Making home field an advantage
How the University of Louisville transformed its athletic facilities
By Eric Crawford
The Courier-Journal

Arthur Albiero was excited. He'd completed his interview process and been offered the job of swimming coach at the University of Louisville. He accepted before heading home from his visit to the school.

There was just one problem. Nobody had shown him the pool.

"They took me by Crawford Gym to see it on my way back to the airport," he said, laughing. "And when I saw it, I could see why. It was pretty small and hidden away."



That was in 2004. Albiero now coaches in the new Ralph Wright Natatorium, which sits squarely at the eastern entrance to U of L's Belknap Campus.

And after a 17-year building boom, U of L no longer has reason to hide its athletic facilities. With the Cardinal Corridor, which runs along Floyd Street from Cardinal Boulevard to just past Central Avenue, U of L has spent $160 million on new athletic facilities on the school's main campus since 1990.

And according to school officials, it has reaped benefits far beyond the athletic field.

"I don't think there's any question, what has been done with our athletics facilities has helped with the overall improvements and changes to our campus," U of L President James Ramsey said. "It's a tremendous success story."

U of L set out to change the face of its athletic program. It wound up changing the face of its campus.

In the late 1980s, the eastern border of the Belknap Campus was an outdated dormitory, the Red Barn social facility, an office building and the university's physical plant. Across Floyd Street was a gravel parking lot and a copy shop.

When he arrived as athletic director in 1996, Tom Jurich started talking about giving the campus a new "front lawn."

Today, its eastern entrance is through Cardinal Park: stadiums for softball, soccer, track and field and field hockey. Around that complex is a cardio trail. Within it is a pavilion for picnics and a playground.

Across the street is the new natatorium. Down the road is Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, plus new stadiums for lacrosse and baseball, a $9 million indoor practice facility for football and other sports and a new basketball practice facility, the Yum! Center.

The contributions of athletic programs to the colleges they represent are a matter of some debate. A good sports year can lead to an increase in applications, but there's little data to suggest that big-time sports pay any kind of tangible big-time dividends to universities.



However, at U of L, officials say they have physical evidence that sports are contributing to the bigger picture.

Combined with building of new residence halls on the western edge of campus, the school has begun to shake some of the commuter-school mold that it has had for much of its history. The on-campus population has grown from 9 percent a decade ago to nearly 20 percent today, and campus life has improved dramatically, with development around the campus bringing more restaurants, a grocery and other businesses.

"There wasn't anything on campus at all," said David Barber, who came from Ashland, Ky., to begin his undergraduate studies at U of L in 1986. " … You could get a pizza if you walked a long way to get there. Other than that, you were stuck with Ramen noodles. It's amazing what they have now, and all those athletic facilities are a major part of that."

Benefits to the athletic department are easy to identify. Last season U of L earned its highest-ever finish in the Sears Directors Cup standings, which rank overall athletic achievement. The Cardinals were 28th nationally and have seen sports like men's track and soccer break into the national rankings in the past year.

Gender equity
But one of the driving forces behind much of the building was Jurich's goal to bring the school in line with federal gender-equity guidelines in both proportionality -- the percentage of women athletes compared with the percentage of women students -- and in equity of facilities.

The strides U of L has made in those areas have been striking. Lamar Daniel, a national gender-equity consultant who toured U of L's campus in 1996, has advised the university on gender-equity improvements while watching the growth. Under Jurich, U of L has added four women's sports -- softball, golf, rowing and lacrosse -- and has moved field hockey and soccer to full funding.

"It has gone from one of the worst situations in the country in terms of facilities to one of the best," Daniel said. "When I first came here, it had what passed for a track. I think I counted three shower heads for female athletes. From my experience, Louisville has done as much as anyone in the country to move itself forward in gender equity."

From that point, U of L has come to this: Last season, all of its women's sports teams were nationally ranked at some point. Women's golf finished in the top 10.

It also moved itself forward in conference affiliation. Jurich acknowledges that the building was done with the goal of gaining admission to a Bowl Championship Series conference, something that happened two years ago when it was admitted to the Big East.

Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said the facilities played a major role.

