(02-13-2011 05:36 PM)HuskieJ Wrote:  you already bulit the HVAC support right there th the east side of the Y center, why extend it all the way to the other side over near the baseball field. I am pretty sure that the indoor will be just north of the Y center. Moving baseball fileds is a big waste of money.

Exactly.

this thread is exactly why we need a master plan - unveil true plans for an IPF, expanded stadium, etc. and more $ would come in, i'd be willing to bet. let's see something tangible that we can work toward. the average fan isn't gonna dole out $50 for an imaginary building in an unknown location.

(02-13-2011 03:14 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(02-13-2011 12:02 PM)niubrad00 Wrote:  

(02-13-2011 10:29 AM)DogTracks Wrote:  I like the notion of having an IPF at the baseball field site. The more I think about it, the more that makes the most sense. Putting it north of Yordon you're really wedging it into a small space.

Hopefully they can upgrade the baseball facility a little bit as a part of the relocation. Nothing major, of course since baseball's best case scenario is to compete in the MAC and occasionally get into the regional and get bounced in 2.

It's really not. Take a look at it on Google Earth. The "footprint" is already there. The field would be laid out east to west and it would be offset a bit to the west from the Yordon Center. The existing grassy area is about 140 yards long by 75 yards wide. The IPF would fit like a glove there.

I agree. What makes no sense to me is why would they put the IPF where the b-ball field is? Do these guys know how much money it would take to move or replace the field? We are going to have a difficult enough time paying for the IPF before the added cost of moving/replacing the field.

You are correct. Spend the money on a quality facility, not moving a baseball field.

This is a direct quote from my person in athletics when I asked them about the IPF at the BBall field.

"As for the location of the IPF, I have no idea where that rumor would have come from. The IPF will attach to the front of the yordon center and take up that big grass area in front of the yordon. This has always been the plan and it hasn't changed."

Boy, it does sound like we need a master plan (I thought we had about two already) and we need to see it to spur donations. I have no problem moving baseball field. I am afraid the area north of the Y is a great open area now and not sure how it would look with a building in front of it. Baseball at Northern Illinois University should not stand in the way of anything. If the baseball team has to practice in Rochelle to make room for football facilities, so be it.

(02-14-2011 09:26 AM)Dog Fan Wrote:  

(02-13-2011 03:14 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(02-13-2011 12:02 PM)niubrad00 Wrote:  

(02-13-2011 10:29 AM)DogTracks Wrote:  I like the notion of having an IPF at the baseball field site. The more I think about it, the more that makes the most sense. Putting it north of Yordon you're really wedging it into a small space.

Hopefully they can upgrade the baseball facility a little bit as a part of the relocation. Nothing major, of course since baseball's best case scenario is to compete in the MAC and occasionally get into the regional and get bounced in 2.

It's really not. Take a look at it on Google Earth. The "footprint" is already there. The field would be laid out east to west and it would be offset a bit to the west from the Yordon Center. The existing grassy area is about 140 yards long by 75 yards wide. The IPF would fit like a glove there.

I agree. What makes no sense to me is why would they put the IPF where the b-ball field is? Do these guys know how much money it would take to move or replace the field? We are going to have a difficult enough time paying for the IPF before the added cost of moving/replacing the field.

You are correct. Spend the money on a quality facility, not moving a baseball field.

Wow. I am shocked. We actually agree on something. I suppose it is easier to do when it doesn't involve tea bags.

Like I forecasted last week that there would be an insufficient number of tables and chairs and that was the case.

I arrived five minutes to 1pm . A long time donor and his wife found me at 1:15 and no seating was available for he and his wife. I offered mine to his wife but she declined.

At least the quantity of dorm food available was more than sufficient.

Since my son's plans changed Friday, he was unable to join me at kickoff as planned. I met another stray cat who I invited to join me at table. He is the dad of a red shirted freshman from out of state. Dad had to pay $8.00 to enter Kickoff altho he was unable to stay & attend bball game.

Had I met him in Convo lobby before going downstairs I could have given him my spare game tix unused by my son. What a wacky system to require buying a bball tix to attend free Kickoff. I paid zero to enter into Convo. Dad deserves a refund IMHO if anyone in HASF is interested.

I saw very, very few students fans in attendance. Vast majority attending were mostly ole' farts like me.

Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

What did come across is if NIU apparently is truly serious about dreaming the dream of a bcs bowl game in the years ahead, attendance and donations must step up to the plate while raising the bar. Athletic Dept & HASF is likely preaching to the tapped out choir when talking really big dreams and really big money. Not only is IPF a necessary stepping stone upwards so too are a press box and an expaneded stadium when current Huskie Stadium is sold out regularly. All those stepping stones and dreams seem like buzz light years away.

Can we start the next baby step simply with a MACC in 2011? It's a tag line getting as stale as the Cubs & " Wait until next yr."

I liked hearing Doeren say Huskie Stadium needs to become a hostile environment for visiting teams. I have witnessed such an environment perhaps a handful of times in 45 yrs of attending NIU football. The now legendary BGSU-Urban Meyer experience is what comes to mind. There is much work to be done for that to happen regularly.

Doeren exudes confidence and a very professional disposition. I left feeling good about the coming season.

What did impress me was to hear Doeren say he has met individually with 80 players for twenty minutes each. Do the math. He is apparently living and breathing NIU football 24/7 right now. You godda feel for the families of college football coaches and the sacrifices they are required to make.

Overall I give the Dept, coaches and staff a composite grade of "B"......now, if only we could figure out the seating. There is sufficient room to add tables and chairs on the court.

Those of you advocating moving the baseball field, you do realize we'd be throwing away a huge investment. During the summer of 2004 McKinzie Field underwent a major renovation to better level the field (featuring something called Magic Mix soil) and include a new sprinkling system which the administration and coaches boasted would make "McKinzie Field one of the best not only in the Mid-American Conference, but in the Midwest." As has been said, there has always been a plan to put an IPF by the Yordon Center and you want it connected to a place that is central to the student-athletes when it comes to everything else from conditioning to tutoring to athletic training, etc.

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

People who do public speaking need to learn to speak into a microphone. Microphones like the one used are directional and only meant to pick up when a person is speaking into them. That way it avoids noise and feedback. Don't blame a solid professional grade mic for someones lack of skill when it comes to public speaking.

The footprint for an IPF was determined when they built the Yordon Center. I have heard zero to suggest deviation from that. And they're certainly not going to rip out baseball field that was just installed in 2005 to the tune of a pretty good penny.

Until a major donor or three steps up then people are getting carried away with the anticipation thing. I've also heard zero about a possible Spring Game announcement.

Here is the response from my athletics person on why we didn't and don't hear anything official on the IPF or even a sketch of it at the kickoff to get people fired up about donating.

First off you have to realize that HASF and Capital Projects are two separate fund raising entities and this was a HASF event.

"The problem with capital projects is that they are heavily controlled by the Foundation. Although we do have artist renderings of the IPF they are not for public view at this point. Running a capital campaign is extremely complicated and private. Once we go public, which could be months from now, we will make things more available. At this time however, we are not free to discuss openly which is why Jeff [Compher] did not mention it."

So really we need to give athletics a break when we say that they are not doing this or that to our liking. There are rules that have been set by some governing body (NIU trustees or NCAA I don't know) that they are following and we need to just trust that they are doing their jobs.

(02-14-2011 02:40 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

People who do public speaking need to learn to speak into a microphone. Microphones like the one used are directional and only meant to pick up when a person is speaking into them. That way it avoids noise and feedback. Don't blame a solid professional grade mic for someones lack of skill when it comes to public speaking.

I consider Compher a respectable public speaker. At times his mouth was either too close or too far from the mic. Same was true of other speakers as well. Most all did adjust the height of the mic to suit themselves but not how near nor far they were to mic when speaking.

The room itself and lack of quality acoustics garbles many sounds...just like inside the Convo....

I wondered if they had rehearsed using the mic and had others stationed on the court to hear how well or not the speakers used the system. The goal should be, afterall, for the audience to actually hear all that is being said. That was clearly not the case with any of the presenters, and I was seated in a front row table not far from podium.

I still hold to this after trying desparately to hear every spoken word during the bball pregame but could not: the announcer speaks so rapidly and runs his words and sentences together as if in a race to the finish line. Announcements sound more like a dislaimer found at tail end of some ads.

If they are talking about going public "months from now" I'm guessing (hoping) that they're working major donors right now and will go public in the runup to the 2011 season.

