FAU Stadium Thread

[Triple B]

Southshore nailed it on the head...RJS will never have that college football atmosphere.

Its probably more beneficial to play in smaller on-campus stadium vs giant off-campus NFL stadiums that are hard to fill up and where fans are a lot more spread out.

For those that aren't aware of it...FAU recently broke ground on their first ever on-campus stadium earlier this fall.

Random trolling like this is why you have the reputation you do.... FAU's stadium already has it's own thread... for a period of time it was thought that we might be the first opponent there. Way to pull a month old thread up for nothing.  :

Actually, K_L's post came from the Main Board where I pulled it out of a thread it had no business being in and merged it over here with this one ... which is where he SHOULD be posting.  8-)

[Triple B]

OT FAU stadium info was moved here ...   http://thebullspen.com/index.php?topic=72734.30

As some other bullpen members noted...you ARE paranoid.

Link? .... and they, if there is a they, need to look up "paranoid".

[gobulls83]

OT FAU stadium info was moved here ...   http://thebullspen.com/index.php?topic=72734.30

As some other bullpen members noted...you ARE paranoid.

Link? .... and they, if there is a they, need to look up "paranoid".

I think he means "pair-annoyed," which refers to the mental state resulting from too much exposure to the dynamic duo of Knight_Light and UCFChad.

[smazza]

attach the school's library

on footall side---make them sky boxes

[cygnus34]

Jim Martz

CaneSport.com Editor

 

While Howard Schnellenberger was turning the struggling Miami Hurricanes into a national champion football team, he also envisioned construction of a stadium on campus. The championship became reality in 1983, but the stadium never got off the drawing boards.

"Little old ladies in tennis shoes threatened to boycott," Schnellenberger said this week in looking back at his battles with Coral Gables residents and officials.

After Schnellenberger left UM for the upstart and ill-fated United States Football League and subsequently ended up at another struggling program, the University of Louisville, he dreamed of an on-campus stadium for the Cardinals. Thanks to his efforts and support of the school and community, that one was built, Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, though it wasn't opened until he had moved on to Oklahoma.

This fall, Schnellenberger finally will be able to coach a team at an on-campus stadium that he not only dreamed about but guided to its completion - at Florida Atlantic University. The Owls will play their first game at the unnamed 30,000-seat stadium in Boca Raton on Oct. 15 against Western Kentucky.

Construction is well under way. I can attest to that, having donned a hard hat and walked through the dusty site that's on the north side of the campus. Most of the rows of seats are in place. And the two towers that will house the elevators to the press box on the west side of the stands have been erected. They can be easily seen from nearby I-95 between Glades Road and Yamato Road.

Schnellenberger celebrated his 77th birthday on Wednesday, ironically on the UM campus. He and his wife Beverlee were in the stands at the BankUnited Center to cheer on the Owls' basketball team in the NIT game against the Hurricanes.

Fans cheered Schnellenberger, singing Happy Birthday. And several veteran UM boosters and officials came by to say hello. When some remarked that he's looking younger than when he was coaching the Hurricanes, he replied, "I had too **** many fires to put out then."

In the early 1980s, Schnellenberge firmly hoped to light a fire at UM and see to it that a stadium was built on campus. He had plans drawn up for a facility that would have held about 45,000 to 50,000 spectators and would have been constructed just east of Greentree Practice Field, near what is now the BankUnited Center.

"The hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life is to take a team into the Orange Bowl," Schnellenberger told me in 1980 at his office in the Hecht Athletic Center. He pointed out the window toward the practice field and said, "A stadium right out there would change all that. I'd like to develop a hell-hole out there, a tight little stadium with people hanging over the edges."

In May of 1981, after spending $150,000 in feasibility studies, UM's board of trustees shattered Schnellenberger's stadium dream. The board voted not to build a stadium on campus, saying it was low on the priority list of incoming president Tad Foote, because there was too little space available, and because there was a fear that the fund raising for the stadium would detract from other university fund raising.

As you look back on history, it's unfortunate the board of trustees didn't have the vision Schnellenberger did. They were looking at the bottom line, but Schnellenberger was looking toward the top of the college football mountain.

Though the football program had just shown a slight profit for the first time in more than a decade, the athletic department finished about $1.3 million in the red for the fiscal year.

That would bring the loss over the previous three years to $4.1 million.

Too bad they didn't have a crystal ball.

Schnellenberger had the Hurricanes contending for the national championship in the fall of 1981, and they would have contended in 1982 if quarterback Jim Kelly hadn't suffered a season-ending shoulder separation in the third game of the season. Then they won the national title in 1983 and went on to become college football's premier program for much of the next quarter century.

