Making the case for an indoor practice facility at North Texas

[Harry]

With all of the rumors and high hopes surrounding the return of baseball to North Texas, it could be viewed as a little premature to start planning out the next athletic facility improvement. Obviously, most North Texas fans are thrilled about the prospect of adding a new baseball facility in the Eagle Village Athletic complex. And the fact that the athletic department - with big help from our sainted donor Ernie Kuehne - was able to build the new basketball practice facility in such short order - was a big feather in their cap.

I was not one who thought an indoor football and athletic practice facility was a priority at North Texas. Sure, it would be a nice recruiting tool and knowing that Arkansas State is putting an 11 million dollar facility in place makes you think it must be pretty important to them. ASU is not a program that has a lot of T. Boone Pickens at their disposal. But is it really necessary to spend so much money on the convenience of having an indoor practice facility? I mean, maybe in the northwest where snow and inclimate weather was an issue you could make a case. But this is Texas. It seems to me that UNT Coach Dan McCarney does just fine even in the heat by scheduling practices early in the morning and late in the day.

Read more:

[trussbussdad]

Yes...practicing in the heat does have its benefits and you will see most if not all southern teams practicing in the heat. But there are other reasons to think of in having an indoor facility:

1 - It does rain in Texas and most of the time with the exception of winter, lightning comes along with those rains. There are lighting detectors that when then indicate lighting within a certain distance, all personal are moved inside. In our case at UNT, inside is the locker room.

2 - Yes...it does help recruiting.

3 - It is easy to simulate crowd noise indoors with the right sound system.

4 - WHEN we get to a bowl game or any other game...although the practices are closed, it is easy to watch a practice at UNT.

When I played in highschool and college, indoor facilities=the gym...but water made you weak as well.

Indoor facilities are a valuable asset these days...did mention that it does help in recruiting???

[unt_rocket09]

All the big boys have it, it's a pretty big deal IMO. Especially when 2a and 3a high schools have them.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Harry, did you have one of your GMG.com little birdies at Ponder's Ranchmen Steakhouse yesterday over-hearing our group's round table discussion of this very subject? LOL!

I whole-heartedly agree that we need this over a men's varsity baseball stadium for now because its just another part of the NCAA FBS venues arms race happening now.

Could UNT get more diversified funding for such a venue if the Green Brigade Marching Band could also use it, ie, "multi-purpose" thus maybe UNT getting some auxillary funding from the UNT College of Music? That might be too much a stretch but worse thing anyone could tell our powers that be is....no.

GMG!

Edited July 25, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[mdmeangreen]

I agree UNT needs an indoor practice facility. In fact, I agree with PlummMeanGreen that we need this over a baseball stadium.

[trussbussdad]

Does UNT have ROTC? A friend of mine is a coach at South Grand Prairie and all the GP high schools got new indoor facilities with ROTC wing attached which means alot of the funding came from the US Govt. Just a thought regarding funding.

Edited July 25, 2013 by trussbussdad

[Harry]

The problem as I see it is there are so many others in line. Track wants to move away from Fouts to the Eagle Village, the Waranch tennis facility needs to complete the center court, there are more improvements needed over at the Super Pit and the University needs to keep building dorms to keep up with the enrollment. It's probably going to take a donor to step up and make it a reality. Also have to figure out where to place it in the Master plan. If you haven't noticed the space is filling up over there. The other issue is cost. A-State is spending 11 million on theirs but according to Arkstfan we could do it for less perhaps even 5-6 million without all the bells and whistles.

And yes it is absolutely a great idea to tie its use to other academic student programs because you can get some state funding that way.

[JesseMartin]

Can I assume "inclimate" weather actually means "inclement" weather? Of course, this came from a professional writer so perhaps this is just a word that I'm not fortunate enough to have in my vocabulary.

And yes, UNT has AFROTC. I think they may be housed in one of the buildings being torn down for the Union expansion project...if so, I'm not sure about how that sort of thing would work with collegiate funding as opposed to HS funding, but if it's allowable...might be worth a look. Though I'm not so sure about Plumm's idea...does anyone know if the Super Pit had any crossover funding as it is used for graduations and other events? Most types of Athletic/Academic crossover funding are either no-nos or very difficult to navigate, but for a practice facility to be a multi-purpose building might actually work.

[trussbussdad]

JesseMartin...spell check did not catch that one.

A good point to make is that most other organizations utilize indoor facilities including softball, band..anything that needs to go indoors in BAD weather.

[GrandGreen]

Although I am not sure how something no one used to have, has now turned into a necessity; I would vote for an indoor practice facility before a baseball field.

In my view, any indoor practice facility should be build for use by most programs including the obvious soccer as well as be an indoor track facility.

