Leavitt Wants an Indoor Practice Facility

[Bull94]

I would recommend you all take a minute to pull up UCF's athletic facilities map.

They have actually done a nice job clustering all of their facilities together, they share parking, are near the student housing/events locations, and they have done what we couldn't do and get an indoor practice facility.

We have some major work to do to catch up in my opinion.  I am not sure where they got the money from, but in terms of athletic facilities theirs are better, have a better layout, and they have ameneities than us.  Just saying.

I prefer RJS to their stadium (From what I have seen) but other than that not so much. 

And leavitt is right asking for it.  Economy, schnonomy.  Unless you ask and are a squeaky wheel, you don't get anything. 

IF we want to continue to impress recruits, we need to build bigger and better facilities.   

good for UCF if they want to go into debt to build all those facilities.  Personally I think it's the wrong approach and obviously it hasn't helped O'Leary put a better product on the field. Didn't he make all those promises to them?

It's obnoxious of Leavitt to ask for such luxuries when:

A. The university is cutting positions and salaries while he is the 3rd highest paid state employee and he and his coaches got pretty good raises even though they performed poorly.

B. Season ticket sales are down because of the crappy schedule and lousy product he put on the field last year(i.e. lower revenues).

Generate some revenue through increased ticket sales, BCS bowl appearances, etc. Until then STFU. He has no leverage. What's he gonna do leave for another job?? It's not likely a program is looking for a coach that goes 2-5 in the BE even though they were preseason favorites.

where do you guys draw the line? when he starts asking for charter jets to make recruiting trips? why does he "need" so much to be successful ? how come boise stae coach can be so successful when he makes $600k less and has $13M less in revenue than USF?

So he gets blamed for low revenues this year because of last year's team?  Does he get credit for the increased revenues last year because of the 2007 season? 

I think the indoor facility is a luxury at this point.  But he's been waiting 5 years for a dining hall.  Could we build one of those?  He was asked about whether he would want a dining hall or the indoor facility and said he wanted both.  Why not?  We can't build a freaking dining hall in five years so might as well add something else we won't build.

he gets all the credit for increased attendance. no problem there. keep up the momentum and then make the requests. don't do it in a down economy where the school is making cuts and we have less season ticket holders in large part due to the crummy season last year.

We have some of the highest athletic fees in the country. we have way more needs for other programs at this point and time. UCF passed us in athletic fees due to their expansion. What happens if O'Leary can't turn things around and tickets sales plummet ? They will no longer be able to service their debt. they can't buy out his long term contract. I don't want to be in that position. It can ruin a program.

When we generate enough ticket revenue, conference revenue, etc to think about such luxuries then great I'm all for it. I'm not sure our football program is even cash flow positive.

BTW, do the players have to sit outside to eat? Isn't there a dining hall somewhere on campus they can use? We are not a program like UF that has almost unlimited resources. They don't even have an indoor practice facility. Hell I can ask my wife for a ferrari. Should we mortgage the house for such luxury or should we wait until we are bringing in enough to afford it?

[Cow Pie]

If we are to play at noon at FSU, schedule practice all week at noon to get used to the weather. That way you should be able to beat the PM rain and get used to the situations that early.

Makes since to me... also why are they afraid of the rain? I could understand if it was lightning outside or something... back when I was in high school my coach made us practice in the rain all the time.

[Orlando Bull]

Funny that the economy has caused the numerous budget cuts, but the only reason season ticket sales are down is because of our bad year last year... :

So, every other team that is dealing with decrease in season ticket sales??

Yes, if we won the conference every year, it would not be a problem, but the fact is, this is our 13th season, why does everyone around here think that we should be winning every time we step on the field? It is an absolute luxury for we the fans to have a team as good as we have, and every bit of that is owed to Jim Leavitt. He has more than earned every nickle he makes.

I'm guessing you are one of those "spread the wealth" kind of guys, so this discussion is going no where. Just thought I would point out that, other than the schools with 75+ year traditions, everyone is seeing the effects of this economy. Our athletic fees are high because we don't have the large donations that other schools have, yet we're trying to compete with them on the field(s), someone has to pay if we want to have any success. Sure, we could go and hire a coach for 500k per year and put 1 million back into the program. I'll do it for $250k. I probably wouldn't win any games, or recruit very well, but hey, the program would have an extra million bucks per year. After 300-400 years of no success, we could have an on-campus stadium....sa------weeeeeet!

[Guest hm101]

play in the heat = practice in the heat.

save the money for something else

[Bull94]

Funny that the economy has caused the numerous budget cuts, but the only reason season ticket sales are down is because of our bad year last year... :

So, every other team that is dealing with decrease in season ticket sales??

Yes, if we won the conference every year, it would not be a problem, but the fact is, this is our 13th season, why does everyone around here think that we should be winning every time we step on the field? It is an absolute luxury for we the fans to have a team as good as we have, and every bit of that is owed to Jim Leavitt. He has more than earned every nickle he makes.

