UAB $22.5 million dollar football practice facility

[Coach Bill Lewis]

Pretty impressive!

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2016/...pprov.html


 

 

[DeepGreen]

Keeps them from practicing in the rain? Looks like a waste of money.

[BeliefBlazer]

The 46,000 sq ft building a big deal. We currently have one relatively small weight room on campus, an ancient high school building that was converted. Coaches' offices, meeting rooms, etc are in a building that was likely a dentist office in its previous life. We have zero indoor space if football needs somewhere to practice during rain, storms, cold. The current practice fields are pathetic and can't handle even the tiniest amount of rain. We used to rent a turf field from D3 Birmingham-Southern during wet weather, but our last 2 coaches have insisted on busing to Legion Field as it is just too embarrassing to practice on campus of a D3 University. 

Legacy Credit Union donated over $4 million dollars for the pavilion, and 8 of the 10 largest private companies in Birmingham have given for operations building.

[TreeFiddy]

3 minutes ago, BeliefBlazer said:

The 46,000 sq ft building a big deal. We currently have one relatively small weight room on campus, an ancient high school building that was converted. Coaches' offices, meeting rooms, etc are in a building that was likely a dentist office in its previous life. We have zero indoor space if football needs somewhere to practice during rain, storms, cold. The current practice fields are pathetic and can't handle even the tiniest amount of rain. We used to rent a turf field from D3 Birmingham-Southern during wet weather, but our last 2 coaches have insisted on busing to Legion Field as it is just too embarrassing to practice on campus of a D3 University. 

Legacy Credit Union donated over $4 million dollars for the pavilion, and 8 of the 10 largest private companies in Birmingham have given for operations building.

Congrats on the donations and good to see the investments being made.  It sounds like it will be an immediate improvement for the program.  The pavilion approach is a little different, but I am sure it can be enclosed pretty easily at a later date.  Given the option of covered/not covered, I wish ours was covered.  It would, at least, deflect some of the heat.

Looks cool.  Coaching offices/weight room will be a big plus.

[Christopher Walker]

That's quite a reversal for that BOR. Congrats, BlazerBros!

[El Paso Eagle]

The more things I see coming out of UAB I have to wonder if this has been some type of "scam" (can't think of another word to use) - they get to clean house and there sure does seem to be a lot of money available now. Just seem really strange - from dropping to this ....

[greenjoe]

Yeah.  One day they're dropping football and the next day they're back and building an all weather practice facility.  Good for them.  It looks like somebody in Birmingham has some pictures of the BOR of Alabama with a farm animal. 

 

Good job U A B.  What's good for you is good for the conference.

 

GO MEAN GREEN

Edited June 17, 2016 by greenjoe

[Arkstfan]

Sounds like most of the money is going into offices. Just putting a roof over a practice field won't cost $22 million.

Our indoor has been a big help for baseball they can work in the early season when the field is too messy. Saved a couple of football spring practices from lightning