Getting Ready (WKU stadium article)

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from the BG Daily News:

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Getting ready

L.T. Smith Stadium undergoing renovations

By NORM HANEY, The Daily News, nhaney@bgdailynews.com/783-3271

Saturday, June 10, 2006 10:48 PM CDT

Western Kentucky football will never be the same again, starting now.

A complete renovation and facelift project began earlier this month to L.T. Smith Stadium, home of Hilltopper football since 1968.

Phase 1 of the project includes the sealing, coating and power washing of the concrete structure, which currently holds coaches' offices, locker rooms and weight room, as well as other classrooms and offices.

That will help preserve what is already there. It's what's planned for the other side of the field that will be the real transformation.

“We're moving,” WKU athletics director Wood Selig said. “We had to rehab our stadium. It was literally falling apart around us.”

Once the upcoming season ends, construction will begin on a three-story building opposite the existing bleachers that will house 4,200 chair-back seats, 800 club-level luxury seats, a 10,000-square-foot weight room and a state-of-the-art training room, to name just a few of the luxuries.

The project will cost an estimated $35 to $36 million and is scheduled to be completed by January 2008. The new building and renovation project will give Western a boost in spectator capacity and do much more for all 440 Hilltopper athletes and their faithful red-towel-waving fans.

“We've had the one side of the stadium that looks great, but when you see that there's no other side it's kind of a bummer,” WKU coach David Elson said.

Original plans included a three-story building at the end zone in front of the Avenue of Champions, which would have served many of the current plans and included a more modest set of bleachers on the west end of the field. Those plans were recently scrapped in favor of the new plan.

Before major construction begins, the track will be moved across University Boulevard to the former football practice field, directly under the watchful eye of the Big Red water tower.

The first two stories will hold the 4,200 chair-back seats running from end zone to end zone, and will be positioned closer to the field than the current bleachers. An expanded 30- to 35-foot-wide sidewalk will line the Avenue of Champions and lead fans to the new building.

The main entrance will lead into the Hall of Champions, a two-story glassed-in area paying tribute to the history of Hilltopper football. Inside, another wall of glass will provide a bird's-eye view of the 10,000-square-foot weight room and sprint track, which will be visible to all and lit up with natural sunlight.

“It won't be like a lot of other weight rooms that have that down-in-the-basement, dark, dingy, smelly feeling. It's going to have an open, lit feel to it,” Selig said.

Continuing inside leads to the training room that runs from one 30-yard line to the other, offering everything from hydrotherapy pools and taping tables to rehab rooms and training staff offices to help athletes from all 20 of WKU's athletic programs. The training room will have two direct entrances onto the playing field.

The second floor will be known as Harbaugh Hall, in honor of former Hilltopper coach Jack Harbaugh, and will house all of the football coaches' offices as well as the team's meeting rooms.

The offense and defense will each have a large meeting room, which can collapse into one room big enough for the entire team to meet in. Each coach will have his own office spacious enough for each position player to comfortably attend.

Elson and his staff were directly involved in planning the construction project, but especially Harbaugh Hall.

“I've been involved in every meeting when the architect has been here,” Elson said. “We've barnstormed as far about logistics and making sure we're in a work environment that's efficient as possible.”

Separating the first two floors and the club level will be an open concourse with a food court and restrooms for the lower-level seats.

Club-level seating will offer a little bit of everything. Six rows of seating will be protected by an overhang if the outside elements are not cooperating. If the weather gets too bad, a glassed-in climate control area is directly above the seats and is spacious enough to easily hold all 800 club members.

Inside, no luxury has been spared. Plasma TVs, tile and granite floors, mahogany woodwork, brass railings, a full kitchen and two full-service bars give the club level a country-club feel.

“This will be one of the nicest club levels in all of sports, not just college, I'm talking pro and college,” Selig said. “It's going to be outrageous.”

The end zone near University Boulevard will have a brick retaining wall with an elevated berm on the other side with a million-dollar replay board, much like the ones in E.A. Diddle Arena. It has yet to be decided, but students may be allowed to sit on the berm. A sidewalk will connect both sides of bleachers, starting at ground level and elevating to as high as 40 feet in the middle before descending at the other end.

Other changes may include giving students the entire bottom level of the existing bleachers. In trying to create more of a home-field advantage that move would also include putting the visitors bench on the other side of the field, well within screaming distance of the student body. That idea has yet to be finalized, pending the input of students.

“That could become a huge force every single time we take the field. They would literally be right on top of the other team,” Selig said. “If we fill that with 5,000 screaming students every game, then we would have a great atmosphere.”

Renovations to the existing bleachers will include moving the lights from the interior of the stadium to the outside. The entire inside will be “gutted,” according to Selig, to make room for locker rooms for the men's and women's soccer and track teams. The bottom floor, where the current football locker rooms and coaching offices are located, will be the new home of the Physical Education and Recreation Department and take up two-thirds of that space. A computer lab and study hall will also be created for all student-athletes. The current restrooms and concession stands will be completely renovated as well.

Once completed, the new Smith Stadium will be able to hold an estimated 25,000 fans.

Much speculation about a potential move to I-A football has surrounded the construction project, and while both Selig and Elson don't deny the advantage of a bigger and better Smith Stadium, they insist the project was long overdue and necessary regardless of the future status of the program.

“It certainly doesn't hurt us by any means,” Selig said. “We were going to do this regardless of affiliation at the I-AA or I-A level. It certainly helps us in recruiting and national reputation and regard because we will have arguably the best I-AA facility in the nation and one of the top 50 to 60 I-A facilities in the country.”

A more subdued Elson looked to the future and is confident the team's opportunity to succeed at any level will be greatly improved with new and improved facilities.

“I've always said we've had a lot of success with very average facilities, at best,” he said. “We have all of those things in place, and now you add a first-class facility and I just think the sky is the limit.”