I've heard that the mini dome was actually suppose to be built where the CPA currently is, but they felt like it was to far off campus. Can anyone confirm or deny this. Thank you.. Oh and how do your feel about the place??

(11-10-2010 10:56 PM)YoungBuc0 Wrote:  I've heard that the mini dome was actually suppose to be built where the CPA currently is, but they felt like it was to far off campus. Can anyone confirm or deny this. Thank you.. Oh and how do your feel about the place??

I've always been told that the President at the time mandated that it be built in the exact footprint of the stadium that had been on campus. The planners may have in fact wanted that other location but it's never been raised in my conversations with the people who were on campus at the time. Only other thing has been that they were forced to cut the square footage for two reasons: budget issues and the Presidents mandate to fit the footprint.

Lack of vision? Yep, definitely should have embraced the long term growth potential of the University. Or defiance of the state shoving the monster down the throats of campus? Perhaps.

I definitely would have preferred it down from campus-primary.. that place is squashed up against the academic buildings and at the time the old Walnut street, never was room to add sufficient parking or expand to have complimentary athletic or auxillary services.

Straightfrom is correct. There was never any consideration (or real need, at that time) to put it anywhere else.

In hindsight (something always in extraordinarily short supply at ETSU), maybe somewhere else would have been better, but not by much. Remember, this building gets much more use as an academic building than as a sporting venue, although of course it's *main* reason for existence was as a sporting venue.

Despite it's obvious and well-chronicled limitations, it has been an overall positive for the university. But the extremely short-sighted decision to save $1 million to cut the size slightly, thus messing up the sightlines along the football sidelines (and worse, the track lanes) has proven to be a gigantic miscue, and most have known that since it opened.

I find it hugely ironic now that MSHA has been allowed to have their name on it, after we turned down the offer from Anheuser-Busch to paint it with their advertising (as a half-buried beer can) for $1 million.

A search of the archives here, youngbuc0, will turn up a myriad of discussions about this building, both pro and con......

(11-14-2010 03:48 PM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  Straightfrom is correct. There was never any consideration (or real need, at that time) to put it anywhere else.

In hindsight (something always in extraordinarily short supply at ETSU), maybe somewhere else would have been better, but not by much. Remember, this building gets much more use as an academic building than as a sporting venue, although of course it's *main* reason for existence was as a sporting venue.

Despite it's obvious and well-chronicled limitations, it has been an overall positive for the university. But the extremely short-sighted decision to save $1 million to cut the size slightly, thus messing up the sightlines along the football sidelines (and worse, the track lanes) has proven to be a gigantic miscue, and most have known that since it opened.

I find it hugely ironic now that MSHA has been allowed to have their name on it, after we turned down the offer from Anheuser-Busch to paint it with their advertising (as a half-buried beer can) for $1 million.

A search of the archives here, youngbuc0, will turn up a myriad of discussions about this building, both pro and con......

Oh, but the beer guys aren't going to have a nice cushy seat on the board of director's for the retired univerity leadership (retired?? did somebody say retired??).

Seriously, does anyone know what the pricetag for all those letters on both sides of the Dome?? who paid for that?? and who's paying for all the new signage?

What was the 'donation' that made all this possible? was there other consideration? I may have missed that part in the announcement.

My understanding is that MSHA did nothing specific to get the building named after them. I believe the university did it as a "gesture of appreciation for all the great support and generosity MSHA has shown over the years" (paraphrasing there). Horse crap. Pisses me off to drive by and see the giant MSHA logo with the much smaller ETSU logos. It really cheapens the look of the entire campus, especially since we did not get anything out of it.

The sightline problem was a major mistake in my opinion. Stupid decision that hurt the overall football experience.

The usual lack of vision that has so hampered ETSU in so many areas over the years.

