 million renovation of the stadium in 2006 that included the addition of new state-of-the-art scoreboards and private suites, Iowa officials chose to expand on Fry’s idea.

They decked the entire locker room out in pink, installing pink metal lockers, carpeting, sinks, showers and urinals as well as re-painting the walls and shower floors.

“It’s a funny concept but it doesn’t bother any of us,” said senior defensive lineman Chris Norwell, who has been in the locker room before and after the renovations. “I think it’s a little better now than what it used to be. When I was there my redshirt freshman year, there wasn’t any heat, but when I went back my sophomore season it had been upgraded.”

But unlike the Illini, who aren’t concerned with the effects of the pink locker room, others have expressed concern about the color choice.

Critics of the locker room have said that use of pink demeans women, and perpetuates stereotypes about women and homosexuality.

But while the pink-clad locker room has brought some controversy to Iowa’s program, the believed physiological advantage over opponents hasn’t helped the Hawkeyes out much this year.

Iowa has lost its last four games and is winless in the Big Ten this season, including a 38-20 loss to Indiana in its homecoming game two weeks ago. But that doesn’t have the Illini looking past the Hawkeyes by any means.

“All we’re thinking about is Iowa right now,” Hudson said. “No pink locker rooms, no Michigan, just Iowa. They have a good team and we can’t look past them. We’re going to have to work hard.”

As for a change in the visiting locker room at Illinois during its renovation of Memorial Stadium, the Illini players don’t think the program will take a page out of the Hawkeyes’ tradition.

“I don’t think Illinois will follow in their footsteps,” Norwell said. “Their pink locker room goes back awhile and has some tradition behind it. It’s just a crazy, funny concept, but it doesn’t actually have an effect on anyone.”