(06-23-2021 04:12 PM)olddawg Wrote: (06-23-2021 03:49 PM)Longhorn Wrote: This is all great news. I’m curious when video boards will be added to Veteran’s Memorial Park on both the baseball and softball sides.
Skip the baseball video board and just channel the $ into softball.
Softball has certainly earned the investment while baseball has not.
During the last decade (6 years of Ikenberry and 4-5 years of Spanky’s slow-roll towards retirement) the baseball program has been mediocre (at best). That time period covers the entire life of the new ballpark. And what does JMU have to show for building a new park? Nothing but disappointment. No NCAAT appearances. Heck, without looking it up, I don’t think JMU has made 50% of the CAATs in the last 10 years. That’s an embarrassing record of ineptitude.
There’s no doubt the new ballpark is a better environment to play ball in than then the old facility, but honestly, that is a very low design threshold. I’m going to try and make the case JMU blew it when it built the new park, and it may be a contributing reason for the current situation.
Initially, when the new ballpark was first proposed, it was going to meet the minimum permanent seating capacity for hosting NCAA Regional tournament games. That capacity is around 2500-3k. That seating capacity got cut to 1200 seats.
The budget for building the new JMU park was $9 million. How much of this was used to refurbish the old High School gym to support the softball and baseball locker rooms and indoor practice facilities is a question I can’t answer, but when you compare the $9 million budget to what TCU and Louisville spent to build their new baseball parks (roughly during the same time JMU was planning and building our park) a person must come to the conclusion that JMU didn’t get our money’s worth.
What JMU built wasn’t a D1 baseball park. It’s clean. It’s new-ish. But it’s not a D1 park. It just isn’t. I’m not talking about building the equivalent of a SEC park like LSU, or in the Big XII like Texas. Heck, I’m not even suggesting JMU build the equivalent of what UVA built…but look at TCU’s park, or Louisville. Those are D1 parks. And those facilities are capable of attracting top coaching talent, and serve as a basis for recruiting better players.
The current JMU park could be fixed by investing another $2-3 million, but who is going to invest that kind of money in the current program? Expand seating to a capacity of 2500? Nobody attends the games now. Improve all seating to seat backs? Again, nobody is attending. Video board? Why? Possible boxes? Better concessions? It’s a which comes first the chicken or the egg conundrum. Build it and they will come? Not likely, not likely given the current state of affairs.
MB got a new state-of-the-art basketball arena to recruit to, plus he’s obviously a competent HC. Ike? He inherited a program in disarray, without returning talent, and a facility that hamstrings his ability to recruit. After 6 years of Ike and the last 4-5 years of Spanky”s slow-roll towards retirement JMU has ZERO appearances in the NCAAT regionals, and (without looking it up) a record of appearing in fewer than half of the CAAT.
It’s a sad situation. The baseball program hasn’t earned the investment of additional resources, and perhaps JMU just can’t afford to make any additional investments right now. Still, the current situation is untenable.
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Campus construction and projects