Dead horse, but an indoor football facility in East Tennessee was a stupid decision that hurt the overall football experience. Fall in the Southern Appalachians is no time to be inside. The old stadium looks like a sweet place to watch football on a crisp Autumn day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/etsuarchive...512681468/

I love the way the campus buildings hug the stadium. The other side and the endzone could have been expanded as needed. Of all the "what ifs?" with ETSU athletics, this has to be the biggest.

(11-14-2010 08:16 PM)ETSU-07 Wrote:  Dead horse, but an indoor football facility in East Tennessee was a stupid decision that hurt the overall football experience. Fall in the Southern Appalachians is no time to be inside. The old stadium looks like a sweet place to watch football on a crisp Autumn day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/etsuarchive...512681468/

I love the way the campus buildings hug the stadium. The other side and the endzone could have been expanded as needed. Of all the "what ifs?" with ETSU athletics, this has to be the biggest.

Yes sir. That was a big one. I hope that they do an homage to the old stadium when we build the new one. Make a little bowl out of it with grassy end zones where fans can sit. I hope it is special and give peoplea reason to want to come and see the games.

(11-14-2010 07:12 PM)ETSU-07 Wrote:  My understanding is that MSHA did nothing specific to get the building named after them. I believe the university did it as a "gesture of appreciation for all the great support and generosity MSHA has shown over the years" (paraphrasing there). Horse crap. Pisses me off to drive by and see the giant MSHA logo with the much smaller ETSU logos. It really cheapens the look of the entire campus, especially since we did not get anything out of it.

So, who will hold the bets that Stanton ends up with a nice seat on their board with a nice little bonus or whatever Board members get???...

SO, we sold out for something that had the potential to actually have a price tag... UNFREAKING REAL... you don't FREAKING give away the only thing of value... NAMING RIGHTS... just more reason to just acknowledge that ETSU athletics are irrelevant in the eyes of this administration.

Can you imagine what our campus and level of alumni involvement would be right now if we'd been able to GROW the University through ATHLETICS.

You can ya-da-ya-da all you want about academics and how great the medical sciences are and how great ETSU is for building a Pharmacy school but I promise you that it really only impacts less than 10% of the alumni in terms of their desire to be involved. Looked over at the Facebook page for Alumni relations and there's all kinds of little side remarks about "what time is the football game?" and "what a joke" on the soccer announcements...

It's not just "us" here in our little group of special disgruntled "fans"...

just makes me sad..

By the way............ BOONE WAS FREAKIN' AWESOME ON SATURDAY... great day in the Mountains, 30,000 people having a ball, and THERE WAS A FOOTBALL GAME!!!!

Here's the official news release regarding the new name:

JOHNSON CITY (Dec. 3, 2009) – Memorial Center, also known as the Minidome, at East Tennessee State University has a new name.

During its quarterly meeting today, the Tennessee Board of Regents approved the renaming of the Minidome as the ETSU/Mountain States Health Alliance Athletic Center.

“Mountain States Health Alliance has been a true friend to East Tennessee State University for many years, particularly in the support of our health sciences programs,” said ETSU President Dr. Paul E. Stanton Jr. “This partnership began with our nursing education program, and in later years, the hospital was among the strongest advocates for the establishment of the James H. Quillen College of Medicine and, most recently, for the creation of the Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy.

“In addition to its extremely generous financial support, MSHA is a major teaching facility for hundreds of our students and resident physicians each semester.”

MSHA has achieved the Diamond Society level of cumulative giving to the ETSU Foundation. The Diamond Society recognizes donors with giving amounts between $5 and $9.9 million.

Stanton says MSHA has also been a major supporter of ETSU’s intercollegiate athletics program, including the sponsorship of the Buccaneer Sports Network. MSHA has also teamed with ETSU and the City of Johnson City to develop the Med-Tech Corridor in an effort to enhance regional economic development.

“MSHA and ETSU are integrally linked in many ways, and we are always excited when we can continue to grow closer with the university,” said Dennis Vonderfecht, president and CEO of Mountain States. “Having outstanding health care providers is key to the success of our organization, and ETSU has consistently been able to produce some of the best doctors, nurses, and allied health personnel we can find anywhere. We are proud to have been able to support them, and very pleased to be part of the ETSU/Mountain States Health Alliance Athletic Center.”

