Will the stadium prove worthy?
Former college football coach Lee Corso was on campus this weekend and was featured as the key note speaker in this weekends fourth annual Owl Auction. The auction raises money for the FAU athletic department.
Corso talked about having a football stadium built on campus. With reports being published about a temporary stadium being placed on campus, Corso's speech couldn't have come at a better time.
Here are my thoughts:
Having a temporary stadium will be positive for the FAU football team. Our current home, Lockhart Stadium, is probably one of the worst (if not the worst) home football fields in college football. But remember - it suits FAU well. It has more seats than we have fans, it is within our campus area (Broward campuses of course) and has enough parking for our tailgaters.
Building an "erector-set" stadium on campus will cost nearly $600,000. DO IT! It's worth every penny. The excuse of "it's to far of a drive for students to get to Lockhart" can be confirmed. I think more students will come out to the game knowing it's on campus.
After all, with the increased presence of ATF and undercover cops at Lockhart, students can now find a place on campus to drink. I'M NOT PROMOTING underage drinking - but let's be serious, we all know it goes on. At least now they can walk home instead of drinking and driving.
In addition, we will get a taste of what kind of fan-following we will have when we have a real stadium on campus.
Here's the trick: the new FAU Track and Field facility is lined for an intramural field - 80 yards long. But if you look closely at the track, you can fit a 100-yard field on that facility. Someone just has to pay to re-line it. And there is already a parking lot nearby and an owl logo at the 50-yard line.
Bathrooms, locker rooms and press boxes would be the hard part. Like at FIU, there are temporary press boxes. But at FIU, they have facilities for locker rooms and bathrooms. I don't know where FAU would put temporary facilities of this kind.
My support is not only for the stadium but for the temporary stadium being put on campus IMMEDIATELY.
Go Owls.
posted by Rick "$mitty" Smith @ 3/12/2007 05:52:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
An on-campus stadium is exactly what FAU needs. Hopefully all the 'Rowdy Rexes' will become 'Howlin' Owls' for football and drum up the same sort of spirit in other students that they did for basketball.
The truth of the matter is that people would be interested in FAU sports if they were more popular.
People showed up at the FAU-FIU games because EVERYBODY was talking about it. It's sad to say that -- that most college students are fair-weather fans -- but every fan base needs to start somewhere.
And it's going to be awesome twenty or thirty years down the road, when the stadium is packed with people and most of this area shuts down for an FAU game, and we can look back at it and say, "We were here BEFORE there was a stadium, back when no one cared about FAU Football."
It's going to be so great.
In Fall 2007 we're going to get hundreds of new students. Hopefully, they'll come in to FAU expecting no school spirit and be amazed by all the progress that's being made here. They're going to look to the people who have been here longer -- especially the RA's -- for clues as to how to act. If we can get them into it, with sign-making + face-painting pre-game parties in the lobbies of all the dorms, then march over together as one, it's going to become a tradition. And it's going to make the school a better place.
In terms of bathrooms and locker rooms, I imagine you could use the Burrow for that, since those are already available there. If anybody complains... hey, it's a temporary solution.
The downside might be if they built it and people still didn't come, so the Board of Governors decided that a real stadium wouldn't fly. If they build it, the pressure is now on us to fill up every damn seat to get the real deal later on.
Go Owls!
Wouldn't a football field have to be 120 yards long (not 100) to account for end zones?
The average attendance for last season was below 10,000 people. How can FAU justify the expense of a 25,000 person stadium?
"The average attendance for last season was below 10,000 people. How can FAU justify the expense of a 25,000 person stadium?"
Where are you getting 25,000?
The 'Erector Set' stadium will be 15,000. This is justified because the main reason why people aren't attending is distance from campus.
Things are turning around for FAU in terms of athletics and school pride at FAU. Embrace it.
Go Owls.
"This is justified because the main reason why people aren't attending is distance from campus."
Really? FIU has just as bad attendance or worse yet their stadium has always been on campus.
Because students in Miami would rather see UM play than FIU. FIU is in a bad location.
Look, even if FAU doesn't spend $500k+ on an Erector Set stadium, it's going to spend $500k on something else you probably don't support or care about anyway. So at least this way some people are satisfied and we can start progressing toward Schnellenberger's goal of getting us into the Big East conference.
Post a Comment
<< Home