[North Texas Shep]

I think we should get baseball first.

[greenjoe]

I remember years ago, when we went to Lubbock (and came back with the tortilla tradition) to play Tech. TT had recently gotten their indoor practice facility and the concensus was that since TT had more/better facilities, NT would likely lose the game. Lo and behold, North Texas won.

That's a long way to go to say, given the choice between an indoor practice facility and a varsity baseball program, I'll choose baseball every time. The number of sports that a university participates in does not include "indoor practice facility.

Play ball

GO MEAN GREEN

[Side Show Joe]

Back in high school , when I played, no one had indoor facilities. Hell, we didn't even get clean water. Coach would say, "We won't always be the biggest, strongest, or fastest, but we will be better be the toughest".

Having said that... If we need an indoor practice facility at North Texas to lure better recruits to our program, then I hope we get one.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Side Show Joe

[PlummMeanGreen]

The problem as I see it is there are so many others in line. Track wants to move away from Fouts to the Eagle Village, the Waranch tennis facility needs to complete the center court, there are more improvements needed over at the Super Pit and the University needs to keep building dorms to keep up with the enrollment. It's probably going to take a donor to step up and make it a reality. Also have to figure out where to place it in the Master plan. If you haven't noticed the space is filling up over there. The other issue is cost. A-State is spending 11 million on theirs but according to Arkstfan we could do it for less perhaps even 5-6 million without all the bells and whistles.

And yes it is absolutely a great idea to tie its use to other academic student programs because you can get some state funding that way.

Yesterday while on campus, I casually mentioned to a fellow alum "why not keep Fouts for our track & field stadium?" I know its not in the master plan but master plans have been known to be changed.

Whistles and bells inside a practice facility? If that is the difference of UNT getting 2 star recruits versus 3 or 4 star recruits bring on the whistles and bells! Do you want a Cadillac or a Ford if you have a choice? We got a darn good deal with Apogee Stadium according to ex Big 12 "stand in" Commissioner Chuck Neinas, ex Dallas Cowboys SuperScout Gil Brandt and a cast of thousands, so could we get a similar great deal for a practice facility along with all the extras, too? No Sun Belt Conference school should ever trump the University of North Texas with any kind of on-campus sports facility or venue. We have to think forward as a new CUSA member--not in ways that may have kept us barefoot, pregnant and un-inspired (so to speak) the last few decades.

Yes, I agree, Harry, that there has to be a pecking order of need or which of UNT's varsity sports programs gets the next nice venue or marked improvements (like the Super Pit), but lets also not forget which NCAA varsity sport still brings home the bacon (or should) and gets us the national recognition we had not so long ago (like 4 NO's Bowls last decade).

IMO, the key to this indoor practice facility is to make it as multi-purpose as you can without defeating the original purpose for its existence. We can't have the football team being bumped off its scheduled use because Ma & Pa Kettle's Senior Social Club has a (planned a year in advance) bingo tourney inside this facility and it taking place during an August Texas heat spell with the beginning of 2-a-days. (I know, one helluva' terrible illustration with that....especially now that I'm 62)! LOL!

Edited July 25, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[UNT90]

If only we had one in 2009, we could have moved the Ohio game indoors...

[GL2Greatness]

there are only so many sources of revenue for a university

state:

I&O Instruction and Operations....based on enrollment and types of programs offered and undergrad VS grad student enrollment and used to cover faculty and staff salaries and dedicated to only those legally allowed uses

Formula Infrastructure...used to build and maintain classroom and lab space and other needed campus infrastructure and again based on enrollment and types of degrees offered and lab space and classroom space utilization.....so unless you can hold classes on labs in an indoor practice facility there will be no state funding involved in any indoor practice facitity

tuition and fees:

spent how ever the university wishes with some exceptions.....I do not believe it can be spent on dorms

other services:

parking

intellectual property revenues from patents and inventions

dorms....I believe dorm fees can only go towards the building and operations of dorms

student union sales and profits

athletics profits and ticket sales and merchandising sales and the like.....spend how you wish

endowment proceeds and donations:

unless the money placed in the endowment was ear marked for a specific program or use can be spent how the university wishes

same thing with donations.....it goes to something specific or it can be used as wished by the university

grants and contracts:

there are no grants and contracts for indoor practice facilities and grants and contracts are very specific in their use

so state money is out, endowment is extremely small and I would imagine most of it is for specific uses, other revenues from merchandising and IP and other things is very small, donations are small and grants and contracts are out