MSHA has certainly supported ETSU over the years. No doubt about it. However, this is about as backwards away to go about naming an athletics facility that you can imagine. Truly an opportunity wasted. If MSHA had put up some $$ to upgrade the facility or build a new one then go ahead and slap their name on it, but not just out of the blue for no good reason.

...and another thing: The dome goes nearly 40 years without anything that identifies it as a part of ETSU (sign, lettering, etc.) and when they finally decide to do something they plaster a giant MSHA logo on both sides. Nobody in the past has the idea to climb up and put ETSU on the side or a bucs logo on the most prominent building in the tri-cities, one that can be seen for miles around?! I didn't major in marketing at ETSU, but I know enough to recognize a blown opportunity when I see one. Decades of exposure for ETSU athletics wasted and now we are marketing MSHA for free with some tiny buc-heads as subtle reminders that the facility actually belongs to ETSU.

(11-14-2010 08:44 PM)straightfromthehorsesmouth Wrote:  [quote='ETSU-07' pid='5907042' dateline='1289779926']

... UNFREAKING REAL... you don't FREAKING give away the only thing of value... NAMING RIGHTS...

Surely you haven't forgotten the lucrative "pouring rights"??

LOL........

I've made this point before, but with some newbies on here, I'll restate it.......

That was a different era. The Astrodome was still relatively new, and indoor stadiums were highly thought of - progressive, as it were. I personally sat through too many cold, dreary, rainy (and a few times, snowy) days and nights watching games in the old stadium. Yes, many times it could be beautiful and nice - way many times that was not the case. Even for afternoon games, if one was on the West side, it was colder because one was in the shade during the day. If one was on the East side, one was looking into the late afternoon sun, obscuring vision to some extent. My memory is that there were more night games than day games in that time period, probably because the conventional wisdom/thinking at that time was to not schedule against UT games.

This discussion has been brought up over and over on this board, so no need to re-hash it all out, but there are legitimate pros and cons on both sides. At the time, there was near-unanimous approval of the building and the concept - until the first game and first track meet when the sightline problem was so obvious. I don't think that indoor football at this level was a "fad", but to some extent it has fallen into disfavor here because we haven't seen it executed properly, unfortunately. Indoor football here was *not* a mistake, imo, but the execution of it was done so poorly that the issues got blurred. I would MUCH rather have been watching a game in the Dome, with proper sightlines, than outdoors in the old stadium. That being said, I think the general consensus against it is too strong, and an outdoor stadium will be what we have when football returns.

Good point by ETSU - 07 about there not ever being any name on the building until Dennis V.'s evil empire succeeded in getting it done......

MSHA cryed because they have given a bunch of money to ETSU and they felt they hadn't been properly recognized for it. At the threat that they would stop giving to ETSU, the administration changed the name of the dome.

We don't know, and probably never could find out, exactly how much of what they've "given" to ETSU was "real" money, and how much is what is considered "in kind" giving. Do they put a price tag on 'giving' ETSU access to their hospitals as teaching sites, etc.? Do they include their massive amount of advertising in whatever accounting is used to arrive at the $5-$9.9 million figure? I don't know the answer to these questions, but knowing the evil empire, one can suspect that some of it is not cash. And besides, if it is, that's a totally improper use of cash for a supposedly "not-for-profit" entity. It burns me up to see money spent on advertising and such, when it could better applied to health-care (which is supposedly their mission), lowering patient costs.......

It also burns me up to hear Dennis V. complain about the lowering of reimbursement for TennCare, etc., when they have no qualms about spending hundreds of thousands (or more likely millions) of dollars on advertising, and having their hissy fits with Wellmont.

Sorry, I'll step down from my soapbox for now......

