The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

We are moving our athletic facilities from pay-by-the-week trailer park quality to a nice 2 story brick house in a decent neighborhood quality. We wont be in the best neighborhood, nor will we have the largest or nicest house in our own neighborhood, but it will be so much better than the trailer park that such details are trivial at this stage. The point is that we can now access and recruit players who previously refused to even consider trailer park facilities. And, its only a start.

After a few years of success we expand. Further, we are not asking players to live in Troy for 4 years, nor are we offering a degree from Troy. Not sure any size or quality of athletic building would make up for that.

If the corporate sponsors continue to step up as they have been, is there any chance that they will consider an indoor practice field rather than the "covered pavillion" ? Or is that something for future expansion?
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2016/...deadl.html (not for the fundraising comments but for the covered pavillion comment)

UAB makes the design decision and has the blueprints made and constructed. It is possible that the IPF gets enclosed later, but we have a lot of things to improve and pay for. For now the football building is catching most of the donations. Our AD seems to have decided that a fully enclosed practice space is not a priority at this time.

if Ingram actually brought in some donations himself we could probably fund a lot more things.

(04-15-2016 03:27 PM)UABslant Wrote:  

(04-15-2016 02:20 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  Some of us have experience with such facilities and can speak with some degree of authority about what size building is suitable for what range of needed athletic services. Some of us are not able to speak to the effective differences between a 60,000 sq ft UAB Football Operations building, a 120,000 sq ft building like at Troy or a 300,000 sq ft building like a San Diego State.

That is why we ask those who have said experience to tell us if UAB is really building what it needs to meet our competition in game prep and recruiting -- or not. If what we are building fits our competitive needs, then it is indeed satisfactory. If it is just the best we can build with our limited athletic income, then it is what it is, and we must adjust our expectations for the future accordingly.

If it's so obvious, perhaps you can tell us why UAB is building one of the smaller such facilities among the FBS schools in Alabama, let alone C-USA? Is it because that is the best UAB can do or just what it chooses to do? Chances are that with the length of the list of expensive additional needs (after 30 years of doing without anything new), what we build now will be what we will have into the 2030s.

(04-16-2016 09:04 AM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  UAB makes the design decision and has the blueprints made and constructed. It is possible that the IPF gets enclosed later, but we have a lot of things to improve and pay for. For now the football building is catching most of the donations. Our AD seems to have decided that a fully enclosed practice space is not a priority at this time.

Bingo.

(04-16-2016 04:35 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  if Ingram actually brought in some donations himself we could probably fund a lot more things.

Ingram is doing some fine work.