Good stuff from Bill Koch at gobearcats.com:
KOCH: Nippert Stadium Renovations An Impressive Symbol Of UC's Progress
April 24, 2015
By Bill Koch
GoBEARCATS.com
CINCINNATI -- How far has the University of Cincinnati football program grown in the past 25 years?
You can measure the progress by the five conference championships the Bearcats have either won or shared in the last seven years in the Big East Conference and the American Athletic Conference and remember that UC didn't have a conference to play in from 1969 until 1996. You can measure it by the 13 bowl appearances in the last 17 years, including the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl, after making no bowl appearances for 47 years.
Or you could take a tour of the Nippert Stadium renovation, as I did Thursday, and remember what it used to look like before its last renovation in the early 1990s.
Back in 1989, the Bearcats were getting ready to play their Homecoming game against Memphis State in a crumbling, grey stadium that had been declared structurally unsound a few years earlier. UC officials were told at the time that they had several years to either fix the stadium or stop playing there altogether.
The year before, the Bearcats had averaged only 12,254 fans per game. Before the Memphis State game, I asked UC quarterback Glenn Farkas about the benefits of playing in front of a big crowd at Nippert on those rare occasions when one showed up.
"It covers up the stadium so you don't have to look at it," Farkas said.
Flash forward to Thursday afternoon when athletic director Mike Bohn joined the media on a tour of the Nippert Stadium upgrade as it moves toward completion in time for its unveiling on Sept. 5 when UC plays Alabama A&M in its season opener.
For most of the reporters and photographers, it was their first chance to see the striking changes that the $86-million renovation is bringing. For me, it was a trip down memory lane.
First the good stuff:
The new Nippert will increase seating from 35,000 to 40,000. It includes a structure on the west side that stretches for almost 130 yards and rises five stories above the stadium concourse. It contains four levels -- a press and operations suite with seating for 100 reporters, a suite level, patio suites level and scholarship club seats level.
UC will go from having almost no premium seating options to the addition of 1,100 scholarship club suites and more than 50 indoor and outdoor suites of varying sizes. In addition, the concourses on both sides of the stadium have been widened and furnished with new restrooms and concession facilities. New lighting has been installed on the roof of the press box on the west side of the stadium. There will also be additional lighting on the east side. And the Herschede-Shank Pavilion will receive an upper concourse with skywalks directly connecting to the Varsity Village plaza where additional restrooms and concessions are being built.
Before the previous renovation, the stadium seated 26,592. The press box was an antiquated wooden structure that more closely resembled something you would see at a high school field than a Division I facility. I remember as the project was beginning, walking from my car toward Shoemaker Center on the way to basketball practice and when I saw the old press box literally being torn from its mooring, the wood breaking apart as it crashed into the seats below. I paused to watch its demise, grateful that I would never have to watch another game from there.
Today, UC coach Tommy Tuberville uses Nippert as a selling point for recruits, but back then UC coaches tried to avoid showing it to recruits when they made their visits. Running back Terry Strong told me that when he made his visit he was hustled past the stadium. "They just passed by it and pointed it out to me," he said.
The locker facilities were located underneath the stadium split into a Red room and White room. The starters and upperclassmen used the Red room. Everyone else was stuffed into the White room. Both were dark and cramped. As Strong described it, "The ceiling tile would be falling down. When it rained heavy, the locker room would be wet and nasty inside. The carpet would get wet and mildewed. It smelled bad."
Fortunately, that's ancient history. The $13.5-million renovation that was completed in 1992 increased seating capacity to 35,000 by adding seats in the north end zone and extending the pavilion on the second level. The press box was replaced by one that seated 35 reporters, with broadcasting booths on the top of three levels.
In 1990, UC played only three home games -- all downtown at Riverfront Stadium - while Phase I of the renovation was being completed. The Bearcats returned to Nippert in 1991 to play another three-game home schedule before Phase II was completed in time for the 1992 season. Except for a few cosmetic changes, the stadium had remained unchanged since then until the current 20-month renovation was started by Turner Construction in December 2013.
Now the new Nippert is rapidly taking shape.
"They've put together what's going to be, and will be for a long time, the best on-campus and prettiest on-campus stadium that you'll see," Tuberville said. "And I've been in most of them around the country."
I've seen a lot of stadiums around the country, too. Some are impressive because of their size, but have little character. Others are located in picturesque settings that are striking because of their surroundings. But I don't know of any that are located in the center of campus the way Nippert Stadium is.
Nippert doesn't need to be among the largest stadiums in the country and it won't be surrounded by mountains. But it will be truly unique as it looms as an impressive symbol of how far the football program has come and where it can still go.
Bill Koch covered UC Athletics for 27 years - 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer - before joining the staff of GoBEARCATS.com in January, 2015 as featured columnist. Follow him on Twitter @bkoch.
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KOCH: Nippert Stadium Renovations An Impressive Symbol Of UC's Progress