In retrospect, the timing for building an on-campus stadium in the early 1980s was perfect. The Metrorail was being completed between US Highway 1 and Ponce de Leon Boulevard. That would have made it convenient for the base of UM fans living in South Dade County to ride up from the Dadeland Mall station.

Having a stadium of 45,000 to 50,000 would have created a demand for tickets, which never happened at the 75,000-seat Orange Bowl and which will invariably be a challenge at the 75,000-seat Sun Life Stadium, which is several miles farther away from campus than the Orange Bowl (R.I.P.).

When the board of trustees nixed the on-campus plans, it instructed its executive committee to study sites for a stadium within five miles of the campus. The most logical site was Metro Dade County's Tropical Park Stadium, formerly a horse race track that was being used for high school football, track and soccer. But those plans fizzled, too.

Visions of an on-campus stadium go back to the beginning of the university in 1926.

There were plans drawn then for a 50,000-seat structure suitable for football, soccer, baseball and track patterned after the Rose Bowl. But a devastating hurricane that year, followed by the Great Depression, and the great bowl the Hurricanes would play in would be the Orange Bowl in Miami, and that wouldn't be built for a decade.

Could a stadium still be built on or near campus? You don't hear of any talk,but I think UM officials would be wise to at least consider it.

Twenty years from now Sun Life Stadium may be considered outdated and decrepit like the Orange Bowl was. Perhaps the rental costs will skyrocket and more revenue could be reaped by having total control of concessions, parking, skyboxes, etc.

True, there's little room on a campus. What about a structure like the 49,000-seat Carrier Dome at Syracuse, which is used for football and basketball? Or like the 65,000-seat Alamodome in San Antonia, home of the NBA Spurs and Larry Coker's new University of Texas/San Antonio team that begins play this fall?

Another consideration: UM's campus has expanded all the way west to Red Road. Across the street is South Miami, which doesn't have the strict zoning codes of Coral Gables. Why not explore the feasibility of building a stadium there?

The cities of Coral Gables and South Miami would be myopic not to consider the benefits of the business generated for hotels and restaurants from six or seven home football games a year.

Traffic congestion? Not on Saturdays, when games are played.

Meanwhile, Howard Schnellenberger's "hell-hole" is rising in Boca Raton. It is patterned after Central Florida's new stadium, where the Huricanes played in 2009 on the east side of Orlando. All of the seats will have chair backs, half will have arm rests and cup holders. There will be a whopping 5,000 club seats (this is, after all, Boca Raton), and skybox patrons will be able to see the Atlantic Ocean 1.2 miles to the east.

"It will be the only stadium in the nation where you have an ocean view," says Schnellenberger.

The University of Georgia's stadium is known for the "battle between the hedges." FAU, as suggested by the school's president Dr. Mary Jane Saunders, will have "the battle between the palm trees." There will be 3,000 palm trees surrounding the stadium, as well as lagoons and sandy beaches.

And there's plenty of room for parking. Only about half the 1,000 acres the state-owned school owns is being used.

"This is the fastest start up ever for a stadium on campus," said Schnellenberger, who started the program from scratch in 1997 and fielded the first team in 2001.

The stadium also could be used for soccer, and there's talk of holding high school football playoffs and college bowl games there, such as a Florida Versus The Nation all-star game as Texas has.

When the stadium is completed, Schnellenberger will have established three legacies: UM's rise to national prominence and its first championship; Louisville's rise to prominence and a subsequent stadium, and the start of a program and stadium at FAU. Never underestimate the vision of Howard Schnellenberger.

[SRQ]

Jim Martz

CaneSport.com Editor

Having a stadium of 45,000 to 50,000 would have created a demand for tickets, which never happened at the 75,000-seat Orange Bowl and which will invariably be a challenge at the 75,000-seat Sun Life Stadium, which is several miles farther away from campus than the Orange Bowl (R.I.P.).

Exactly, and this should be the 1A or 1B reason for USF if/when it builds an OCS.

[fauowls44]

Saw you guys had a thread about our stadium so I figured I'd post an update.  FAU launched a virtual map today: http://fau.io-media.com/

Also, the Goodyear blimp was taking pictures above campus today.  Here's some of the stadium and new dorms:

[Bull Martin]

That's pretty sweet.  I wouldn't mind making another trip down to FAU.

[South_Florida_Flip]

Looks real nice

[Guest nybullsfan]

Who's going to be your first opponent in it?