I'm guessing you are one of those "spread the wealth" kind of guys, so this discussion is going no where. Just thought I would point out that, other than the schools with 75+ year traditions, everyone is seeing the effects of this economy. Our athletic fees are high because we don't have the large donations that other schools have, yet we're trying to compete with them on the field(s), someone has to pay if we want to have any success. Sure, we could go and hire a coach for 500k per year and put 1 million back into the program. I'll do it for $250k. I probably wouldn't win any games, or recruit very well, but hey, the program would have an extra million bucks per year. After 300-400 years of no success, we could have an on-campus stadium....sa------weeeeeet!

I said it has something to do with the economy but if we were winning we would surely sell more.  I'm no spread the wealth guy. In fact I believe you should be paid according to performance(i.e. all contracts should be incentive based- win and you get paid more). Leavitt should have been the 7th highest paid coach in the BE last year.

I don't want to be able to compete with anyone but the BE. Cincy does just fine with less revenue, lower HC salary and no facilities. I'm not asking him to keep up with UF.

I guess I'm just depressed. Leavitt sounds more and more like O'Leary and less and less like Meyer. I believe O'Leary said if UCF built all those fancy facilities(including an indoor practice field) they would have a winner. Their team is lousy and now they can't buy him out because they are broke and gave him a long term deal.

I'm tired of watching Leavitt ball. undisciplined ball filled with tons of mental mistakesand inconsistent play. I know it's coming year after year. yeah the occasional big win is nice but I could do without all the sloppy play. It leads to a fair share of losses against teams we should beat.

[DELdaBull]

You guys are aware that UCF's yearly revenue has been less than there yearly budget for some time now.

Fortunatelà for us we don't have that problem.

[Oldsmobull]

Get the local Tampa Bay legislators to fund the combination indoor practice bldg/dining hall with state money...$20 million should do it real nice.  All you gotta do is call it an emergency hurricane shelter for the community.  The legislators can always find money for necessary pork projects

[CousinRicky]

If USF football set up a specific fund, I would be willing to donate as well!  I would really like it if we had funds set up into which we could choose what to contribute too.

I would like to see something like this also.

There are four separate funds that you can donate to:

1) Football practice facilities

2) Basketball practice facilities

3) New baseball stadium

4) New softball stadium

My wife and I just made a donation to go toward the new baseball stadium.  When we brought in our check we got to meet with Doug Woolard and he showed us all the plans for all the fields/stadiums.  Once the new football practice facility is done it will be right outside the locker rooms so the players will be able to get in and out because of weather delays more quickly.  There has been a ton of planning and everything will be more coordinated.  They know where the dining hall is going to go.

So, Bulls fans, contact Eric Soncrant and start writing your checks.  I find it pretty pathetic that people like us who have only been Green Jacket for a few years, have made one semi-decent donation and aren't grads of the school are now in the top 500 of the 14 or 15,000 people with priority points.  Do you realize how pitiful the donations have been to the Athletic Program?  And then people want an OCS.  :Duh

Here is my advertisement for the USF funds.  Does anyone on here know that if you donate $100 to these Facility Funds that you get 5 Priority Points?  WRITE THE CHECK !!!

[Bull94]

If USF football set up a specific fund, I would be willing to donate as well!  I would really like it if we had funds set up into which we could choose what to contribute too.

I would like to see something like this also.

There are four separate funds that you can donate to:

1) Football practice facilities

2) Basketball practice facilities

3) New baseball stadium

4) New softball stadium

My wife and I just made a donation to go toward the new baseball stadium.  When we brought in our check we got to meet with Doug Woolard and he showed us all the plans for all the fields/stadiums.  Once the new football practice facility is done it will be right outside the locker rooms so the players will be able to get in and out because of weather delays more quickly.  There has been a ton of planning and everything will be more coordinated.  They know where the dining hall is going to go.

So, Bulls fans, contact Eric Soncrant and start writing your checks.  I find it pretty pathetic that people like us who have only been Green Jacket for a few years, have made one semi-decent donation and aren't grads of the school are now in the top 500 of the 14 or 15,000 people with priority points.  Do you realize how pitiful the donations have been to the Athletic Program?  And then people want an OCS.   :Duh

Here is my advertisement for the USF funds.  Does anyone on here know that if you donate $100 to these Facility Funds that you get 5 Priority Points?  WRITE THE CHECK !!!

Good stuff Ricky. Nice place to donate too. Prado almost wins the BE when he has kids picking weeds during the offseason to get one of the worst facilities in the country ready for the regular season. Same with erikson. Olympic quality coach that competes quite well with terrible facilities that are in desperate need of an upgrade.

I think Leavitt can wait for a $6M indoor practice facility that might be used 2 or 3 times a year.

Thanks for your contributions.

[hightechbull]

I do not understand Leavitt's obsession with an athletics dining hall.

I thought the NCAA prohibited separate facilities for student athletes, which is why athlete-only dorms are prohibited.  Will they allow non-athletes to use this dining hall?  Will they serve the same slop served at the existing dining halls, or will the athletes get better food?

I am all for making USF athletics competitive with other athletic programs, but not at the expense of the rest of the student body.