"Well, Louisville is at the forefront in terms of their commitment to facilities," he said. "They did it to the point that, when they entered the league, they actually raised the bar for the rest of the conference. They're that good."

Getting things done
The idea for such a complex didn't begin with Jurich. It had been something that former AD Bill Olsen and others at the university had been kicking around for a decade before Jurich arrived. But he blew the dust off the plans and tapped a key figure, Owsley Brown Frazier, to spearhead fundraising for the facility.

With Frazier and Jurich making the project a top priority, things moved quickly. Jurich said he not only wanted a complex of top-flight athletic facilities, but he pushed hard to incorporate the design of a park, with recreational facilities interspersed between stadiums.

"We wanted it to be a true student facility," Jurich said. "I don't think there's any question: It's something we had to do if we wanted to reach our goal of being a program that other people look at and want to emulate. But the big thing was gender equity. I'd been at a school that had been the target of a lawsuit under Title IX, and you really don't know how much that can hurt you."

The addition of sports also has raised the academic profile of U of L's athletic department. In 1996, U of L had 44 athletes who posted a grade-point average of 3.0 or better. That number now exceeds 200.

And the facilities have allowed Jurich to recruit big-name coaches in nonrevenue sports. Ron Mann is one of the most well-known coaches in college track and field. He came to U of L after being impressed with the facilities -- and with Jurich's commitment to do more.

"It's a place where you hear people talking all the time about, 'What can we do to get this done?' " Mann said. "You don't hear people talking about why something can't be done. I think that's a big reason you look around and see all the growth that has taken place."

Ken Lolla left Akron's men's soccer team, which had been No. 1 in the nation, to come to U of L. He now has the Cardinals ranked No. 21 in his second season.

Opening their doors
The building boom also has strengthened U of L's ties to the community, Jurich said.

"That was a big goal," he said. "We wanted to reach out and make these facilities available to the city, to bring more people to campus and to get kids involved here."

Papa John's Cardinal Stadium has been home to the Kentucky state football playoffs since 2003. Ulmer Stadium has hosted state softball tournament events. The track stadium and natatorium have held outside events. The Brown & Williamson Room in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium is a popular venue for receptions, and the stadium hosted a Billy Graham Crusade.

The facilities have attracted NCAA events. Trager Stadium has hosted two NCAA field hockey Final Fours, and Jim Patterson Stadium last spring was awarded a baseball super-regional, which the Cardinals won to advance to their first College World Series. The baseball facility is busy with outside events all summer. The National Senior Games and Transplant Games have used the tennis, track and swimming facilities.

The completion of the Yum! Center basketball practice facility last month likely will mark the last free-standing building added to the corridor for a while. But it won't be the last change. A major expansion to Papa John's Cardinal Stadium is in the works, as well as improvements to the field hockey stadium and regular enhancements of the baseball stadium.

And according to men's basketball coach Rick Pitino, many of the improvements will come from outside of the university.

"I think what Tom and the administration have done here in a short time is maybe unmatched in all of college sports," said Pitino, who has been heavily involved in fund-raising for several of the projects, including a new dormitory for basketball players and other students and for the basketball practice facility, which also will be home to the volleyball program.

"The building has transformed the campus. Now what we have to work to do is to get businesses and shops and restaurants involved, show them the kind of community we're building and attract them to the campus area. I think you've started to see some of that."

It's perhaps a testament to the way the athletic building has improved campus life that there has been little protest of so much spending on athletics -- though at the same time, U of L has been making significant additions to its academic facilities, particularly with the addition of two major academic buildings in the center of campus and an extensive expansion of Ekstrom Library.

"We have a lot of work to do," Jurich said. "We're never going to sit still. We're always going to be moving forward. But I think this university community can look at what has been accomplished so far and be proud. It has taken some creativity and a lot of sacrifice for our fans, but I think it has been worth it for our students and our university."

Eric Crawford can be reached at (502) 582-4372.

it is pretty impressive what louisville has built..

goodknightfl Wrote:it is pretty impressive what louisville has built..

UCF seems to understand how it works now. The success on the field is not there right now, but the new digs for football and basketball will help recruiting, coaching searches when needed, and helps foster a more traditional college feel on campus.