(02-14-2011 04:06 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 02:40 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

People who do public speaking need to learn to speak into a microphone. Microphones like the one used are directional and only meant to pick up when a person is speaking into them. That way it avoids noise and feedback. Don't blame a solid professional grade mic for someones lack of skill when it comes to public speaking.

I consider Compher a respectable public speaker. At times his mouth was either too close or too far from the mic. Same was true of other speakers as well. Most all did adjust the height of the mic to suit themselves but not how near nor far they were to mic when speaking.

The room itself and lack of quality acoustics garbles many sounds...just like inside the Convo....

I wondered if they had rehearsed using the mic and had others stationed on the court to hear how well or not the speakers used the system. The goal should be, afterall, for the audience to actually hear all that is being said. That was clearly not the case with any of the presenters, and I was seated in a front row table not far from podium.

I still hold to this after trying desparately to hear every spoken word during the bball pregame but could not: the announcer speaks so rapidly and runs his words and sentences together as if in a race to the finish line. Announcements sound more like a dislaimer at tail end of some ads.

Well of course the room has terrible acoustics, it's a gym. It's not a concert hall. And as for the arena itself, again what do you expect. The place is pretty much empty, there's going to be a lot of echoing because there are no bodies to absorb the sound. That is why concerts at most arenas tend to be awful. They are not meant for beautiful sound and acoustics, they are utilitarian and meant to seat thousands of people.

And you illustrated my point. There are very many eloquent talented public speakers in the world, Compher is one of them. So are many of our student athletes. That being said, they do not know how to speak into a microphone. That is a talent that many lack and needs to be addressed, especially in today's world, how basic high school or college speech classes do not address this I do not know.

(02-14-2011 02:40 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

People who do public speaking need to learn to speak into a microphone. Microphones like the one used are directional and only meant to pick up when a person is speaking into them. That way it avoids noise and feedback. Don't blame a solid professional grade mic for someones lack of skill when it comes to public speaking.

This was a good explanation on mics, Bleeds. Most people don't know anything about this so it's good that you were able to put it in pretty understandable terms.

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Like I forecasted last week that there would be an insufficient number of tables and chairs and that was the case.

I arrived five minutes to 1pm . A long time donor and his wife found me at 1:15 and no seating was available for he and his wife. I offered mine to his wife but she declined.

At least the quantity of dorm food available was more than sufficient.

Since my son's plans changed Friday, he was unable to join me at kickoff as planned. I met another stray cat who I invited to join me at table. He is the dad of a red shirted freshman from out of state. Dad had to pay $8.00 to enter Kickoff altho he was unable to stay & attend bball game.

Had I met him in Convo lobby before going downstairs I could have given him my spare game tix unused by my son. What a wacky system to require buying a bball tix to attend free Kickoff. I paid zero to enter into Convo. Dad deserves a refund IMHO if anyone in HASF is interested.

I saw very, very few students fans in attendance. Vast majority attending were mostly ole' farts like me.

Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

What did come across is if NIU apparently is truly serious about dreaming the dream of a bcs bowl game in the years ahead, attendance and donations must step up to the plate while raising the bar. Athletic Dept & HASF is likely preaching to the tapped out choir when talking really big dreams and really big money. Not only is IPF a necessary stepping stone upwards so too are a press box and an expaneded stadium when current Huskie Stadium is sold out regularly. All those stepping stones and dreams seem like buzz light years away.

Can we start the next baby step simply with a MACC in 2011? It's a tag line getting as stale as the Cubs & " Wait until next yr."

I liked hearing Doeren say Huskie Stadium needs to become a hostile environment for visiting teams. I have witnessed such an environment perhaps a handful of times in 45 yrs of attending NIU football. The now legendary BGSU-Urban Meyer experience is what comes to mind. There is much work to be done for that to happen regularly.

Doeren exudes confidence and a very professional disposition. I left feeling good about the coming season.

What did impress me was to hear Doeren say he has met individually with 80 players for twenty minutes each. Do the math. He is apparently living and breathing NIU football 24/7 right now. You godda feel for the families of college football coaches and the sacrifices they are required to make.

Overall I give the Dept, coaches and staff a composite grade of "B"......now, if only we could figure out the seating. There is sufficient room to add tables and chairs on the court.

Thanks for this post Cybes. Gave us all a pretty good feel for how things went.

