TheWestie

Keiichi will never play Rock and Roll Sushi at home, no matter how nice and new their facility is.

Current location of the overflow parking for volleyball, soccer, softball and basketball practice parts of Mean Green Village. Former site of Liberty Christian softball stadium I think. For a while before we found out that the Track and Field stadium was just gonna have soccer practice in the middle and not a new soccer competition field, I thought the current soccer field would be the perfect place for an indoor practice facility. It's right across from the Athletic Center and right next to softball, soccer, volleyball, golf, tennis etc. Point being this isn't the SEC where every sport gets their own individual indoor practice place. A lot of places with indoor facilities use them for multiple sports.

Another venue he'll never be able to fill to capacity?

But is he really? What I've seen is someone who has brought in: 1.) A bunch of HS fixer-upper players who got passed over by other schools because of behavioral, academic or attitude problems, lauded them as the solution to our problems. 2.) A bunch of "meh" HS recruits who only have offers from Sun Belt schools or FCS schools, IF they even have other offers. 3.) Add in a seemingly endless parade of college transfers who either got booted from somewhere because they were the #1 category above when they got recruited there and were such a piece of work that their first school said enough is enough or were just such a locker room cancer they got run off. I've never really been impressed by anybody Benford has brought in, and Combs seems like the only player who has actually improved substantially since arriving. His resume after his years here is a god-awful losing record and a string of recruits who never did anything, got injured constantly, and left in frustration soon after. Here's a good analogy for why Wren/Smatresk didn't fire Benford. Your parents just bought you a laptop for your birthday and a car for graduation. They probably can't afford to get you a pony for Christmas too. If Dan McCarney is still getting checks from UNT does he still have an EagleMail account?

To the buttmunch who made the list:

Craig Robertson is awesome. Also, I just had a hazy 2004 New Orleans Bowl related Bourbon St. flashback.

Argyle High School Prosper HS Air Force Academy

Can't talk about college track facilities without mentioning Hayward Field, paid for by Nike of course. U of H has the Carl Lewis International Complex and Yeoman Fieldhouse for Indoor T&F I like the way UNC has their setup at Fetzer Field. The Carolina blue track surface is a nice touch. I'm gonna say right now that someone needs to get Wren's ear about us getting a green track. Baylor just got one at the new Clyde Hart Track & Field Stadium. The combined press box idea is exactly what Kansas just did at their new Rock Chalk Park. Awesome execution there. (Yeah its a rendering, sorry) University of South Florida has a pretty nice place at USF Track and Field Stadium. Used to be their soccer field too until 2011. The Mike Long Track at Florida State is nice too, nestled there in the pine trees. And now, what I think it's probably one of the nicest soccer/track venues in the NCAA. If we even tried to copy this for our new place, I wouldn't be mad. Northern Arizona University's Lumberjack Stadium in Flagstaff. This is a Big Sky Conference facility y'all. FCS. It was their football stadium until 1977, then served as track only and then started hosting women's soccer in 1997. In 2011 it was renovated as a part of their newly built $100 million Health and Learning Center which they built on the land right next to the stadium, which had been a parking lot. The glass walls and flying roof overhangs are part of the Health and Learning Center building behind it. It seats 1,000. Now, can you imagine something like that, but with a green track, green chair back seats and greenish glass that matches Apogee brickwork that matches the Hurley? I can.

Too* Sorry couldn't help it. This ain't Pony Fans.

Yep, track offices and locker room are the old football locker room. With Dickey-era logos still intact.

So we've gone from driving the Buick to flying the plane in just around 10 years. Nice.

The great Micah Bracy?!

People steal ATMs from Rudy's. They steal whole briskets from Bet The House. Feel free to draw your own conclusion...

Yup. Now to go search out that epic uniform color breakdown post I did a few months back...

#1 most important issue with The Super Pit from a University standpoint is ADA compliance. There is no elevator in the building and to get from the concourse level to the arena floor you have to go outside and around to one of the tunnels. And those ramps are very steep. It was a huge pain in the ass dragging an 80 pound rolling camera bag up those ramps: I can't even imagine how awful it must be to try to muscle a wheelchair up that ramp by yourself. And beyond that, once you're down at arena floor level, I believe there is only one restroom downstairs that is ADA compliant. It's a unisex bathroom right across from the old gymnastics room/Mean Green Club hospitality room. The others restrooms downstairs are in the spare locker rooms and those have steps that you must step up to get to the toilets. Than once past that, the space you need to maneuver around in the toilet area probably isn't big enough for a wheelchair. Revamping the spare locker rooms/bathroom aren't that big a project. Easy fix. It will be a MAJOR undertaking to put in an elevator. A lot of the building is several feet thick of reinforced structural concrete and steel beams that the seating platforms rest on. Any elevator will have to be added on the outer side of the concourse ring, and because of the layout on the East side of the building, that means it'll have to be on the West side, where the Hall of Fame plaques are now. They could extend the concourse out that way and stick an elevator that comes down into one of the offices or something down there. And The Super Pit is used all year round. It's not like it sits empty and abandoned outside of basketball season. It's used nearly every single day for about a solid month during graduation season in May and June. It's rented out for cheerleading competitions, UIL drill team contests, UIL robotics competitions, last year it was rented out by a church, it's where they host big draw Distinguished Lecture Series speakers, etc. Shutting it down for a few months means a loss of revenue for that time period, so it's a project that can only be done once the University is in a financial position that it can go without or offset that lost money. Point is, the building was grandfathered in and is not fully ADA-compliant. That makes it that much less desirable to rent out to potential renters.

Dude, no. If you're talking about the access hatch next to the giant loading doors at the North ramp that is for cabling for broadcast trucks. When games are televised, the production company that produces the broadcast runs their own cabling between the cameras and mics out to their production and transmission truck, where the producers and editors cut the broadcast together live. Miles of cabling running to semi trailers which are powered by rental generators are a common sight at every broadcast college basketball and football game, NFL, NBA, MLB, awards show, etc. TV production crews use generators so they can have their own source of power in case something happens at the stadium, like say an earthquake during the World Series or half the power in the Superdome going out and other reasons including not having to pay the arena owner for using their electricity.

I've been in, behind, on, above and under nearly ever inch of the Super Pit. Updated and renovated for 21st Century facility technology and current college basketball arena standards? Yes. Lots that can be done. Need to tear it down and start all over? Hell no. The Pit ain't Fouts. And given the way the Pit was built, demolition is gonna cost many millions of dollar. Can't just tear it down like Fouts. Soooooo much reinforced concrete and steal beams in there.

FIFY

Hall of fame post right there y'all.

I have a Bruce Hall lunch tray somewhere at my parents house that I borrow to sled down the hill in the snow behind the PEB. I wish I still had the seating section sign I lifted from the Fouts Field trash can years ago.