Noise Penalty
2nd String
Posts: 438
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I Root For: UCF
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RE: UTSA and its Facilities
(07-28-2022 04:52 PM)Volkmar Wrote: (07-28-2022 04:02 PM)BraveKnight Wrote: (07-28-2022 03:31 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote: I think there are a lot of different factors at play. UTSA is only 53 years old, the school did not sponsor athletics until 1981, so our athletic department is only 41 years old. So we dont have the old money that a lot of the older universities in Texas have. We only have about 145k alumni.
San Antonio, while being the 24th largest metro in the country, is #182 in the country in per capita income. San Antonio only has 3 fortune 500 companies. Compared that to Houston that has 24 and Dallas-Fort Worth has 23.
Another reason would be that our previous administration did not want to take out loans to build our facilities. The previous President and AD didnt think that a university our age should be taking out loans to improve facilities, so they just tried to focus on fundraising.
UCF didn’t start until 1976, and we built our IPF in 2005 and our stadium in 2007.
Didn't UCF already have basketball in 1969? And I think that UCF has had football since 1979. Football is the cash cow for collegiate athletics, and while you've had a football program for over 40 years now, we're only entering year twelve.
UCF also has over 70,000 students (CRAZY number!). That's a lot more money flowing in with an enrollment that large. Plus, I think your university was also founded as a space-grant school to support the growing space program at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, so we're talking even more big money there; pretty grandiose beginnings.
UTSA's story of origin is far more humble, so aside from what UTSAMarineVet09 shared, that's another reason it has taken us longer to build athletic facilities. When we finally started our football program, the original plan was to compete as an FCS for 5 years before looking at moving up. But literally after our first year as an FCS, the WAC came calling, and we found ourselves in FBS in year 2 of our program. Then C-USA came calling, and we were suddenly in C-USA in year 3 of our football program.
We already had basketball, baseball, and various other sports at the time. And there were rumblings prior to starting football about possible facility upgrades. When we committed to starting football though, that all went by the wayside. Competing at the FBS level in just our second year of football forced us to scramble to build up our football program quickly. Our other facilities (like baseball, softball, basketball) continued to struggle in the meantime. Now that we've gotten our football program on a decent forward trajectory, we're turning our focus back to some of our other facilities, and I'm hoping we'll see some positive developments soon because we can really use 'em.
UCF had very humble beginnings
UCF started Div III football in in 1979. Moved to Div II had a football coach run up 1 million dollars in debt. To keep the program alive had to use old equipment donated by FSU and have a shoe string budget. Had to retire that debt to keep things moving. No big donors, no big state funds. in 1984 when I attended we had about 12,000 students and about 750 living on campus. 3-6k fans in the stands
The one thing that UCF had was lots of land. Built in the middle of nowhere in East Orlando UCF had growth potential and in the 1990s they tapped into that.
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08-01-2022 08:42 AM |
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Tiger1983
BBA
Posts: 35,184
Joined: Apr 2006
Reputation: 2033
I Root For: Tigers - GTG!
Location: The enemy’s lair
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RE: UTSA and its Facilities
(08-01-2022 08:42 AM)Noise Penalty Wrote: (07-28-2022 04:52 PM)Volkmar Wrote: (07-28-2022 04:02 PM)BraveKnight Wrote: (07-28-2022 03:31 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote: I think there are a lot of different factors at play. UTSA is only 53 years old, the school did not sponsor athletics until 1981, so our athletic department is only 41 years old. So we dont have the old money that a lot of the older universities in Texas have. We only have about 145k alumni.
San Antonio, while being the 24th largest metro in the country, is #182 in the country in per capita income. San Antonio only has 3 fortune 500 companies. Compared that to Houston that has 24 and Dallas-Fort Worth has 23.
Another reason would be that our previous administration did not want to take out loans to build our facilities. The previous President and AD didnt think that a university our age should be taking out loans to improve facilities, so they just tried to focus on fundraising.
UCF didn’t start until 1976, and we built our IPF in 2005 and our stadium in 2007.
Didn't UCF already have basketball in 1969? And I think that UCF has had football since 1979. Football is the cash cow for collegiate athletics, and while you've had a football program for over 40 years now, we're only entering year twelve.
UCF also has over 70,000 students (CRAZY number!). That's a lot more money flowing in with an enrollment that large. Plus, I think your university was also founded as a space-grant school to support the growing space program at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, so we're talking even more big money there; pretty grandiose beginnings.
UTSA's story of origin is far more humble, so aside from what UTSAMarineVet09 shared, that's another reason it has taken us longer to build athletic facilities. When we finally started our football program, the original plan was to compete as an FCS for 5 years before looking at moving up. But literally after our first year as an FCS, the WAC came calling, and we found ourselves in FBS in year 2 of our program. Then C-USA came calling, and we were suddenly in C-USA in year 3 of our football program.
We already had basketball, baseball, and various other sports at the time. And there were rumblings prior to starting football about possible facility upgrades. When we committed to starting football though, that all went by the wayside. Competing at the FBS level in just our second year of football forced us to scramble to build up our football program quickly. Our other facilities (like baseball, softball, basketball) continued to struggle in the meantime. Now that we've gotten our football program on a decent forward trajectory, we're turning our focus back to some of our other facilities, and I'm hoping we'll see some positive developments soon because we can really use 'em.
UCF had very humble beginnings
UCF started Div III football in in 1979. Moved to Div II had a football coach run up 1 million dollars in debt. To keep the program alive had to use old equipment donated by FSU and have a shoe string budget. Had to retire that debt to keep things moving. No big donors, no big state funds. in 1984 when I attended we had about 12,000 students and about 750 living on campus. 3-6k fans in the stands
The one thing that UCF had was lots of land. Built in the middle of nowhere in East Orlando UCF had growth potential and in the 1990s they tapped into that.
I attended an ASUN game between Lipscomb and UCF. The remarkable rise of UCF should be studied by all ambitious programs.
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08-01-2022 11:14 AM |
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ghostofclt!
Hall of Famer
Posts: 10,258
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I Root For: Charlotte
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RE: UTSA and its Facilities
(07-29-2022 01:35 PM)Blazer B Wrote: (07-28-2022 07:39 PM)ghostofclt! Wrote: clt says this sounds like uab, getting taxpayer money.
Fiscally, UAB could of gone it alone and did on all projects except the football stadium. With the stadium, the politics of leaving Birmingham out would have been a hurdle. They wanted in on it more than UAB needed them in on it. Birmingham has already hosted the AL state football championships, a bowl game, the USFL, the World Games, and Garth Brooks in a stadium that UAB, it’s donors and sponsors payed the majority of. Any public funds used were so the city could have access to our stadium.
clt says Charlotte had Garth for Friday and Saturday shows….just a little better
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08-01-2022 03:52 PM |
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