(11-15-2010 03:44 AM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  We don't know, and probably never could find out, exactly how much of what they've "given" to ETSU was "real" money, and how much is what is considered "in kind" giving. Do they put a price tag on 'giving' ETSU access to their hospitals as teaching sites, etc.? Do they include their massive amount of advertising in whatever accounting is used to arrive at the $5-$9.9 million figure? I don't know the answer to these questions, but knowing the evil empire, one can suspect that some of it is not cash. And besides, if it is, that's a totally improper use of cash for a supposedly "not-for-profit" entity. It burns me up to see money spent on advertising and such, when it could better applied to health-care (which is supposedly their mission), lowering patient costs.......

It also burns me up to hear Dennis V. complain about the lowering of reimbursement for TennCare, etc., when they have no qualms about spending hundreds of thousands (or more likely millions) of dollars on advertising, and having their hissy fits with Wellmont.

Sorry, I'll step down from my soapbox for now......

I honestly wasn't paying attention when all this went down... but now I'm peeved (when am I not peeved when it comes to ETSU??).... but reading the article gets to me.

Name the Nursing school OR the Public Health college after the Evil Empire (I'll agree on that one, too) BUT an Athletic venue???

Let's see if we can dig up ONE athletic venue ANYWHERE that was slapped with a name that didn't involve significant cash flow for ATHLETICS. Any??

I have a relative who is in the recreation business and is an ETSU alum. When the dome (so called) was built, he called it "planned obsolescence." The gist is that the building was obsolete the day it opened. His major objection was the site lines. ETSU hosts a major track meet where you can't see the entire race from the stands...the runners disappear under the overhang. This has to go back to D.P. Culp (RIP) as he was the president when that design was approved.

My opinion is indoor football is cool...making weather a none factor...which is important especially in November.

ETSU has done a terrible job in making athletics an event that people would be afraid to miss. It is easy to draw a crowd...but ETSU doesn't have a clue. In Knoxville, they have it down to a science. The rule is no empty seats. UT will invite every high school team in the region to attend to make sure the place is full. There are many more tricks...I just wish the school would hire a person with know how to make ball games a happening.

(11-15-2010 08:32 AM)Mister Jennings Wrote:  I have a relative who is in the recreation business and is an ETSU alum. When the dome (so called) was built, he called it "planned obsolescence." The gist is that the building was obsolete the day it opened. His major objection was the site lines. ETSU hosts a major track meet where you can't see the entire race from the stands...the runners disappear under the overhang. This has to go back to D.P. Culp (RIP) as he was the president when that design was approved.

My opinion is indoor football is cool...making weather a none factor...which is important especially in November.

ETSU has done a terrible job in making athletics an event that people would be afraid to miss. It is easy to draw a crowd...but ETSU doesn't have a clue. In Knoxville, they have it down to a science. The rule is no empty seats. UT will invite every high school team in the region to attend to make sure the place is full. There are many more tricks...I just wish the school would hire a person with know how to make ball games a happening.

All great points... in terms of filling the seats, I was told once before that eventhough the Athletic Department "gives" seats away, they have to PAY the TBR for the seats...

anybody want to clarify that????

(11-15-2010 10:09 AM)straightfromthehorsesmouth Wrote:  

(11-15-2010 08:32 AM)Mister Jennings Wrote:  The rule is no empty seats. UT will invite every high school team in the region to attend to make sure the place is full.

All great points... in terms of filling the seats, I was told once before that eventhough the Athletic Department "gives" seats away, they have to PAY the TBR for the seats...

anybody want to clarify that????

That is my understanding. I don't necessarily think that the money flows to TBR, but I suspect they have to show it as an expense and it becomes a part of the budget.

Auditors want to make sure someone of low moral fiber isn't "selling free tickets" if that makes sense.

Funds based accounting (used by the government and others) is quite a different animal from accrual based accounting (used by businesses and others).

Jay mentioned that Murray State just received $3 million for the naming rights to their basketball arena.