I am asking this as a person living outside the tri-cities beltway....What do you think ETSU's main reason for planning these new athletic facilities is? There has to be one major reason. I would think it would not be just to have new shiny facilities to show off or that the exisiting facilities are crumbling and are safety and health concerns. What they have right now may not be perfect, but they seem decent facilities. I mean if you are going to get people to donate to this you have to give them a reason why you want these type of facilities don't you? You have to sell it. I guess the main reason I would love to hear is "we are doing this to get into a top-level athletic conference (e.g. A-10, CAA)." To me that would be the only way people would want to help fund this thing. I am not privy to all the local talk radio/media as you local posters on this board. But I have never really heard the reason(s) for wanting to do this? Any SERIOUS thoughts?
Someone posted somewhere that Conf USA visited at some time and found the facilites at ETSU not up to par. If true I would think the decision to raise 100 million for a facilites upgrade would be the effort to fix the problem.
I hope and pray that the long term goal (10-15 years) is to move to higher profiled conference although I haven't seen or heard anything to that end. Maybe others have.
The issue I have been thinking about recently is the about travel. There was such an uproar about the "footprint" of the A-Sun that people could not see how we really "fit" into that conference. Travel is going to be an issue in all but a few conferences. Give an answer to this then: What high profile conference's footprint do we fit?
I wish people would stop thinking that Mullins and Co. came up with the idea for the capital campaign. That capital campaign was promised to Todd Stansbury. "Wait until the University campaign is over and you'll get yours" he was told.
So the plans were made and the facilities plan was APPROVED in the Spring of 2003. It included an outdoor football stadium. After the mess occurred, they had to go back to the TBR and Physical Plant planners and reconfigure the lay-outs. The original $100 million was including football.
Now, as people have been looking at the stadium issue with the Football Foundation (and Pitt, you have NO IDEA what's been going on, so shut up and don't worry your pretty little head), the people who are consulting are scratching their heads at the price tags that ETScc has planted on these facilities. Most are trying to figure out how they can "estimate" the costs that they are publically touting given that other (better) facilities have been accomplished for considerably less. I'd almost accuse people of padding the figures for the bids, but I'm sure there's no way that could ever happen outside of a federal defense contract with Haliburten doing the building, but I digress.
Also, if the Athletic Destroyer brags ONE MORE TIME about having the first strategic plan I'm going to puke. He inherited a strategic plan and a capital campaign plan from someone that actually knew what they were doing. He's lying, or should we just consider that just more of the misinformation or omissions that never get questioned.
My head is pretty, isn't it?
AND BIG!!!!!