that leaves tuition or some new source of donations as the way a practice facility will get built and north Texas as we all know north Texas is already nearing a critical point with their bonding capacity and bond rating and they are going to possibly surpass that critical point to build new dorms and even with dorm rates going up dramatically to help pay to build new dorms there is still a good chance that the north Texas bond rating will be lowered one notch from AA to AA- after the dorms are build and bonded and that means there is pretty much little else that will be getting built for Denton or the rest of the system without additional sources of revenue in the form of increased tuition and fees, state funding, donations or the like

and since state monies were pretty much held steady this current session and tuition revenue bonds were voted down at the last minute that means for the next two years funding is going to remain about the same as the previous two years which means new buildings for classes and labs will be covered with existing revenue streams and no new revenues or bonding guarantees from the state

and if system binds drop below AA- that removes them from the category that many institutional investors will consider investing in and that greatly increases borrowing cost and limits who will buy those bonds.....so with the system already looking at a possible downgrade to AA- because of building new dorms and another couple of planned projects and even with dorm rates (revenues) going up to cover the dorm portion of the bonds there is no more ability to take on revenue neutral and especially revenue negative projects without increasing tuition or running the risk of dropping below AA- which would be painful

so either tuition goes up dramatically to provide new sources of revenue to cover campus construction and ease the burden on the systems bonding capacity or donations will need to go up dramatically specifically for athletics......and I doubt even if north Texas did have the bonding capacity for revenue neutral or negative projects that athletics has the revenues to cover athletics projects and I suppose one could try and call a baseball stadium or a covered practice facility some type of quasi-academic facility, but I would imagine the administration would get called out on that as an increase in athletics fees without following the printed laws about what is needed to increase athletics fees and it would become a major issue

Edited July 25, 2013 by GL2Greatness

[Christopher Walker]

I always found it odd my high school had an IPF, but we never have. Got catch up duty to do.

Also, our Air Force ROTC is housed in the offices that adjoined Fouts Field, not the Union. But they're still being torn down to make way for a university welcome center. So it would be cool to have the ROTC/gov'ts subsidy in this case.

That being said, baseball first please.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Are there any interior and exterior sample pics of indoor practice facilities of NCAA FBS schools

in the $10 to $15 million range out there?

Maybe even a few that were built as "multi-use" facilities?

GMG!

Edited July 26, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[All About UNT]

Florida State at $12.7 Million http://espn.go.com/colleges/fsu/football/story/_/id/8577790/florida-state-seminoles-ready-break-ground-indoor-practice-facility

Louisville $8 Million http://www.gocards.com/facilities/lou-trager-center.html

"The indoor practice facility features a 120-yard FieldTurf field, a 100-meter four-lane sprint track, pole vault and long jump pits, as well as, batting cages for both baseball and softball. It's also equipped for the soccer, field hockey and lacrosse teams to use."

Temple $10 Million http://the700level.com/ncaa/photo-take-a-look-at-temple-footballs-new-indoor-practice-facility/

Clemson $10 Million http://www.clemsontigers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=28500&ATCLID=206111461

[Harry]

wonder how much this bad boy costs?

[All About UNT]

wonder how much this bad boy costs?

$4 Million in 2002... so around $5.25 million now

[trussbussdad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3tZwSWETk

4.5 million...Highland Park

[JesseMartin]

CW-that must have been a recent move, because the ROTC used to be in one of those halls near the Union...grr which one was it...you go in the door and there are steps down, some hallways and then steps right back up again...? Anyway it's where the Aero Dept. was as well. So they must have been planning for the move, but if they are to be moved again then this might be an option...

As for GL2G's fairly short post, those of you who usually skip his might want to read it because it does break down funding properly. And yes, for the most part dorm fees can't cover any athletics unless they earmark some of the "activity" portions of their fees for something related to the AD (which they usually use for stuff like Homecoming, but they also use it for booths at University-wide events, basketball sneak peeks, etc.) So yes, it can go towards a Housing/Athletics crossover, but not for an Athletic facility unless there is some specific Residential use tied in with it. Similarly, all revenue-based non-Academic, non-Athletic departments are under the Assistant VP for Business Services, who is under the VP for Fiscal Affairs unless that has changed. So things like the Union, Housing, and all Food Services are covered by this, though the structures themselves are bonded and paid for by the state-approved budget just like any academic building. So even though he was being pessimistic as usual, if you want a breakdown of fees and budgets it was pretty solid.

[emmitt01]

4.5 million for this one...at ULL. Yes, the Sun Belt ULL.

http://www.ragincajuns.com/sports/2013/1/3/ATHL_0103134344.aspx?id=532

[Harry]

4.5 million for this one...at ULL. Yes, the Sun Belt ULL.

http://www.ragincajuns.com/sports/2013/1/3/ATHL_0103134344.aspx?id=532

I'd like to see us do better than that but hey at least they have one...