(02-14-2011 04:06 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 02:40 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

People who do public speaking need to learn to speak into a microphone. Microphones like the one used are directional and only meant to pick up when a person is speaking into them. That way it avoids noise and feedback. Don't blame a solid professional grade mic for someones lack of skill when it comes to public speaking.

I consider Compher a respectable public speaker. At times his mouth was either too close or too far from the mic. Same was true of other speakers as well. Most all did adjust the height of the mic to suit themselves but not how near nor far they were to mic when speaking.

The room itself and lack of quality acoustics garbles many sounds...just like inside the Convo....

I wondered if they had rehearsed using the mic and had others stationed on the court to hear how well or not the speakers used the system. The goal should be, afterall, for the audience to actually hear all that is being said. That was clearly not the case with any of the presenters, and I was seated in a front row table not far from podium.

I still hold to this after trying desparately to hear every spoken word during the bball pregame but could not: the announcer speaks so rapidly and runs his words and sentences together as if in a race to the finish line. Announcements sound more like a dislaimer found at tail end of some ads.

is there nothing people on this board won't b tch about.

(02-14-2011 04:30 PM)gcd Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 04:06 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 02:40 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

People who do public speaking need to learn to speak into a microphone. Microphones like the one used are directional and only meant to pick up when a person is speaking into them. That way it avoids noise and feedback. Don't blame a solid professional grade mic for someones lack of skill when it comes to public speaking.

I consider Compher a respectable public speaker. At times his mouth was either too close or too far from the mic. Same was true of other speakers as well. Most all did adjust the height of the mic to suit themselves but not how near nor far they were to mic when speaking.

The room itself and lack of quality acoustics garbles many sounds...just like inside the Convo....

I wondered if they had rehearsed using the mic and had others stationed on the court to hear how well or not the speakers used the system. The goal should be, afterall, for the audience to actually hear all that is being said. That was clearly not the case with any of the presenters, and I was seated in a front row table not far from podium.

I still hold to this after trying desparately to hear every spoken word during the bball pregame but could not: the announcer speaks so rapidly and runs his words and sentences together as if in a race to the finish line. Announcements sound more like a dislaimer found at tail end of some ads.

is there nothing people on this board won't b tch about.

I was just happy the temperature was comfortable. Heating or cooling a gym, or half of one, that goes from empty to all of the sudden full of people in 15 minuets is a tricky thing.

I reported both the good and not so good aspects of the Kickoff.. How else does anything improve unless it's reviewed critically?

BTW: Gooden was pretty darn enjoyable to hear and kinda spry for a roundish fellow. Cannot believe he has been at NIU for ten seasons. For those unable to attend, Compher said in his intro for vball coach that watching Gooden coach is worth price of admission alone.

(02-14-2011 04:30 PM)gcd Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 04:06 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 02:40 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  

(02-14-2011 01:22 PM)cyberdawg Wrote:  Doeren was good, and so were student athletes but the mic sux unless the speaker 's mouth is exactly in the right position which it was oftentimes not.

People who do public speaking need to learn to speak into a microphone. Microphones like the one used are directional and only meant to pick up when a person is speaking into them. That way it avoids noise and feedback. Don't blame a solid professional grade mic for someones lack of skill when it comes to public speaking.

I consider Compher a respectable public speaker. At times his mouth was either too close or too far from the mic. Same was true of other speakers as well. Most all did adjust the height of the mic to suit themselves but not how near nor far they were to mic when speaking.

The room itself and lack of quality acoustics garbles many sounds...just like inside the Convo....

I wondered if they had rehearsed using the mic and had others stationed on the court to hear how well or not the speakers used the system. The goal should be, afterall, for the audience to actually hear all that is being said. That was clearly not the case with any of the presenters, and I was seated in a front row table not far from podium.

I still hold to this after trying desparately to hear every spoken word during the bball pregame but could not: the announcer speaks so rapidly and runs his words and sentences together as if in a race to the finish line. Announcements sound more like a dislaimer found at tail end of some ads.

is there nothing people on this board won't b tch about.

Garbled & unintelligible audio at an event can be most unpleasant and extremely frustrating. Sadly, and way too often, audio systems in stadiums, gyms & places like the convo are poorly designed and make hearing what's going on impossible. It rather defeats the point of even HAVING an audio system! There are ways to design a system to compensate for some of the acoustic problems but acoustics play a huge roll in intelligibility.